Love Aint Always Pretty novel Chapter 55

Secrecy

- the act of keeping information secret; the quality or state of being hidden or secret

Origin: English

55

"You have got to be kidding me!" He says.

I laughed as I watch him take off his shirt and now he's left alone with his white boxers while I'm still on my blue Sunday dress. I watch him as he push his hair back, god he's so handsome.

God I could see his crotch as the wet thin clothing sticks to it.

"Staring at my crotch?" He teased.

I rolled my eyes at him and smiled away.

It was still raining and we're still playing this game. It's fun though and I love how he strips in front of me.

"Why are you so good at this?" He groans while smirking.

"Now you see I'm not the girly girl."

"Well yeah but I seriously can't wait until you miss a shot then you'll get to take off that dress." He grins.

"Perv." I smirked.

"A handsome perv."

I tried to suppress my smile. "Well the ball's still in my hand though so... Lay-up."

I ran to the ring while dribbling, grasping the ball with my two hands. I leaped from below, raising the ball in front of my face with one hand and bank it into the basket.

"Yes!" I chimed.

"And the crowd screams!" I whisperingly yell as I imitate a cheering crowd.

Nick laughs.

"You're 6'4 and yet you suck at basketball. Like seriously Nick." I teased with a soft chuckle.

Nick stares at me with a half smirk. "Hey, nobody's perfect."

I smiled in agreement

It was Nick's turn, he dribbles and did the exact same thing and he was successful about it too. "My turn." He says proudly, grasping the ball on his hand.

"Dunk." He says.

I gaped. "No fair. I can't dunk."

"We're playing basketball, aren't we?"

I squinted my eyes at him as I cross my arms together. "Oh how bad can it be. I know I can do it."

"Good luck shorty." He teases me and then laughs.

Nick starts dribbling the ball, crossing it in between his legs with a smile on his face. He starts running then jumps up so high enough while he leaps, lifts the ball above the rim and throws it through the net. "And Wilde scores!" He yells.

I laughed as I dramatically clapped.

"Good. Good." I say.

"You saw that? I was flying. Now that's what we call a dunk." He boasts.

I steal the ball from him as I stood right across the ring. Shit, I don't know if I can jump high like Nick and I don't think my hands aren't that big enough to control the ball. I did the exact same thing that Nick did, I jumped as high as I could.

He bursted in laughter.

I failed.

He bites his lip, "Strip for me."

I shake my head in disbelief that I missed a shot. Ugh, Cameron never taught me how to dunk and well it came in handy though. At least I'm teasing Nick right now. I started taking off my dress and his eyes never leaving me. I placed it on top of his wet clothes as now I'm left with my white underwear.

"It has gotta be white. Nice." He says.

Nick walks towards me with the ball in his hand. "One on one?" He asked.

I smirked. "Do we have to strip?"

"It's too unfair for me. You've got two left on you. I only have one. How about loser's have to end up doing anything the winner's have in mind."

"Three points."

"Okay. Three--"

I quickly stole the ball from his hand, cutting him off from what he was gonna say and ran to the board as I dribble.

"Hey that's called cheating!" Nick calls out.

I laughed as I did another layup. "In your face, Wilde. Let's base on one point each shot. 1-0."

As the one on one game kept going on, my wet skin against his wet skin and I loved it. He'd place his arms around me then steals a kiss but he's the one that gets distracted easily when I kiss him. I kind of a little bit cheated. Nick is good with basketball. His height and huge hands were a big potential for him to win this but I want to win this. Cos if ever I win this, I want him to tell me everything about Catherine. That's why I need to cheat so I could win. Even though I was clearly cheating, we still tied in two points. Now I'm panting, he's panting.

The ball's on his hands, he's dribbling it. I have to steal it or else he'll win. I reached for the ball, he did a crossover so quickly and ran so fast to the ring that I couldn't catch him. He leaps up below the ring and banks the ball inside the basket.

I sigh and then he looks at me. He knows I'm sad that he won. I really wanted to win this.

"Didn't see that coming." He chuckles.

I smiled ruefully. "Whatever."

Nick laughs and starts grabbing our clothes. He hooks his arm around my neck and I looked up to him. He planted a three-second kiss on my forehead.

"It's just a game. Let's go get inside and heat up. My balls are freezing." He says.

I chuckled.

•••••

Around ten in the evening, when I was done having a hot shower with Nick, literally hot cos we had lukewarm water to warm us up. I quickly changed to Nick's loose shirt and pulled my dolphin shorts up with no underwear on me since the one I had was wet cos of a while ago. I grabbed a towel and headed to Nick's room as I rubbed my hair.

"Nick?" I called out to him.

The door opens and he was already on his black jogging pants with no shirt on. He was also rubbing his hair.

"Hey." He greets.

"So, what do I have to do now?"

He smirked and opens the door wider. Both of us headed inside his room with the lights all on. I sat down on the bed while he grabs a grey sleeveless on then puts it on him.

"Since you were so bummed about my win." He trails.

"I wasn't bummed!"

"Oh come on that crestfallen look when I made that dunk for my final point."

I rolled my eyes at him.

"And because it's my birthday, I'm giving you my win." He added.

"No way?" I chimed.

"Go on. You can tell me what you want me to do. I'm your slave, mommy."

I gaped and then laughed softly.

