No-one but Nate

Chapter 3- The New Guy

Chapter 3

All four of us were sitting around the dinner table, enjoying the pizza that had arrived a couple minutes before.

"So, why did you decide to come back to Australia?" Lisa asked Nate with that curious tone in her voice.

"I just wanted to be back, I guess." He had that blank face on him; he just looked down and continued to eat. He was obviously hiding something. It was an awkward silence for 10 minutes until I decided to break the quietness.

"Are you okay, Ella?" Lisa asked me in a terrified voice. I could feel my face turn red of embarrassment and it seemed like it was burning up.

"I'm- fine. I just- chocked on some-meat." I replied while trying to catch my breath. "I'm just going to get a drink from the kitchen, I'll be back."

"Can you get me one?" Adrian quickly asked before I was about to leave the room.

"And me too!" Lisa added.

"Do you want one, Nate?" Adrian then asked him.

He nodded. "Yeah, but I'll go get one myself. I just need to go toilet first." He excused himself before I left the room after him.

As I was gulping down water after water trying to get rid of this thing stuck in my throat, it took me awhile to start pouring water into cups for everyone else. I then heard someone walk into the kitchen, "I thought I made it clear I was going to get my own drink."

I took my eyes off of the jug I was pouring water out of and stared at Nate. "I just thought I would just make everyone's drink at once." And before I knew it, there was a huge puddle of water on the kitchen bench, dripping onto the tiled floor and soaking my socks. "Oh, crap!"

"I'll get the towels." He suggested. Nate made his way to the cupboards, looking for the paper towels.

"Give me a few pieces and I'll wipe the bench. You can dry up the floor." I was flapping my hands, signalling for him to pass me the paper towels asap. He threw me the whole roll of paper towels and I started wiping the bench top. I guess Nate was searching for tea towels to wipe the tiled floor because tea towels absorb more water than those paper ones.

It took us approximately 10 minutes to clean everything up until Adrian decided to scream across the house why we were taking so long. Nate collected all the wet paper towels I used and quickly threw them in the bin.

I decided to carry all the cups but Nate turned around to see me struggling to hold all of the cups in my hands. "Here let me help you."

"No, no, it's fine." I reassured. "I can hold them; you just head back to the others."

Raising his eyebrows, "You do realise you're going to be holding four cups, and you only have two hands, right?"

"Ummm... Yeah, you're right." He did have a point there.

With a smirk, "Here, let me." He insisted to help hold the other two cups. I handed him the two glass cups that were already in my hands and took the other two cups. We finally made our way back to the others.

******

Nate and I were lying on the grass of the park watching the sun go down. It was such a beautiful view, and such a beautiful moment.

Nate turned to his side to face me, his right arm supporting his head, "Ella, I need to tell you something important." He whispered as he was slowly moving closer.

By the time I was going to reply to him, his face was about 6 inches away from mine. "What is it?" I asked.

"I love you, El." His smile spread across his face.