Can You Keep A Secret

"Dad?"

"Yea buddy what's up?" Kevin replied to his son's question and glanced up from the suitcase he was packing.

"Do we really have to go to Uncle Joe's?"

Kevin had to stifle his laughter at his son's annoyed tone and mentally reminded himself he was an adult before he replied, "Yes James. You'll have fun."

"But Aunt Jennifer doesn't let us do anything. We can't even watch more then an hour of TV."

"You barely watch that here," Kevin replied looking confused.

"But you and Mom would let me watch more if I wanted to," the seven year old replied with a logic far more mature then his physical age suggested.

"Very true," Kevin muttered. "I'm sorry James, but your Mom is insisting that you go to Joe and Jennifer's. Bring your comics."

"She won't let me read those either!"

"Excuse me?" Kevin questioned looking both annoyed and confused. "What do you mean she won't let you read your comics?"

"She said dey gonna rock his brain."

"Rot; R O T Nicki," James corrected as his little sister wandered into her parent's bedroom.

"That's what I said," Nicole replied in a haughty, but perfectly clear, tone that sent a beaming smile across her father's face.

"That was perfect princess. I knew you could do it."

"Yay!" the almost three year old squealed, though it was obvious she wasn't sure what her father was referring to. "Umm, Daddy?" she added a few seconds later.

"Yes princess?"

"Can I bring my Grover movies?"

"I don't see why not."

"Yay! I'ma gonna go tell Unca Joe that you said I can watchem."

"He's here?"

"Yep!"

Kevin paled as his daughter ran full speed out of the room yelling for her uncle, leaving him with his son and a half packed suitcase, "Hey James?"

"Yea Dad?"

"Go make sure you've got all your stuff for the weekend. Ok?"

"Uhh...sure Dad," the young boy replied, looking confused at the quick dismissal but leaving anyway.

"Alright Kevin," he mumbled to himself as he stared at the bag in front of him. "You can do this. Just go out into the living room and smile, say good bye to the kids, avoid giving your brother a black eye. You can do this." Kevin groaned and ran a hand through his hair before taking a seat heavily on the bed, "You can't do this."

Kevin felt frozen as he continued to sit on his bed and stared at the wall; he had been lying to Nick about one small point when he brought up their business venture. He had never actually proposed anything to Joe. He knew Joe knew about the plans a year earlier because of Nick, had even been excited until Kevin's name was brought up. But when the realistic funding had come through he hadn't been able to bring himself to ask again; though he did intend to give his brother a third of the company, should the younger man ever show a single sign he wanted to even be in the same room with his older brother again.

"Kevin!"

"Coming Dani," he called back and pushed himself off the bed. "Time to face the music," he muttered and went to go see the brother he hadn't physically seen in almost a year and a half.

Kevin wandered down the hall slowly; he could hear Nicki chattering away about Grover, her new favorite Sesame Street character, and could hear the deep tones of his brother's voice - strange after this much time - replying. When he turned the corner he almost stopped short at the sight that greeted him. His younger brother was sitting casually on the couch, niece perched comfortably in his lap. Joe's hair was cut shorter then Kevin ever remembered seeing it; though he thought he remembered Danielle mentioning something about Joe having come back recently from a movie shoot. He could feel his younger brother's eyes on him as he stood in the doorway to the living room and part of him wanted to shrivel up into a corner from the gaze while the other part wanted to snap at him for ignoring Nicole's story in favor of staring down the older Jonas.

"Kevin," the younger brother broke first and spoke in a tone a person might use when greeting a vague acquaintance at a social function. He spoke in a tone that told the recipient of the word they were only being acknowledged as a social nicety. Kevin had to fight the urge to remove the self-righteous smirk from his brother's face at the tone.

"Joe," Kevin replied flippantly. "Ok guys, come on. Give Daddy hugs," he added, immediately ignoring the other man and crouching down to his kids level. James flew into him first, nearly knocking Kevin down with the force that his arms wrapped around Kevin's neck. Nicole was next, wriggling up under Kevin's right arm, and squishing her body next to her brother's.

"I love you Daddy," Nicole whispered and kissed his cheek lightly. "I'm gonna miss you."

"Awe, princess. I'll see you Sunday. You're gonna have so much fun you won't even notice me and Mommy are gone."

"Yes I will."

"Me too Dad," James said in a voice that almost had Kevin chuckling, if it wasn't so depressing to realize his son was starting to enter the age where "I love you's" and kisses weren't cool anymore.