"You like that? Mommy?" He teases.

"Stop it. Please. It's disgusting and I'm not that old." I chuckled.

He's just smiling so handsomely.

I paused. "You're not taking it back? Make a promise."

"Promise." He says.

"Put your right hand up and say you promised." I watch him.

He didn't.

"Go on Nick. Put your hand up and say it." I demanded.

He does it, "I promise. There."

I exhale while I watch him rubbing his towel on his hair. I glanced at the frames and the solo picture of Catherine wasn't there anymore. I moved my eyes back to Nick and he's also looking at me.

"I want you to..." I trailed off.

He raised his eyebrows up.

"I want you to tell me about your past... Your past with... her." I pointed out to the picture as he looks at it over his shoulder.

Nick looks back at me. "Anything but not this Savannah. Please."

"No Nick. I wanna know. I wanna know about her. I wanna know about you and her. I wanna know everything about you. Let me in, please."

"No! I'm not gonna let you in! Why do you want so much to butt in in my past?! What's so important that you need to know about it?! What's--"

"Because I want to know why you loved her so much that you can't love any other woman anymore!" I raised my voice.

He looks at me ruefully.

"I wanna be better than her! For you! I wanna show you that I can be better than Catherine! Why is that so hard to do Nick? Why?" I sounded like almost a cry.

He closes his eyes and exhales. The room was quiet and so were we. I look at him but his head was still bent down low. His eyes weren't still looking at me. I waited for him to speak but he didn't. I exhaled heavily.

"Fine." I blurted.

He slightly pulled his head up as I stand on my feet. "Never mind Nick."

I started turning my back to him and walked away but he grabbed my wrist. I halted when he pulled my wrist back.

"I met her on the summer of 2008." I hear Nick starting to speak.

I looked at him over my shoulder but he's not looking back at me. I turned to face him again and sat back down on the bed. He's still not looking at me. I glued my eyes on him cos I wanna look at him while he talks about her. I wanna look at him and how he talks about Catherine. I wanna listen to his voice on how he talks about the only girl he loves even though this will hurt me and rip me apart.

"I was sixteen and so was she. She was new in this town." He says.

This town.

"That night my mom went out for a date, yeah my parents were divorced, I was left here in the house to guard over Tracy and her friend that was coming for a sleepover. That was Jenna. Jenna was Catherine's little sister. Catherine was the one who accompanied her here that night. Catherine was... Catherine was truly captivating. The moment I saw her standing right outside the doorstep, I told myself right away that she was the one. She was perfect to me. She's so beautiful." He says with so much adorn in his voice.

He pulls his head up and looks at me. "Do you really wanna hear this? I don't wanna hurt you."

"I do." I choke a sob.

I honestly don't.

He exhales.

"We spent the entire night together here, she slept over here too. We just talked...a lot and laughed a lot. After that night, we were..." He laughed humorlessly. "We were inseparable. We always spend the day and night together. Always together on that entire summer. I loved her with all my heart and she loved me back. It was that time when I confirmed that I wanted to be with her and only her. She--"

He looks at me. "You're crying." He says.

I quickly wiped my tears with the back of my hand. "No. No. No. Go on Nick."

"No Savannah. I don't want to hurt you. It's hurting both you and me." He says.

"Nick please I need to know about her."

He wipes another tear that escapes my eyes. "When you and I are both ready for this, I'll tell you."

"I'm ready."

He shakes his head. "You're not. You're saying you are but you're not. I don't wanna hurt you Savannah. I really don't wanna hurt you again after last night."

I look at him and he looks back at me with so much concern in his eyes. I know Nick is concerned of me. I know he doesn't wanna hurt me anymore but even the thought of Catherine and those times they spent together makes me feel like I'm in so much in pain.

"Don't sacrifice too much for me cos I'm not worth it." He says.

He taps the bed. "Let's sleep?"

I nod.

Right now, there are things that I've realized after what he briefly said to me, he doesn't want me to talk about his past cos Catherine owns it. He doesn't want me to expect for a future out of this thing that we have cos he doesn't see it with me, he only sees his future with Catherine.

•••••

The following Monday morning, I woke up way db early in Nick's bed but I was alone. He wasn't beside me. I quickly pulled myself up and sat down on the mattress. I looked around and I was really alone.

"Nick?" I called out his name.

I hurriedly slipped myself off the bed and headed out of his room then stumbled my way down the stairs. As I was about to call out to Nick, I saw him talking to Mr. Moore right outside the the front door. Mr. Moore was just nodding and they were having a serious conversation. Nick handed him money and then Mr. Moore started heading back to his car. I slowly stepped down the last step of the staircase and Nick marches back inside the house.

"You're up." He looked surprised.

I stared at him eagerly. "How long have you been up?"

"Two hours ago."

I nod as I gaze at the clock, 7:30AM

We were both quiet. He heads to the kitchen and I followed him there too.

"What was Mr. Moore doing here?" I asked him as I grab a banana from the fruit basket.

He gazed at me. "Nothing."

"He doesn't come here this early." I said.

Nick stared at me eagerly while I was waiting him to answer. He quickly looked away, "Yeah."

He glanced at me. "You're hungry? I made waffles before we'll leave."

I nod at him.

Why do I sense it that he's hiding something from me?

__________

SFTC:

Violin - Amos Lee