«If you would let me give you pinky promise kisses then I wouldn't have to scream your name atop of every roof in the city of my heart.»
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He bit his lip, his call went straight to voice mail one more time. If he wanted to be a bit masochist, he could go through everything that went wrong with Aurora, but he wasn't. It didn't take a genius to know — to understand — what the original holdback was, and how the issue had even become an issue in the first place.
There was nothing wrong with liking someone — having feelings for someone — and for those feelings to be mutual. That, unless the situation involved a quite careless Monegasque guy, a guilt-ridden Italian girl, and a Dutch girl who had no idea there was an issue in the first place.
Charles could feel guilty, and even part of him — the part that somehow held his morals — wanted him to feel even the tiniest bit of delinquency, but he couldn't. He wasn't sorry for kissing Aurora, who was not only someone he worked with but also an angel in his ex-girlfriend's eyes, and he was definitely not sorry for enjoying it. However, he did feel guilty for the misgivings the whole situation had caused to such a sweet girl like Aurora.
Aurora, who was not only beautiful on the outside but also on the inside. Aurora, who seemed to light up an entire room with her presence. Aurora, who somehow had managed to get him to feel head over heels for her. And Aurora, who wasn't the one to blame for being caught in the middle of a situation that involved the mess that Charles felt he created on his own.
"Hey, it's me. Again." He chuckled in a poor attempt to make it sound less weird. "It's — look I know I'm not a saint of your devotion. But we need to talk, Aurora. It's — it can't stay like this." He wanted to tell her why the kiss shouldn't have felt like the Apocalyse sent, and that she could breathe, but Charles assumed that wasn't a good move. "If you get this, just text me. Alright? I need signs that you're alright. Let's talk, really Aurora I —"
The voice of the lady telling him that he reached the time limit for the message made him sigh, and he accepted that was as much as he could get for her that time around. It wasn't like he hadn't been leaving a ton more messages for the past hours, not even just hours, days.
Charles dragged a hand through his face, then flopped down on the sofa with his hand grabbing tightly his phone. When he imagined kissing Aurora — because it had happened, multiple times — he sort of could see it ending in a tragedy, he just wanted to be hopeful enough to believe that maybe, just maybe, he was in it for something good. In all honesty, he couldn't even be mad at her reaction, first because it was obvious and second because she deserved better than getting tangled in between feelings that should've never bloomed in the first place.
Sloane would murder me if she knew about this, he thought. The remainder of his ex-girlfriend — Aurora's literal best friend, he had to remind himself to feel even worse — only came tied with something similar to the fear of what she would do to him if she found out that he was playing with Aurora. Charles didn't believe he felt guilty for somehow entering a territory that could possibly hurt Sloane, he was more worried about Aurora which helped further prove how over he was with Sloane.
He didn't think Sloane would get mad at Aurora, if anything, Charles could picture the girl forgiving the kiss and throwing the fault entirely on Charles. He wouldn't even be mad if Sloane did that, as long as Aurora was happy.
His next action was to call Pierre because he only knew two people close to Aurora, and calling Sloane was not only off the table but also the last thing he would do even if she was the only option. Surely Pierre, in all his friendliness with Aurora, knew at least how she was doing.
