Page 87 of Heartstruck at Dawn
I KNOCKED ON NATHAN’S DOOR, and he opened it with a grin. “Hey, you.” He lifted me from the floor with a hug and kissed me. My portrait was hanging on the wall to the left.
Nathan was leaving later that day, too. At midnight. He was going to London for the holidays, but he planned on coming back on the twenty-ninth. He wanted to spend New Year’s Eve with me.
“I miss you already. I don’t want you to leave.”
“I should probably steal you away,” he said, putting me down.
“Nowthat’sa way to get on my father’s bad side.” I joked.
“I’d love to spend the holidays with you. But my sisters will murder me if I don’t go. Olly too. Everyone’s dying to meet you. Olly keeps asking my sister about you. They’ve shown him pictures of us together.” He smiled.
“That is so sweet! I can’t wait to meet Olly. Are you a good uncle?”
We walked to his bedroom. Nathan needed to start packing and wanted moral support. He hated packing. Who doesn’t?
I couldn’t believe he was an uncle. That was such a grownup thing to be.
“I am the best,” he said with a short laugh. “As long as he doesn’t gopoo-poobecausethen I’m the worst uncle ever.”
I laughed but bit the inside of my cheek afterward as my mind drifted into thought. Nathan has three sisters: Evie, Charlotte, and Zara. Evie’s two years older than Nathan and Ollie’s mother. Charlotte is four years younger than Nathan, and Zara’s my age.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. It just hit me that I’ll never be an aunt.” I’d never given much thought to that until Nathan talked to me about Ollie and how much he loves and cares for him.
“Of course, you will. My sister’s kids will be your nephews and nieces,” he said casually, throwing a few pairs of socks into his suitcase. Too casually. “I mean eventually—someday when we get married.”
Married.
I thought Nathan didn’t want to get married. Well, he didn’t want to get married to Dominique. But still. Wow.
His remark surprised me. A part of me even felt excited about the idea. But another part freaked out on me big time. We’ve only been dating for almost two months if you count the pretending part, which Nathan liked considering.
He enjoyed thinking we started dating the day after we met, which kind of happened that way. It was pretty amazing. Everything happened so fast with Nathan. Everything wasstillhappening so fast. I just hoped I could keep up with him.
Nathan was so determined. He knew what he wanted, and he never edited himself in speaking his mind about things. I loved that. It was a new relaxing way of getting to know someone. Nathan had always been honest and transparent with me. I never had to fish the answers out of him.
He kept folding and packing while I thought about what a suitable response to his previous comment might be.
“I’d do it all with you,” he said. “Wedding, kids. But not before a big fat ring, of course.”
Ring. Wedding. Kids. I knew he didn’t mean right away, but I was about to hyperventilate. It made me so happy to hear him say all those things. How could it not? He drove me crazy and made me feel like the most wanted girl in the world—all the time. But still, overwhelming.
I smiled. “I thought you didn’t want to get married.” I don’t think that was what he wanted to hear as a reply, but that’s the best I could come up with, and I was curious to listen to what he had to say about that. What had changed his mind?
“I know. Me neither.” He stood up and sat next to me on the bed. “I just feel like I want to do everything with you. I want to be the one to make you happy. Always.” He gently laid me back on the bed and kissed me. “Don’t worry, love. It’s not something that’s going to happen tomorrow. There’s no rush. Besides, you’re still studying,” he said, playing around with my hair with his fingers. “I’m sorry if you were taken aback by my—enthusiasm.”
I’m sure the look on my face gave me away.
“No, no. It’s not like that. It’s just that I’d never talked about these things with anybody. It does make me happy to know you feel that way, though.”
“We’ll have to go to London sometime next year,” he said, giving me one last peck on the lips before going back to packing. “My family’s going toloveyou.” I rolled on my belly, rested my elbows on the bed, and held my chin with my hands.
Just thinking about the idea of going to London stressed me out. A normal person would buy a ticket and go—end of story. But I had three guys following me around and an extremely apprehensive father. I didn’t know how I’d be able to pull that off. I was sure Nathan could talk my father into it somehow. I hoped.
“It’s easy for you to say when you became besties with my father before we even started dating,” I said with a nervous laugh. “I have your three sisters, your parents, and Olly to impress.”
Nathan laughed. “Iswearthey’ll love you, just like I love you.”