"Alright you're both going to miss me terribly," he joked and kissed James' forehead before the seven year old could duck away. He released the boy and watched as he ran over to his mother who gathered him up into a tight hug. Nicole then got her own set of kisses all over her face, Kevin internally grateful that he still had a few years with his daughter before she stopped wanting cuddles, and then he too released her to say good-bye to Danielle.

He stood up, wincing at the slight ache in his still young body and watched as Joe began herding the children out of the apartment and downstairs where Kevin was sure his movie-star brother had a car and driver waiting to take the three of them to his townhouse on the upper west side.

Right before they walked out Kevin couldn't help himself and spoke, "Oh Joe?" He watched as his younger brother turned a surprised look on him and continued, "Tell your wife I'll decide what my children can and can not read or do. She's a playwright. Not a child psychologist or an elementary school teacher. Be concerned about your own kids, I'll worry about mine."

Joe's shocked face mirrored Danielle's, as well as the internal feeling in Kevin's stomach; on the outside however, the eldest Jonas brother simply smiled and waved at his kids as Joe ushered them out of the apartment finally.
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"Alright baby," Kevin whispered into his cell phone. "I love you. I'll see you later."

"Who was that?"

Kevin stiffened at the question and turned around slowly, smoke exhaling from his mouth in a cloud around his head as he moved, to face his brother, "Hey Frank."

"The phone?" his youngest brother asked again and pointed at the cell with a suspicious expression on his face. "Who was it?"

Kevin sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, leaving cigarette ashes hanging precariously close to his closed eye. He blinked his eyes open and stared at the young man before he gently reached out and placed a firm grip on the teenagers shoulder for a moment. He finally exhaled and released, shaking his head, "Nevermind."

"Joe's right about you," Frank replied to his older brother. "You're a selfish bastard who doesn't care who you hurt."

Kevin felt the blood drain from his face at his younger brothers words and paused in the act of lighting another cigarette. They were in the backyard of his parents New Jersey home and Kevin had escaped to the porch after the family dinner celebrating the sixteenth birthday of his youngest sibling. The youngest Jonas son continued to stare at Kevin over the flickering glow of his lighter until with a disgusted sigh he turned and walked back into the house. Kevin finished raising the flame to his cigarette and dropped the lighter into his jacket pocket nervously. The words his brother had spoken reverberating throughout his head.

"Fucking Joe," he growled. "Can't keep his god damned mouth shut."

The door to the back porch opened behind him a few minutes later and Kevin glanced back to see the very brother he had been cursing walk out, pulling his own cigarette out as he did. Kevin's eyes narrowed as Joe nodded to him without speaking and stepped down off the porch and onto the lawn with Kevin. The two brother's stood there silently smoking and avoiding eye contact for the next ten minutes; it wasn't until Kevin was about to toss the cigarette he was smoking onto the lawn when his younger brother broke the silence, "When are you going to do the right thing and divorce Danielle?"

"Excuse me?" Kevin asked his brother, his one time very best friend, in shock.

"We all know you fuck anything that'll spread it's legs. Mom and Dad are strategically ignoring it; but we all know it happens. So when are you going to do the right thing and divorce Danielle. Then you can fade out of your lives and stop soiling the family's name."

"Stop soiling the family's name?" Kevin repeated as his brain tried to process the word's his brother was so calmly speaking. "I'm sorry, but do you remember who had to go traipsing on a beach trip with Danielle when you broke up with Taylor Swift over the phone cause you were busy fucking Camilla Belle behind her back. And I'm soiling the family name? At least nothing I've done has been while we were in the spotlight."

"Yea, well, I am in the spotlight. So having my druggie brother who's fucking around with trashy borderline-hookers doesn't exactly look good for me."

Kevin rolled his eyes and ran a hand through his hair as he tried to formulate a response, "I'm a respected businessman in New York Joe. Everything I do is kept well under the radar; because unlike you? I'm not the kind of celebrity that the tabloids look to knock down. They knock me down? A lot of investment capitol goes away."

"Yea, you wish you were that important," Joe muttered and Kevin chuckled.

"Joe, I own one of the premiere entertainment complexes in New York City. Not to mention the restaurants, bars and venues that I have a hand in. Call me the Trump of the entertainment world if you will," Kevin pointed out with more then a little pride in his voice. He thought about all the things he had almost lost because of the drugs Joe had mentioned and added with all the sincerity he could muster, "Also, I'll just keep reminding you since I'm damn proud of it - I've been clean for two years now, since September 2015. You know that; so I don't understand why we can't just push this all aside and be brothers again."

"Whatever," Joe growled. "Who cares if you're clean now - it's the damn drugs that ruined everything in the first place and I will never forgive you for that."

