"Ouch." I hissed sitting up in bed on Saturday morning, hangovers I thought I'd experienced were nothing compared to the real thing. This was a hangover, except unfortunately I remembered every single embarrassing detail of the night before. The only thing I don't remember is getting home. Walking to my bed I opened the window to peer into Kade's room and I saw him laying face down topless sprawled out across his bed. Rolling my eyes I ran to the bathroom to brush my teeth, probably two or three times to get rid of that horrible taste.
"Nora darling I'm home!" I heard Julia shout up the stairs making me grin, I jogged steadly down the stairs but slipped in my socks on the last three landing with a thud at my aunts feet.
"Good to see you too love." She said helping me up.
"Gosh you have no idea Julia I am in desperate need of a tradition aunt and neice day, I'll go run you a bath and bring all the duvet's downstairs and we can watch hours of Judge Judy becuase I know she's your favourite." I rushed out like a bunny on redbull.
"Okay darling, I won't be long." And like she promised it wasn't long until we were snuggled up with the lights dimmed on the sofa.
"So how is Ellis, I noticed she isn't around much anymore." She asked nudging my shoulder.
"I don't know Julia, I honestly don't know. She got a boyfriend, and made all these new friends, she's turned into a total bitch. I mean if she's doing all this for Zach surely he isn't right for her. He should just accept her." I said with a sad sigh.
"You know love makes you do stupid things darling." She said wrapping an arm around me and sighing sadly matching my own.
"What's wrong?" I asked looking up at her.
"I was engaged once you know." She said as she played with the loose strands of my hair.
"Really?" I asked interested as I closed my eyes.
"His name was Jeremy Cleaver, he was British. Moved here when he was sixteen and we were young, younger than you now and it was like a whirlwind knowing him, he rode a bike and smoked he was everything I was told to stay away from. But I loved him, and he loved me. When we were eighteen, your mother was pregnant with you at the time so I was craving more from my relationship and so Jeremy proposed, but not because I told him to but because he was just that type of guy. If he wanted to do something he'd do it and so of course I couldn't imagine life without him at this point so I said yes. My mum went mental, I thought she was going to lock me away before I married someone like Jeremy but we were convinced we were going to run away together and do all these incredible things." She said in a dreamy voice.
"Well what happened?" I urged.
"He moved back to England. And that was that. But we were kids, we couldn't make those types of decisions, they were made for us and you know that was it. One day he was just gone. Sometimes I do wonder, what would it be like for us now? Would he still be the mysterious British guy everyone wanted to know or would he have grown up? Have a job? Would he have helped with you? Life is just not always what you think it'll be." She said sighing once again at the end.
"Have you ever tried looking for him?" I asked curiously wondering whether she's given up on love because I got dumped on her.
"No, no I couldn't I suppose he is married now." She dismissed making my heart tug for her.
"Shall we look for him?" I asked sitting up excited. "Come on Julia there's all sorts now, Facebook, Google, I bet we could find him in minutes, what have you got to lose?" I said running up the stairs to retrieve my laptop.
"Nora, come on, I bet he's forgotten all about me." She said once again trying to stop me.
"Stop being such a wimp, come on, Jeremy Cleaver was it?" I asked with a cheeky grin as I typed his name into the search bar.
"Nora you won't find him." Julia insisted before I cut her off.
"Jeremy James Cleaver, 43 born in Hackney, England currently living in New York City." I said and watched her eyes light up.
"Is it him? Is it really?!" She gasped grabbing the laptop as she spun it around to see, her eyes darkened and smile dropped off her face. "His wife is beautiful, and the kids, gosh that little one is cute." She whispered as she clicked on his profile picture.
"Oh Julia I'm so sorry." I said taking the laptop back and closing the top quickly.
"No, no it's alright. I can stop thinking now can't I? Just take my mind off it, it's silly really it was so many years ago." She said waving me off. "What about you? You've been spending an awful lot of time with Kade? Did he come and fix that shelf in the study? I gave him they key in case you weren't home." That's why he had a key.
"Sure I think so I can ask him if you'd like?" I said making her raise an eyebrow.
"You didn't answer my question, is there something going on between you and Kade?" She asked again making me blush.
"No, well, sort of I guess. He's being super nice. We get on really well, but there's something that makes me think there's more to it, and there has to be you know? He's always around and with the whole Ellis thing he's around more and I like it. I mean three weeks ago I hated him, well not hate but a strong dislike and now, if I don't talk to him for a day my mind is constantly on him. I'm looking out the window for his car, or seeing if there's movement next door, he's taking over my life completely and I don't know whether it's a good or a bad thing." I finalised making her smile in understanding.
"Does he make you happy?" She asked squeezing my hand.
"Yes, well so far. And yes his methods of showing he cares are a bit... ominous but I can tell he does. In a weird sort of way." Explaining it was hard but knowing it was easy.
"Then all you can do is try, just do everything you can and if that isn't enough then it's not meant to be I suppose." Smiling I nodded at her before there were three strong knocks on the door.
"I'll get it." I said as I watched Julia eye my laptop, I knew she couldn't help herself she wants to see more on Jeremy, maybe it'll help give her a bit of closure.
Swinging open the door I felt my heart flutter as Kade stood on the other side leaning against the door frame swinging a set of keys around in his hand. His hair was scruffy not his usual styled scruffy but actually scruffy, you know? Sightly curly and all over the place. It was nice.
"Kade." I said in a surprised slightly over the top tone.
"Afternoon, have you just got up?" He asked eyeing my large tee shirt and fluffy slippers, I rolled my eyes and shook my head.
"No, but I'm not feeling great I don't want to get out of my pyjamas." I said indignantly and crossing my arms making him grin.
"Keep you knickers on, anyway is Julia here I need to give her back the keys and tell her I fixed the shelf." He explained standing up straighter and looking past me into the house.
"She's just in the lounge she's actually a bit busy, I'll just give them to her-" I was cut off by Julia stepping out into the hall and smiling.
"Kade, darling do come in." She said pushing me aside to let him in and guiding him to the kitchen. "I'll make you some tea? Now how's your mum?" She started a full fledged conversation with him as we all sat comfortably on the stools, I listened in to bits here and there before I heard my name and perked up.
"Sorry?" I said as they both looked at me expecting an answer.
"I said would you mind Kade going along with you to Kensington next week? I just mentioned how you might need some help with all of the heavy lifting and he said he would go along." I looked at him slightly shocked but he just sent me one of his genuine smiles, you know the ones that blow you away? Yeah that one.
"Oh no of course, that's fine. Thank you." I said smiling back.
"You know me Dawson, always happy to help, well you anyway." Blushing he laughed and looked at Julia.
"Thank you for the tea but I think mom wants me back for dinner." Julia grinned.
"Thank you so much again Kade, honestly with you being the only man around here we're going to have to start paying you." He chuckled and shook his head before I offered to walk him out.
"You know you don't have to come with me to Kensington." I said flippantly in case he just said it in front of Julia, he frowned and looked down at me.
"If you don't want me to-" I cut him off almost frantically.
"No, no I just thought maybe you offered because Julia was there, I don't know if you really want to of course but I don't want you to feel like you have to?" I said blushing badly and avoiding eye contact.
"Nora, sure I'll come don't think so much into it." With that he turned and jogged across the yards to his front door and disappearing inside.