LOVE BUG

CHAPTER 60: COWARD

In the header is a beautiful cover made by my talented friend @tale_a_grammer 🤩😍 The couple definitely has this Natesia vibe, and I love your little subtitle 'The future is forbidden'!! Thank you so much, I love it 😍❤!! What do you guys think? I love when my readers are inspired to make covers and other arts for my stories! 🥺❤

"Oh, finally you're home!"

No, it isn't home, Nate immediately feels the protest of his heart in an excruciating thud, even stronger than the turn of his too-full stomach, when he finds Pamela fuming, her voice bouncing against the walls of the large room to crash against his painful skull.

"I've been calling you for hours! Where is your phone, and where have you been?"

"I was at work, and my phone was... turned off." He's already bypassing her, trying to escape the oppressive and too-loud atmosphere.

But he can't go far as she steps in front of him, still making sure she isn't touching him, and her nose is scrunching up in disgust, even in the two feet separating them.

"Work?! You reek alcohol from a mile away."

"I went for a drink with Darrell after." Lying is becoming a second nature, and he's even surprised that despite his blurred thoughts, his lies are coming out so clear. "Is that a crime too?" he adds in a mutter, the word and its sourness already loud enough to arise another wave of sickness in his guts, but hopefully, quiet enough to go unheard by Pamela, and her loud sigh must just be annoyance.

After all, his sour mood is contradicting her 'busy' schedule, which she is surely about to expound to him when Ettie announces that someone is at the door.

It's already late, and he's pretty sure they haven't been expecting anyone. His memory might not be the most reliable, as it's haunted by the same suffocating clouds, but seeing Pamela's simple jeans, they clearly aren't expecting anyone. So who can it be?

"That's what I've been trying to tell you! A man stopped by to see you, and he insisted on only talking to you in person." She rolls her eyes, while his are wide open, the alcohol completely vanishing from his body as each supposition is sobering him up a little more.

It's someone Pamela doesn't know and who is looking to speak only to him. It has to be related to his 'crimes', though the authorities don't 'ask' to 'talk'. So it's someone else...

"I told him to come back tonight in the hope you'd be there finally."

Pamela is already heading for the door, and Nate rushes to follow her despite the paralyzing dread coming back in his veins to replace the sweet alcohol.

As she is wrapping her hand around the handle, only one supposition is left in his mind: Anastasia's fiancé. His piercing gaze is still imprinted in Nate's memory, permeating a bad feeling even deeper with the echo of his words, and it's so vivid that he has to blink a few times when the door gives way to a man that is nothing like Fergus.

This man is older, with grizzled hair and a gaze totally opposite of Fergus's clear and threatening eyes, and although Nate has never met him, he immediately recognizes the strong features of his face; he's seen them on someone else.

"Nathaniel Johnson?" The man's voice leaves Nate no doubt, but he needs a few seconds to react and nod as the mention of his full name is knocking him with too many flashbacks at once.

"Y-yes... yes... Hello," he stammers, straightening himself as if he was really standing up after a hard punch, and it earns him a cautious look from the man – unless he's just watching the real marks of punches Nate has got from yesterday's fight.