Nick hadn't seen Brooklyn in a few weeks, so standing face to face with her felt almost surreal. Maybe he was too high, but as he stood in the doorway as she spoke, he didn't even hear much of what she was saying. All that was going through his mind was "Man, isn't she beautiful?". And she was. In pajamas and sporting a face free of makeup, she was beautiful. She wasn't any less when she was all dolled up and ready to go out to work for the night, but it was this Brooklyn that he missed the most. The one who was real and natural, in more ways than just the physical sense. He was too high to catch on to how drunk she was, but that wouldn't have mattered to him anyway. For one, it wasn't all that surprising, and two, if her being drunk meant that she was more likely to text him, than he would treat her bad habit as if it was a gift from God himself. "Come on, you know I'm not gonna take money from you. Consider it a Christmas gift."
"I don't want a Christmas gift from you. Seriously, how much do I owe you? Twenty a gram?" She pressed, thinking that that sounded familiar as something he had said before. Brooklyn wasn't a frequent smoker, but she did it when she felt the need to. Alcohol was just easier and usually more enjoyable for her, but weed gave her a different buzz that she thought would feel nice tonight. Nick wasn't even looking at Aubree, but Brooklyn was insecure, especially now after realizing for herself that Aubree was very attractive, so she jumped the gun, as if to protect herself from feeling bad if she did catch Nick looking at her. "And that's Aubree, Makayla's sister. She's getting ready for bed, as you can see, so come into my room so we don't disturb her." She didn't give Aubree a chance to insist that they weren't bothering her, if that was what she was going to do, and she purposely accentuated the "my" in her sentence, as if to remind Nick that it was no longer his room... that they were over, and it was his fault. He was the one who had lost something, not her. At the same time, she wasn't leading him into privacy out of respect for Aubree's peace and quiet because as she had made clear earlier, she didn't really care about the girl. The alcohol was the only thing that could be blamed for the stark change in how she was interacting with Nick, but right now, she wanted to reason that time had the power to heal things. Maybe she had only needed a month to heal things with him enough where one night seemed okay.
Nick was in enough of a daze that he hadn't noticed Aubree in the room at first, and even when Brooklyn explained who she was, he barely had time to process that and then offer her a wave of acknowledgment. In fact, he didn't even have time to conjure up a good answer to any of her questions, before she was leading him down the bedroom hallway that was all too familiar to him. Although he hadn't actually resided there in weeks, with how little he was at his new apartment, this one still felt like more of his home. With Brooklyn gripping his arm and pulling him towards the bedroom, it only felt more familiar. "Just take it, Brooke," he said as they walked. "And I brought you that old pipe you always liked using. Figured you'd prefer that over me rolling them into joints for you." He managed to get the glass pipe out of his pocket and handed it to her once they were in her bedroom, hoping that she would just take it all and not continue to push the payment thing. He would never take money from her. Even with Roman, he sometimes felt guilty for accepting payment. It wasn't good for his business to be handing out his product for free, and Nick knew that (and was reminded of it at the end of every month when he felt his wallet grow too light for comfort), but he had too much of a conscience. He was always overthinking things and feeling guilty, even if he didn't verbalize it, and well, when it came to Brooklyn, guilt was all that he felt when he thought of her, lately. If weed was going to be his form of payment in making things good with her again, he didn't think that giving her a million dollars worth of pot for free would even make him feel like they were even for what he had done. He knew that their relationship hadn't been healthy before he had cheated, and that, he couldn't only blame himself for, but he had fucked up big time by cheating on Brooklyn. Not only because he lost her, but because he hurt her.