If you haven't read part 1, I suggest reading that one first!
David's POV:
Being that we arrived pretty early, it was perfect timing to wake up our siblings. Natalie didn't live close to me anymore, so she went her own way and I went mine. I slowly entered my house and went up to toby's room. It was 7 am and he had to get up in 20min for school anyway, so I thought it wouldn't be a big deal. "Ah!" I yell at toby. He immediately sprung up and fell off his bed. "Ouch David! Oh wait, David! You're home!" Says toby as he gets up the hug me. "Yeah I'm home for almost a week," I tell him. "Yes! That means you're gonna play with me every day, right?" He asks me. "Of course toby" I sat softly. My two sisters were woken up to me scaring toby, but they were still surprised to see me because they thought I was celebrating Thanksgiving in LA. As all three went to school, I sat down at the dinner table and had some scrambled eggs that my mom made. Her scrambled eggs were the best back in Slovakia because of the spice combination she used. It took a while to find the same combination here, but once she did, it was all worth it. "So David, what's new?" My mom asks. "Oh, nothing mom, same old same old" I respond. "Anyone new special person in your life yet?" She asks while smiling hopefully. I knew my mom was always interested in my love life. I wasn't going to tell her about my crush for Natalie though. That's the last thing I want getting out there currently. "Oh no one yet mom," I say rather nervous. "You sure? Because if I didn't know, you have a crush on someone rather familiar" she asks mischievously. A mother's intuition is something else, and it's hard to hide these things from here, but I wasn't going to budge. "Nope, nobody mom" I say while getting up to put my dirty dishes in the sink. "Whatever you say honey," she says as she goes up to her room. Whew! That was close.
Timeskip to 2:00 PM
We decided to have everyone meet up at a sports complex that we used to hang out at when we were younger. Me and the boys would usually play basketball for a couple of hours while the girls would go play soccer. I was hanging out with Natalie until the rest of the boys arrived. "How was it seeing your family," I ask her while messing with the ball. "It was great, the last time we were here it was only for 2 days, but I'm glad we're here for a week," she says. "Me too, allows us to make a ton of more memories," I say. "Yup, and good ones at that," she says while smiling at me. I decided to get up and have us play our old soccer game where I am the goalie and she is the kicker. It was a game we used to play to help her practice her free kicks. "Try to make a goal this time, you weren't too good back in high school," I say while chuckling. "Oh yeah dobrik, we'll see about that," she says confidently. She puts the ball down and lines herself up to make the kick. As she does that, I dig my feet into the turf to get a good grip on the ground. Natalie begins to go towards the ball, starting slow but speeding up as she gets close. It seems she's going left until I noticed at the last second she jerks right. I leap right as she kicks the ball and blocks it, unfortunately, I blocked it with my face. "Haha I blocked it," I say while getting up. "I mean you did, but what's worse, a blocked ball or a bloody nose?" She asks and then I look down and there's blood on my shirt. "Oh" was all I managed to get out. "Come here," she says as she grabs my hand and brings me into the restroom to help me clean up. "Sorry about the nose Dave," she says while wiping my upper lip with a towel. "Don't worry about it, it's not like it was intentional.........or was it?" I question. "Dave, I wouldn't purposely hurt you," she says astonished at the fact that I would ask such a question. "I know I was kidding, your aim isn't that good to hit me while I'm moving," I say while smiling. "Ok ok, that was a good one dork, I'll give you that," she says while smiling.
After I got cleaned up with the help of Natalie, the boys finally arrived and we played our basketball games. It was a close game and Ilya was guarding me. Both of our teams were at 20 and whoever made the next shot wins the game. My strength was a 3-pointer so all I needed was a screen. Mike came around and set the screen on Ilya and I took the shot. The ball fell perfectly into the hoop and my team won. "Wooooooo!!!" Is all you hear from the team as we cheered to the victory. I turn and also say Natalie cheering for me. It always feels good to see her supporting me. But then Ilya bumped my shoulder with force and walking away. "Uh, excuse you?" I say to him. "What's wrong?" He asks. "Ilya, come on, it's just a game," I say to him. "Well yeah, if the teams were fair, maybe I would consider it a game," he says sternly. "Oh come on, you're not giving me that lame excuse," I say with an attitude. "Oh yeah, I think I am," he says as he gets close to me. "The score was literally 20 to 20" I yell at him while getting closer. "Only because you guys suck and I carried my team," he says while bumping his forehead with mine. Immediately everyone started to pull us away from each other, not wanting anything bad to happen. Natalie even came in and help separate us. "First of all, both of you are idiots, and Ilya you need to calm down." She says aggressively, which puts a smile on my face knowing she was defending me. Ilya was then about to say something when Natalie cut him off, "ah ah ah, I don't want to hear shit from you. You're acting like a sore loser right now and nobody here wants to see that" she says to him. "Ok fine whatever," he says as he gets up to leave the gym. Everyone is gathering their items to leave the gym, and before we left I went to Natalie and said "Hey, thanks for having my back during the argument." "Of course Dave, anytime," she says while grabbing her bag and going towards the exits.
