Nick & Jessica’s new mess

Well, we know for a fact that Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson were together at her 25th birthday this weekend.

But that's about where the certainty ends. Thanks to competing press reports, how they behaved together has been open for debate.

People magazine reports Jess celebrated her birthday at her parents' Encino home this weekend with family and friends. And pictures in the new mag, which hits newsstands Friday, shows her hitting the dance floor.

As far as her gift from Nick, her hubby of three years brought a new set of rims for Jess' Range Rover.

But back to the conflicting reports.

“Jessica and Nick looked really really happy,” People magazine's Peter Castro told Access Hollywood. “They were very affectionate with one another.”

A couple in love, according to Castro. But the New York Daily News says the exact opposite, saying the couple was “behaving like perfect strangers” and that Nick and Jess arrived separately and “weren't even speaking.”

“He hung out with his friends and when she blew out the candles, he was in the back chatting with his friends and not even paying attention, according to our spies who were at the party,” the Daily News columnist Lloyd Grove told us.

Indeed, it's a case of he said, he said.

“They were very much together that night smiling, kissing and holding hands,” Castro contends. “Very affectionate.”

“The publicists obviously fed other people different kinds of information than what I received,” Grove noted. “I believe what I wrote.” But Access Hollywood has learned exclusively that Nick and Jess were in fact making out in the kitchen.

Then again, we may never know for sure.