LOVE BUG

CHAPTER 46: SURPRISE

She would probably run away right now if he wasn't behind the door, and she is actually eyeing her bag with her jeans and white tee-shirt.

But a soft sound coming from the other room stops her before she can even move. It seeps through the door to wrap around her heart and soothe her doubts: guitar's notes. She steps closer to the door as the notes are forming a slow, dulcet melody.

Nathaniel, she should have guessed he would be talented for this too. The notes are slightly hesitant, but it's so sweet and pure. It might become her favorite melody, after his voice. Laying a hand on the wooden door, she lets the rhythm lead the beats of her heart, and there is no hesitation left in her mind. Her determination comes back to her smoothly, her decision. 

All the way from the shelter she has realized something: everything is uncertain and dangerous in their 'let it be', but she can do nothing about it. The only possibility that could make things change, she has made a promise to not even try it. So the only thing she can do is to make the most of the time they have together, now. Worrying, regretting, or mourning does nothing but spoils their precious moments. 

Talking about it with Andy has made her realize how she can't stay away from Nathaniel, how she doesn't want to, and how pathetic she has been. 

Spraying her favorite perfume and passing her fingers through her blond waves, she doesn't even give another glance at her reflection. She knows she is ready.

A soft humming starts to join the guitar, and like a snake drawn to the charmer, she is once again guided by Nathaniel's smooth voice. She opens the door silently, and the sight before her knocks the air out of her lungs by its intense softness. 

Nathaniel is sitting on a chair, the guitar in his hands, or more exactly on his knees and his fingers on the strings, and as he is slightly turned away from her, he doesn't see her, but she gets a heavenly view of his profile. 

The angles of his jaw are half-relaxed, half-clenching in what she guesses is a mix of peacefulness and concentration. His rosy lips are sealed together to just let a hummed melody pass through, and his arms... she is hypnotized by the way his strong muscles are flexing and moving from his shoulder until the tip of his fingers to create the dulcet melody. It's a powerful gentleness, a contrast that is exactly him.

Sensing a tingling tension on his skin, Nate lifts up his head, and his heart instantly leaves his chest in a leap, jumping to the magnetizing pair of hazel eyes near the bathroom door.

"Ana?!" he gasps.

Though he doesn't expect a reply; he still thinks he's hallucinating because of how much he's missing her and how she's always in his mind. Usually, it's when he manages to find sleep that she appears like this, but it must have escalated.

"Hi." Her quiet, unsure voice makes him blink a few times.

She might sound like a dream, yet she's really there, in his treehouse, in their safe place. He doesn't even know how; it must be one of her angelic apparitions.

"Are you trying to kill me?! To be quits for yesterday?" He chuckles, still winded, and he realizes he won't find his breath anymore when his wide eyes finally take in her full appearance, and he sucks in some air that doesn't even pass his throat. "Oh, yes, you're really trying to kill me! But I'll gladly die a happy man!"

None of them raises how accurate this could be. They're in their safe place.

"Well, yes, I was trying to be quits for yesterday, but... I didn't know you would be this early..." She nibbles on her lip, swaying nervously on her feet, and Nate doesn't even know where to look between her red tempting lips, her pale exposed legs, her plump breasts highlighted by the black lace, her free golden locks, the pink shade on her cheeks...