Natalie hopped into my car because I was taking her home. On the ride there we blasted our favorite music while singing together. It was great to do this back in our hometown, it brought back many happy memories. "I have to say, being here with you, especially in Chicago, just feels great," I say truthfully, but scared because maybe I'm opening too much. "I couldn't Agee with you anymore" she says while smiling at me. My heart was about to burst at that very moment. Life was perfect and I couldn't be any happier.
We arrived and Natalie's house and she insisted I come inside. I didn't want to because of how stinky I was from the basketball game. "Come on David, you have to come inside. Don't worry about your smell, you can shower here. I know you have clothes in your bag, so don't say you don't" she says while tugging on my arm. "Nat, I haven't seen your dad in 2 months, the last thing I want is for me to see me all sweaty and stinky," I say. "Don't make me call him over here to convince you, because then you would have to go against his wishes and I know you can't do that. So make it easier on yourself and just come inside." She says while giving me the puppy dog face. "Oh wow, you're really using the puppy dog face on me," I say while knowing it was gonna work. "Mhm" is all she says because she knows she won. "Fine fine, you win," I say while turning off the car and exiting the vehicle. "Yayyy!" Is all I hear as Natalie exits the car. I grab my bag from the trunk and head up to the door with Natalie. She rings the doorbell and her dad opens the door immediately. "Wow that was quick," she says. "I saw you guys on the security cameras, that's why," he says while smiling. "Dad you can't keep spying on us," she says jokingly. "Uh yes I can, you're my daughter, now both of you come inside. " he says while motioning for us to come in. "Good to see you," I say as I hug him. "Good to see you as well son, how's everything been," he asks. "Everything's been great, especially since I just beat Ilya in a basketball game," I say while laughing. "Haha that's what I like to hear," he says as he taps me on the shoulder. As me and Natalie's dad sit down and chat some more I hear Natalie say "Dave, the showers ready for you, towels are already in there" "ok coming" I say while nodding to Natalie's dad for permission to go, which he gives me.
After the shower, I head into Natalie's room to see what she's up to. I knock before entering just in case she was changing or something. "Come in," she says. "Hey, there missy, what ya doing?" I ask while lying down on her bed. "Just looking through our old photos," she says while flipping through a scrapbook she made. "What's this?'" I ask. "This is a scrapbook I made with all of the photos for highschool that have great memories behind them," she says while flipping through. I noticed that there were a lot of photos, which was a good thing. I say a lot of photos that had both of us in it. So many wonderful memories that I'm glad didn't end there in those photos. "Crazy to think that just 6 years ago we were crazy high school kids not knowing where would be in life," I say while looking at the photos. "I know, but where were are right now is pretty darn sweet if you ask me," she says while looking at me. In that moment, I contemplated going for a kiss. She just looked so amazing and all the wonderful memories filling in my head boosted my confidence a bit, but not enough, unfortunately. After about 5 seconds of just staring at each other, she broke up it by asking "you're staying for dinner, right?" "Oh, I wouldn't want to intrude," I say. "Dave, you wouldn't be intruding and you know that," she says and I know she's right, but I decided to mess with her. "If you can guess my favorite movie, I'll stay," I say while smiling. "That's it? You literally had a conversation about this with Megan three days ago" she says. I completely forgot about that, to be honest. "But anyway, it's "10 things I hate about you" without a doubt," she says and she was right. "All right, guess that means I'm staying for dinner," I say while she jumps for joy.