"Joe the band broke up for a lot of different reasons," Kevin reminded him. "Danielle was pregnant with James and Nick was writing for Demi's new record. Hell, you wanted to do a Broadway show. So it wasn't just me; I really wish you would stop throwing that on my shoulders."

"The band would have gotten back together if you hadn't fucked everything up. Then you had to go and completely get out of music. At least Nick stayed with music."

"I never wanted the music Joe!" Kevin finally yelled, losing the temper he had kept in check for nearly seven years, realizing the argument was going to happen. "I never wanted to be in a band Joe. I wanted to produce if I was going to do anything with music. The only reason I did any of it was for you and Nick. Fuck, I wanted out before we even put "Lines, Vines and Trying Times" out." That last album in July 2010 was unnecessary."

"It was not," Joe insisted. "It was just, a bad summer for the economy. And we broke up because you couldn't stop sticking things up your nose."

"Joe, it was time to bow out gracefully after the World Tour. But you, Dad and Johnny didn't want to hear that. Nick and I saw the writing on the wall long before anyone else did," Kevin sighed. "You wanna know the truth? It was the stress of watching us spiral out of control that drove me to it."

"That's right," Joe laughed. "Make excuses. Blame everyone else but yourself."

"I didn't say that!" Kevin insisted. "I'm just saying," he added slightly calmer. "That had I been allowed to leave when I asked the first time after the wedding, that maybe things would have turned out differently."

"Oh, yea, and have what? Nick and I tour together?"

"Yes. Why not?" Kevin asked in confusion. "What did I really need to be there for? So I could play guitar? Be ignored by the fans since I was married? Have to deal with comments thrown at my wife by fifteen year olds? Sorry Joe. It just got to be too much and I looked for an escape. I'm not saying it was the right one, but that's what happened." Joe snorted but didn't verbally reply to his brother. "Fine," Kevin sighed. "Hate me all you want, if it makes the years I was fucked up easier for you to deal with then I understand. But I'm not that person anymore and I miss my brother."

"Yea, well, I miss mine too," Joe replied. "He used to be a good person. He had potential to be a good father too rather then the shit job at it that you are now."

Kevin stared at his brother in shock at the words and growled out a reply, "I'm a fucking amazing father and you know it. I have never done anything to my children."

"You've done more damage then you know," Joe whispered. "You just might not realize it for a good long time," he added and walked back into the house leaving Kevin standing in their parents backyard staring at the night sky wondering how long it would take Joe to cool down this time; not expecting those would be the last words he would speak to his brother for over a year.
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"Hey baby," was the words Ryan used as she answered her cell phone on Friday evening. "You coming up?"

"No," Kevin mumbled quietly into the phone. "I'm actually running a few minutes late. I'll call you when I get to your place. Just be ready to come down and meet me."

"Okay?" Ryan replied cautiously. "Everything ok?"

"Not really," Kevin added very quietly. "Danielle's kind of giving me shit over this. She thinks I'm going with her to her sister's tomorrow morning."

"Maybe you should," Ryan told him. "You told her you were working all weekend."

"Yea, well," Kevin responded. "She'll deal with it."

"I don't want to cause problems for you Kev."

"I've caused enough on my own," he assured her. "I want to take you away for the weekend. I've never done that before. You deserve it." Ryan bit her lower lip and considered the words; she partially agreed with him, but he had told her how Danielle had reacted the other day and hadn't been nearly as excited about the trip since. "I'll be there in about a half hour," he continued before she could once again try and convince him to go to his in-laws with his wife. "I love you."

"I love you too," Ryan replied. "I'll see you when you get here."

The red head hung up her cell phone and sat down on the couch, her eyes straying to her small suitcase that sat near the door, and sighed. The next half hour passed uneventfully as Ryan flipped through an old issue of Rolling Stone that she had left on her coffee table while waiting for her cell phone to ring and for Kevin to tell her he had arrived at the apartment building.

The first forty minutes of the hour and a half drive, the length of time it took the couple to leave Manhattan, passed silently with only the sounds of a live album The Weakerthans had recently recorded at the club playing in the car. Ryan eyed her boyfriend carefully from the passenger seat, the tight set in his jaw alerting her to the fact that something less then positive had happened that evening and waited for him to tell her, as she knew he would.

"I fucking can't stand this shit anymore," he finally growled out, slamming his fist into the steering wheel, as they crossed the Hudson River and left Manhattan to enter the Bronx.

"What happened?"

