Chapter Text
He wants me to answer all of his questions, but I can’t! My brain isn’t functioning. Luckily, this is the exact moment that our teacher returns, telling us that we need to go get changed because the marine biologists are almost ready, and that we wouldn’t want to keep them waiting.
Not that I notice this though, I’m too busy trying to fight for control over my brain for silence; but what I do notice however, is that Nathanaël is standing up beside me. “What? Where are you going?” I ask, baffled that after he stopped me from leaving, that he himself is trying to leave me.
He chuckles as he offers me a hand. “We are leaving because the marine biologists are almost ready, so we need to go get changed. We should finish talking about this later, okay?” He asks with a calming smile as he continues to hold out his hand to help me up. I blink at him once, twice, before I hesitantly take hold of his hand and he helps me to my feet.
I take a few steps away and brush the sand off of me to the best of my ability without re-adjusting my swimsuit bottom. Then make a swift escape from him. Because I need to get rid of the rest of the sand that’s the only reason. As much as I want to stay near him, it was becoming suffocating. It’s not exactly the attention itself, but the things the attention is doing to me. I need to have some space to myself for a while. As I get changed (and remove the sand more thoroughly) I almost lose myself in thought. What words can truly describe how I feel towards him? His words haunt my thoughts throughout the rest of the trip.
At the end of the trip, my chauffeur sends me a message saying that he is stuck in traffic but that he should be here soon. So I end up waiting with the rest of the class while they are waiting for the bus to show up, and only because my driver seems to be caught up in traffic. Normally I wouldn’t put up with this. Normally I would be having a fit right now, but right now I am calmly examining my nails as if it’s an everyday occurrence for me to be standing and waiting with my class for the school bus. Someone taps on my shoulder from behind, surprising me, causing me to jump almost a foot in the air before I angrily look over my shoulder, intending to glare at the offending person; only to freeze in shock for a moment when I realize who it was that is standing behind me.
Wearing a somewhat timid smile, Nathanaël waves nervously at me. I slowly turn around to face him completely. “Mind talking in private?” He asks quietly, most likely to keep from attracting attention to us. He is being all shy, is it because the others might notice us now; is he just self-conscious? Or is he just suddenly nervous? *
I raise a hand palm up and unroll my fingers gesturing to Nathanaël. “Lead the way.” I reply just as quietly.
He blinks at me in surprise before flashing a smile, as he turns away from me. Striding towards the building to quietly sit on an empty bench. Glancing around I notice that the rest of the class is clustered all over the place, yet still close enough to one spot to not upset the teacher, except for the two of us now. I sit halfway down the bench away from him; he looks at me with an amused expression that makes my face flush with warmth. I tilt my head toward the ground and look away from him.
His words from our earlier conversation ring in my ears. We should finish talking about this later, okay? I turn my head towards him just enough to peek up at him. I freeze at the way he is looking at me; he’s gazing at me with those kind eyes and a soft smile. I think he realizes that I see the way he’s looking at me from the way he coughs nervously and then turns his gaze in a different direction, his face becomes a delightful shade of pink. I turn my head so I can look at him easier. It’s insane how cute he is right now.
I bring a hand to my lips as I quietly giggle, and now his gaze is back on me. He looks at me confused, with a small hint of hurt crossing his features; face a shade of red to match his hair. It just sends me into another fit of giggles. I look away to try and stop giggling; my gaze passes over the parking lot entry way just as my chauffeur pulls in. My giggling stops with a realization. The school day is over; everyone else is only going to school so that they can go home. Once I get into that car I won’t see Nathanaël until Monday at school. I glance back at Nathanaël, the look on his face tells me that he is thinking same thing, and that he’s about as happy about that thought as I am.
An idea pops into my head and I don’t think twice, I just decide to go with it. In an instant, I’m on my feet. I grab his wrist, and pull him to his feet and start walking to my chauffeur. Nathanaël stumbles in his surprise; I slow for a second to let him to regain his balance before resuming my pace. I call out to the teacher, “I need this one today. I’ll make sure he gets home.” The door to the limousine is already open when we reach it. I turn around to face Nathanaël. “Get in.” I demand, doing my best to ignore the way his surprised expression does funny things to me. He slowly ducks in, and I quickly follow. Maybe a minute after my door is closed we are moving.
The first thing he says after we start moving is, “Why did you do that?” While looking at me with the same surprise that I saw on his face earlier. “Wait, no. That’s a stupid question. You’re Chloé, you do whatever you want.” He sighs and facepalms.
“That’s not the whole truth. I didn’t want to stop being near you; and when I looked at you, it seemed like you were thinking the same thing as me. So I didn’t exactly think about it, I just acted on my first impulse.” I reply defensively, crossing my arms and pouting at him. He stares at me in surprise.
“Well, if we are speaking of the whole truth, mind clearing up a few things?” He asks as his surprise is suddenly replaced with a confident smirk that has absolutely no right to be on his face, while leaning to the side and twisting himself more towards me. One hand is on the top of the seat, while the other is holding the edge of the seat, probably to help him stay in his awkward position.
I turn my head to look out of the window in my attempt to try and hide my blush. “I don’t-” I cut myself off. I don’t want to keep lying to him. “I don’t know how.” I mumble, but I hadn’t meant to say it out loud. My eyes widen when I realize that I had spoken. I silently hope that I said it too quietly for him to hear. I stay frozen in place, waiting to see if he’ll react to what I said. The silence drags on so I glance at Nathanaël curiously, and I see that he has abandoned the strange position in favor of having a hand hesitantly hovering in the air between us. Slowly the hand settles into his lap. So he did hear me, this is just great!