Dinner was going well, Natalie's mom is an amazing chef and her dad is great at telling stories and keeping the conversation going. "You guys do know the amount of trouble these two got into right?" Natalie's dad says to Natalie's little sisters. "What kind of trouble?" One of them asks. "No dad, come on now, those don't need to be brought up," says Natalie. "Oh, but they do sweetie," He says. I was just smiling the entire time, curious as to what story he would bring up because to be honest there were a lot of them. "Ok, so it was around junior year when this happened. Natalie was eating way too much candy and her dentists were advising me to stop her from consuming so much. She was brushing her teeth, but with the amount of candy she was consuming it was bad for her teeth and also for her health. So one night I hear scraping noise coming from outside. It sounded like it was scraping up against the wall. I go out around the house and see David with empty bags of candy around his feet and a basket of candy tied to a string that is being pulled by Natalie up to her room. When I tell you it was one of the most ridiculous things I have ever seen, I couldn't believe my eyes" he laughs while ending the story. We were all laughing at the story because of how ridiculous it was but it was true. "I remember being grounded for two weeks," says Natalie. "Yeah, and I remember being banned from your house for two weeks also," I said while chuckling. "Looking back at it now, it just showed me how much you cared about her, but in the moment I wanted to hit you with my shoe" Natalie dad says as we all erupt with laughter. As dinner winds down, I help Natalie and her mom with the dishes. "Thanks for the help David," says Natalie's mom. "No problem, it's the least I could do in return for the amazing meal," I say. I then went to the couch and laid down watching sports with Natalie's dad. Natalie joined us and lied down next to me, it's not that it was weird for her to lie next to me, but in her parent's home, it was a bit different. However, I wasn't complaining.
As the game ended on tv, Natalie's dad got up and said "hey David, let's go for a walk." I nodded and got up to follow him outside. "Can I join?" Natalie asks as we were heading towards the door. "Sorry honey, not this time, just me and David on this go around," he says as he opens the door. It did catch me a bit off-guard for him wanting just me and him, and no Natalie. However, I just went along with it as he wanted to do the walk with just us two. We were walking around the neighborhood for a good 10 minutes having a normal conversation when Natalie's dad says "how long?" "What do you mean how long?" I ask confused. "Come on David, you know what I mean," he says. "Nope, not sure I do," I say still confused. "Really? Ok......how long have you liked my daughter?" He asks. This question caught me off-guard. I kind of just chuckled and just starting thinking about how to answer the question. I guess I was thinking for too long when Natalie's dad interrupts my thoughts and says "son, I've known you for 12 years. I can tell when you're lying, telling the truth and much more" he says. "4 months" I say while sighing, realizing I just gave up my secret. "Wow, four months, that's a good amount of time. Well, I'm happy for you" he says, which kind of threw me off. "Happy for me?" I ask. "Yes, happy for you. Because you found someone that you are able to keep a bond with for 12 years, even after being distant for 4 of those years. You found someone that you can work with and tackle this world together. I've known you for 12 years now and these past 12 years I have seen a boy grow up to be a man. I mean this when I say this that I approve of you and Natalie being together. I see the way you treat her and I feel good knowing she has someone like you by her side" he says with his whole chest while looking directly at me. I was astonished at what he was saying. Usually, dads are very protective of their daughters like he was when we were younger. But for him to open up like this to me and confess, it makes me truly feel amazing that he trusts me with his daughter. "Wow, I can't believe this," I say. "Really? I've been following the Datalie hashtag on Instagram for like 3 months now" he says. (This is true btw) "no way!" I yell out. "Haha yes way, I'm surprised you didn't catch it at all," he says while laughing. "I didn't think you knew how to use Instagram like that," I say. "I didn't, the girls showed me," he says while laughing. "Oh wow, that's actually something else. Well, I can't say thank you enough for trusting me with your daughter. The last piece of this is for her to feel the same" I say. "Trust me, she does," he says as we head back to the house.
We walk inside and immediately Natalie comes up and starts questioning me, "what did he say to you?" She asks. "Nothing important, just small talk," I say while going to pack up what I brought from the gym. "Hmmm, for some reason I don't believe that," she says. "Well, there's not much I can say to that," I say while zipping up my bag. she puts on her hand on top of mine and looks me in the eye, "so there was nothing important in the conversation at all?" I immediately got a bit nervous as she was going deeper into questioning. "Nope, nothing at all," I say not being able to give eye contact fully. "Whatever you say dobrik, just know I always find out the truth," she says while looking at me. She's right, she always does, and that's what scares me. Hopefully, the truth is something she'll like. As I head out, I say bye to everyone and give an extra notion to Natalie's dad and I think she noticed because she starting to hum when I did it. I walked outside to the car and starting to drive off, all the while I say Natalie smiling at me while shaking her head. She was determined to find out the truth and I was determined to keep it a secret just a bit longer. This should be fun, I thought to myself.
Hi Guys! Sorry it's been a bit since I uploaded, the holidays have been crazy over here. I hope you guys are doing well and have a great holiday with your loved ones. I hope you guys enjoy this piece, sorry if its a bit too long.