"I saw Joe tonight," Kevin replied and suddenly his attitude made complete sense to Ryan. "He and Jen have the kids this weekend. And then Danielle, I seriously can not deal with this anymore."

Ryan took his right hand off the steering wheel and intertwined their fingers, squeezing his hand softly in hers and placing a kiss on it before speaking, "Just keep reminding yourself why. It's for the kids."

"I don't know if it's worth it anymore Ry," he whispered, his eyes trained on the darkened Saw Mill Parkway. "I love you too much to put you through this."

Ryan paled at the words and felt her hands begin to sweat as she slowly released her grip on Kevin's hand, "Baby? Are you? Are we?"

Kevin's head whipped around to look at her with wide eyes for a moment before he quickly answered, "No! No no no; God no Ryan. I love you baby. I'm not trying to say. Shit. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. Fuck."

"Kevin?"

"I'm sorry," he finally said after taking a few deep breaths and leaning back in the seat of his SUV. "I love you. I'm not trying to end things. If I was we certainly wouldn't be going away for the weekend."

"Okay?"

"What I meant was, I love you too much to put you through this anymore. I think I want to leave her."

Ryan was immediately ashamed at the surge of hope that rushed through her body at his words and forced it down as fast as it came, "But what about the kids? The new baby?"

"I thought you'd be happy about this?" Kevin asked without answering her questions. "I want to be with you Ryan. Forever."

"I know you do Kev," she whispered, her eyes staring at his profile in the dark car. She could picture every freckle, every slight slight line around his eyes, every grey hair that seemed to pop up more frequently with each passing month - much to his displeasure - but she could especially picture the confused frown that she knew would be marring his beautiful mouth. "I want to be with you too."

"Then, what's the problem?" he questioned sounding completely baffled.

"I just want you to be sure," she told him. "I don't want you to regret this. We've discussed it before Kevin. A custody battle could very easily not go the way you want it to go."

A deafening silence filled the car for the next twenty minutes and Ryan took that to mean that he had dismissed his earlier pronouncement; but when they pulled onto the private drive that led up to The Alexander Hamilton House Kevin's voice broke the silence once more, "I know it could go badly. But I'm losing my mind in this life. I need out. I need you."
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"Dani?" Kevin interrupted his wife's final packing after the kids had left, using the nickname he had never really been able to break the habit of using despite years of uneasiness between them.

"What's up?" she asked him so cheerfully that he almost felt bad about the news he was about to break.

"I had your car checked out yesterday; everything's running as it should be. I got the oil changed too," he began explaining as he stalled for a few extra seconds of peace. "You'll be good to get to Jersey tomorrow and back on Sunday."

"Excuse me?" she asked in confusion, slowly turning from her suitcase that sat on their bed to face him. "We are taking your Lexus," she added, stressing the first word in the sentence in a warning tone.

"No," Kevin replied simply. "You are taking the Mercedes. I'm taking the Lexus for the weekend."

"We don't need two cars at my sister's Kevin," Danielle told him; Kevin quickly realizing she was giving him an out of the argument. He just needed to shut up at that moment and go with it.

"No Dani," Kevin whispered as he shook his head negatively. "I'm going with Ryan. We're going away for the weekend. I'm sorry, but that's what's happening."

His wife's eyebrows nearly reached her hairline at his statement and she immediately scowled after the words had seeped in and processed, "You really don't want to do that Kevin."

"I really do," he countered. "I love her Danielle. I'm so sorry, but it's the truth. I love her."

"What about our children?"

"What about them Danielle?!" Kevin shot back. "Do you think I haven't thought about this? I have."

"Obviously you haven't," she ground out and Kevin felt a pain in his chest at the tremor that entered her voice. "If you had you would just come with me this weekend."

"I can't Danielle," he said quietly, not wanting to yell at the woman when he knew she was in the right. "I can't pretend anymore."

"You better think long and hard about what this means Kevin Jonas."

"I have thought about it," he told her and tugged lightly at his hair. "I have thought and thought and debated and pushed it aside and done every single thing I could possibly think to prolong the inevitable. But I can't anymore. I'm going crazy Dani. I'm miserable. You're miserable. If we wait any longer, or drag this out more then we have already, the kids are going to be miserable too. I want a divorce."
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Kevin groaned and burrowed his body tighter around Ryan's to try and tune out the sound of his cell phone ringing very early on Sunday morning. He felt her stir slightly next to him and internally cursed whoever was calling him, interrupting the last of the wonderful weekend he had spent with Ryan, and simply waited out the noise until it stopped. Less then a minute later he had finally begun to drift back to sleep when his phone started again.

