Page 22 of Unspoken Confessions
9
Jameson
I’d learned way too much about my charge.
I was getting… too close.
It was a dangerous thing and yet, I didn’t want to stop.
Nick liked to talk. It was always a bit awkward and felt like I was hearing things not just anyone knew. And I wasn’t talking about the little things, though I did know quite a few of those. I could have probably written some fan-boy blog with all the favorites and hates of Nick Sterling that I was clued in on. Like the fact that he liked to eat cooked chicken cold. And that he hated broccoli with a passion, but he’d still eat it if it was packaged up in one of his pre-made meals.
He loved anything stupid funny. Bad jokes. TV shows. Commercials. As long as it bordered on corny or slapstick, he thought it was the most hilarious thing in the world.
He hated bugs, especially ants. I’d never heard a man scream so loudly before. And when I’d come running, gun drawn, I’d found him huddled in the corner of the kitchen blinking at the line of ants that had begun hauling food from a forgotten bowl of half-eaten pasta that had been left on the counter. Needless to say, Nick called Jen immediately and had him find an exterminator that could come out that day.
He loved sausage, though he’d never actually said that to my face.
He hated people that put other people down.
He loved beer, but he’d only let himself have one every few days.
He hated anything to do with public speaking. Though, maybe hated was a strong word. More like he was extremely uncomfortable with it.
So, yes, I’d learned so many things about him that I swore I didn’t want to know. Both from hearing it right out of his mouth when he tried his hardest to connect with me and from watching him.
Space, that was what I needed.
A little bit of distance and time away from him.
Why did I feel that was necessary?
Well, it could have been because I had started to like Nick. The Nick that wasn’t all fake smiles and a phony light behind his eyes. It was the real parts of him that he’d let me see. The man that was a little odd and not so confident. The one that didn’t know how to handle silence and usually made the situation way more awkward than it needed to be. The one that didn’t seem to care whether or not I wanted to hear him talk and kept going even when I didn’t respond back.
Yeah, he wasn’t a bad guy at all. Maybe a tad bit on the annoying side since he never shut up, but it was clear the guy didn’t have many friends. He didn’t have people he could just sit around with and shoot the shit. He probably didn’t even know how to do that because he was so used to being closed off and living up to this perfect image that everyone had of him.
That was why I swore I was going to stay in my room tonight. No going to the living room in hopes that he’d wander down sometime in the dead of night and sit next to me. No guessing if he would grab the remote before I had a chance to put on something he wanted to watch. No wondering if he actually found what I’d been watching interesting. None of that because I didn’t think I could handle much more of it.
I’d started to feel things. Just a little. Like pity, but not in a bad way. And sympathy because I couldn’t imagine his was an easy life to live. Maybe worst of all, I had started enjoying being around him, and there were a few times I felt like I was holding my breath until the next time I laid eyes on him.
Not to mention, the things I was leaving out.
Like how I thought of him when I shouldn’t.
Like how I felt the sexual pressure building up inside of me the longer I was around him.
Like how I remembered that first night I saw him and all the things I wished would have happened.
Fuck me, I was in deep shit.
Which was why when I heard a knock on my door right as I stepped out of the shower and wrapped the towel around my waist, my heart began to beat a little faster.
Panic? A little.
Hope? Yeah, probably.
But I wasn’t sure deep down if I wished it was Nick or not.
Only, to my surprise, it wasn’t Nick on the other side of the door.
