learns Ken and Irene are to be engaged after Ken proposes. Nick soon befriends Duncan Stewart (Brendan McKensy) and they begin causing havoc together. When Nick is accused of throwing stones at Duncan's aunt, Celia (Fiona Spence), they get into a fight but later reconcile their friendship and focus their attentions on the newly arrived Sutherland twins Jade (Kate Garven) and Kirsty (Christie Hayes), who are in their year at school. Duncan dates Jade while Nick dates Kirsty. After Nick saves Irene from being attacked by Eve, who has since left a mental hospital, he gives her and Ken his blessing. Ken is later killed when a car he is working on crushes him, leaving Nick and the family devastated. Nick feels isolated and things are not helped when Irene becomes distant and Will takes an authoritarian role. He becomes worried that Irene will not want him, Will and Hayley now Ken has died but she reassures him otherwise. When Nick runs away one night and he hides out at Ken's garage, which is about to be sold and destroyed, he is visited his father in a dream who tells him that the garage would probably have had to close due to its location and if he returned home, everything would work out. Nick wakes up and returns home to reconcile. Nick's friendship with Duncan comes to an end when Duncan's bad behaviour spirals out of control. Nick soon becomes closer to Jade and she feels the same but rejects him when he offers to break up with Kirsty to be with her as she feels it will damage her own relationship with he sister. Kirsty, however, ends things first as she has feelings for Seb Miller (Mitch Firth). Nick briefly dates Simone Harris but it fizzles out when Simone insults Jade. After Nick returns from a visit to London, he and Jade finally get together. When Will asks Nick to be his best man at his wedding to Gypsy Nash (Kimberley Cooper), he is pleased but panics when he realises he has lost the ring. In order to fund a replacement, he sells his games console and is annoyed when it emerges Will has taken the ring to have engraved. Will suggests that Nick gives the replacement ring to Jade. Shortly after Will and Gypsy leave, Nick clashes with Irene's son Nathan Roberts (Craig Ball) who has recently been