𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 ✔️

♡ Chapter 19 ♡

July 19th. 

Spending the morning in the hot tub was the best thing I could do.

Nic came with me, too, saying that, "he didn't trust me to go alone and not kill anybody."

He's acting like I'm Ted Bundy or something.

I lift my hand out of the water, looking at my light brown skin. I stare at my ring, watching the light reflect off of it beautifully. I've never told Nic this, but I know that it's real. Clothing, diamonds, and make-up are my specialty. I could spot a fake diamond from a mile away.

Today, it was dark outside. Grey clouds filled the sky, and droplets of water covered the windows from it raining in the middle of the night. 

The thunder was so loud that it shook the entire hotel, and had woken me up. But when I jumped, Nic pulled me in closer to his chest. And I fell back asleep like that. 

"You're getting better at making pancakes," I told him. "Today, I was basically foaming at the mouth to eat them."

He gave me a weird look from how I had chosen to phrase that sentence.

"Thanks."

Although I don't think he'd confess it, I can see it in his eyes and in his actions that he's starting to treat me in a way that's different. More than just a friend. 

I sink further down in the tub, making only my eyes visible. He stares at me like I'm weird, and I start wiggling my eyebrows at him. And then, like Moto moto, I start swimming toward him like that.

"The fuck are you doing," he says once I'm right in front of him, and I have to put my hands on his thighs to keep me from running into him. But as I lift all of my head out of the water again, I see the rare sight in front of me.

Him smiling. 

I'm not exactly sure what day it was when my real emotions and my fake ones started to become so blurred.

Because without thinking about my plan to make him fall in love with me, I smiled and straddled his waist under the water, my arms going around his neck. He puts his hands on my waist. 

I look down at him, "Han's party is tomorrow."

He rolls his eyes.

"Hey - that's the entire point of why we're here," I tell him. "We just need to get a little more information on how he deals and stuff."

"Mhm," he hums, clearly not interested in talking about Hans.

He raises one of his hands to my cheek, and I find myself leaning into it a little as his thumb brushes up and down. 

"And remember, you need to look at me like you're in love with me," I tell him, and then I can see it in his eyes. "Yea! Just like that."

"I'm just looking at you how I want to," he says softly, and I feel my heart skip a beat.

He tilts his head up, gently putting his lips against mine. The warmth in my stomach was so strong that it felt like it could keep somebody in the Arctic warm. I kiss him over the sound of the jets and in the purple lights from the sides of the tub.

I got butterflies like a teenager kissing him. We kiss slowly, and I never want to stop. 

He pulls his lips away, and looks up at me in my eyes. 

"Celeste..." he says my name softly, but trails off for a moment.

I continue looking into his blue eyes. He uses his fingertips to push a strand of my hair dangling out of my bun behind my ear.