I sigh, moving my hands to my lap; lacing my fingers between each other to hold my hands together as my thumbs go around each other in circles. I sigh. If I try and take that back I might as well lie. Why does it have to be so difficult to tell him that I did feel something when he kissed me? I huff and look back out of the window. My thumbs knocking into each other occasionally now that I’m not watching them.
“Chloé, I…” He seems to trail off into his mind. Then he draws in a deep breath.
This draws my attention back to him. Sadness, it’s written not only all over his face but every part of him. It breaks my heart to see him so sad. I did this to him. No I can’t let myself think like this. I need to cheer him up somehow! Just as I place a hand on his shoulder, still searching for something to say to cheer him up, I freeze as something clicks in my head. Does he actually want to be with me? “Nathanaël?” I say his name softly, effectively catching his attention. “Did you, mean it earlier? When you said that you felt something when you kissed me?” I ask shyly, unable to look him in the eye, my face rapidly heating up.
“I did. I also have this suspicion that I wasn’t the only one that felt something during that kiss, but someone is avoiding telling me honestly.” He answers teasingly, almost tauntingly.
I shift feeling a pang of guilt. “Have you somehow forgotten who I am? Once I voice my opinion or feelings about something, I can’t take it back. If I did that then how people viewed me would change, and I can’t just change something so fundamental about me without reason.” I cross my arms in an attempt to seem like I stand by my point firmly, but the gesture feels weak; and the way he smiles sadly seems to prove that. He thinks I’m lying again. Letting my arms unfold, my hands rest on my lap once again. “Honestly, it’s been so long since anything made me want to change what I had said so much.”
At my quiet confession we fall into silence, Nathanaël’s expression shows that he is considering something in his thoughts. “Chloé, how about this-” before he finishes what he was going to say the car stops and we both fall silent again.
“Do you want to go out with me?” I blurt out without thinking as he opens the door and starts to climb out.
“You mean; you want me to be your boyfriend? You want to be my girlfriend?” He asks amused, one foot out of the door, but his torso is twisted so that he can still look at me.
I blink, looking past him; tilting my head in confusion before quickly looking out of my own window and see that we are at Daddy’s hotel. “Uh, heh. I think we still have some time to talk and consider the situation.” He blinks at me in confusion. “Look around, does this look like the area you live in?” I ask while offering him a small smile. He gets out of the car, I can’t see above his stomach, but his torso twists like he is looking around confused. “Maybe the chauffeur was confused. I guess that he thought that today he was supposed to drop us off here, or that he was supposed to drop me off first!” I suggest, speaking louder than normal so that he can still hear me, just before said chauffeur opens my door. “You brought us to the wrong place, we need to drop him off at his house.”
I hear Nathanaël start to tell the chauffeur something, I don’t have a clue what; but I don’t understand a word of what was said, and since the conversation took place over the roof of the limousine, also because part way through, my door is closed when he realizes that I’m not getting out. But soon Nathanaël is back inside, and sitting down next to me. “So what was that about being my girlfriend?” He smirks at me.
I choose to look out of my window while I think of some way to cover up my slip up; we start moving once again. “I wasn’t thinking, and now that I am. I don’t think that a woman of my status should be in a relationship with someone of yours.” I continue to stare out of my window. This is how I normally respond to a question like that, so why does it feel so wrong? It’s like a cold stone is forming in my stomach.
I risk a peek at Nathanaël and see that he is smiling brightly, but no matter how he smiles, I can see that I hurt him with my comment. I want to take it back! How do I take it back? I turn to look at him fully, afraid that I may have officially ruined any chance to be with him. “I did it again.” I murmur to myself. “That’s a better reason, why we shouldn’t be together. I’ll just say something and hurt you.” I say then press my face into my hands and whisper, “I don’t want to keep hurting you!” My voice cracks slightly but I’m too focused on trying to not cry to be bothered enough to freak out over it.
“Chloé, I believe people can change. That includes you. You say you don’t want to, and that you can’t just change who you are. But Chloé, it’s because of your current nature, that you hurt everyone who interacts with you, everyone; and if we really are meant to be together, then that would naturally include me, just much more often.” He stops and places a hand on my shoulder. I turn my head to him and shift my fingers so that I can see through the gapes, but still keeping my face hidden. “You said you can’t and won’t try to change without reason, but you also don’t want to hurt me; is that not reason enough? I still want to give this, us a chance, and from what I can see, you do to. So how about, we have a trial run? Every day for seven days, we go on a date. At the end of the seventh date, we will decide if we want to actually be a couple or not.”
The car comes to a stop once again. This time Nathanaël looks out of the window before opening his door; but he instead of getting out, he turns to me. “How does that sound, Chloé?” He asks, voice tender, and smile warm.
“When does this trial start?” I let my hands fall into my lap with a smile adorning my face; the cold stone that was starting to make its home in the pit of my stomach starts to vanish.
He looks at the ceiling in thought. “How about this Sunday? This way I still have a day to come up with some date ideas.”
“What about me?” I ask annoyed that I apparently don’t get to even make any suggestions.
“Well, I was the one who asked you out, shouldn’t I be the one who plans them?” He asks, sounding innocent, but the look in his eye says that’s he has won.
I glare at him for all of one second before I decide to just let him have this one, for now. “Okay, fine; but when I get home I’m going to be making my own list of date ideas! If you take me on horrible dates, then you’ll have no choice but to use my ideas instead!” I gently poke him on the shoulder, only teasing him a little bit.
He laughs as he climbs out of the limousine. “Okay, I’ll do my best to not plan horrible dates for us then!” He replies happily as he waves, and then closes the door. Once he’s far enough away from the limo, the chauffeur then takes me back to Daddy’s hotel. I glance out of the window just before we pass it. If we do decide to become a couple, we will need to go there at least once.