"Fuck," he muttered and still didn't move, though his eyes glanced over at the bedside clock to see that it was ten past four. "I have to be up in four hours."

Again the ringer stopped and he allowed his eyes to close, since he didn't hear the buzz of a voice mail. It was when the cell phone again went off seconds later that his eyes flew open in real honest confusion.

"Babe, would you please get that?" Ryan asked him in a muffled voice and Kevin nodded without answering and climbed out of the bed. The more coherent he had become the more he realized that a phone call at four in the morning, especially when a person has two children, could potentially be very bad.

He picked up the, again, silent phone and pushed a button to light up the missed call log and mumbled to himself, breaking the silence of the quiet room, "It was my Mom."

"Your Mom?" Ryan asked him, pushing her body up in the bed and turning on the light on the night table. "At four in the morning?"

Kevin nodded in response to her question and just as he was about to call his mother back the phone lit in his hand and began ringing for a fourth time. With a feeling of dread in his stomach, even though he wasn't sure why, Kevin carefully pushed the accept button and held the phone to his ear, "Mom?"

"Kevin thank God," Denise Jonas replied to her eldest son. Kevin could hear the shake in her voice and swallowed nervously as he took a seat on the bed, then stiffened at the feeling of Ryan's hand on his back.

"What's wrong Mom?"

He could hear the sound of his mother crying on the other end of the phone and every parents worst fears began running rampant through Kevin's brain at that moment. He pushed the panic down as far as he could and asked her in a strangled voice, "Mom? What is it? Is it one of the kids?"

"No," she finally replied somehow sounding both horrified and hysterical. "The kids are fine. They're with Joe."

Kevin clamped down his initial reaction to reply about how that meant they were less then fine and instead asked, "Well?"

"There's been an accident Kevin," Denise finally choked out and Kevin suddenly knew exactly what his mother was going to tell him. "Danielle, she," his mother whispered and her sobs broke off any other words she was going to say.

"Danielle's at her sister's," Kevin said quietly, denial coating his words. "She's heading home tomorrow. I'm coming home from my business trip tomorrow. We're picking up the kids from Joe's tomorrow."

"Kevin," a gruff male voice, that he recognized through the haze that had settled over his brain as being his father's, spoke.

"Dad?" Kevin asked the man, the pain in his father's voice was palpable and it made the still unspoken truth hit the thirty-one year old that much harder. "Dad what is it?"

"Danielle's dead son," his father finally spat out, as though the words themselves were the cause. "She left the party at midnight and decided to drive back to Manhattan rather then spending the night. There was a drunk driver on the Turnpike. The EMTs said it was over in seconds."

"What?" Kevin asked the question in total shock. He stared at the wall ahead of him and wondered if he was still gripping the phone as his body had lost any and all feeling. He couldn't even feel Ryan's hand on his back anymore. "What?"

"It happened around one," his father continued as though Kevin wasn't in shock on the other end of the line. "Her parents were called because the hospital went through her cell. They've already been to the hospital to identify the body. They called us a little while ago."

"Why didn't they call me?" Kevin asked with the beginning of anger creeping into his body much to his relief; anything was better then the numb shock that was trying to settle over his brain. "Wait, was I the last person called?" he added as he realized it was past four in the morning and the accident had happened over three hours earlier.

"Yes," his father answered, his own anger beginning to show. "Don't act too surprised by that either. You don't have business trips Kevin."

Kevin reeled back and bumped into Ryan he was so shocked by the words he heard from his father that it felt like he had been physically hit, "Dad?"

"I don't want to know Kevin. Just get home," his father added sounding more compassionate.

"Dad," Kevin finally choked out again as the full weight of the news began to hit him. "Dad she was pregnant." He heard his father's sharp intake of breath followed by a dial tone and pulled the phone away from his ear only to stare at it in shock. His eyes slowly moved over to where Ryan was sitting, completely still, and staring back at him in horror. "Did you hear?"

The beautiful red-head nodded and slowly, everything Kevin noticed was moving like it was under water, reached out to touch his face and wipe his cheeks; the action clued him into the fact that he had apparently started to cry at some point. She pulled him into her arms then and wrapped them around him, lying them both down and stroking his hair, whispering nonsense noises in a tone that told Kevin she was as dumbfounded as he was at the moment.

The next few minutes passed like that, the lovers entwined together as one tried to comfort the other and they both tried to make sense of the shocking news; a very short time after that the initial numb feeling wore off and Kevin found himself clutching Ryan desperately as he sobbed from the pain that, to him, felt like someone had ripped his still beating heart out of his chest.