Marry Me | NatePat

Chapter Twelve

One.

Two.

Deep breath.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Don't be scared.

Six.

Seven.

Eight.

Nine months pass.

Not a day goes by that Nathan thinks, not a second that he even takes a moment to evaluate decisions. Current decisions. Decisions from the nine past months.

Nine months of striving to pull together the mess that he thought of as his life. It was okay, he though, for a while, the first two months came smoothly however he had to slow down his process as the third month rolled around. Nathan had to adjust, so to speak, with finishing school and completing finals. Soon enough he had finished high school, as had Sean, Mark, and Matthew. They were all adults, very childish but still adults all the same.

Nine months passed off keeping his relationship with Matthew in the absolute best condition, and that was the most successful part of the nine months. They saw each other every day if not every other day, they communicated their stresses and helped each other through everything. There were days when Nathan couldn't even pull himself together however Matthew was always there to do it for him when he couldn't do it himself.

Nine months of figuring out the proper way to say that he was sorry for all the overdue apologizes in his life. He felt awful that his friendship with Sean was slipping from his hands, sorry that he had been so irrational with Mark, and unworthy of the attention that Matthew consistently gave him. He wanted to devote more time to Mark and Sean, wanted to help heal them, however Nathan knew that would take another nine months. Maybe ten. Maybe eleven.

Could they be fixed?

Was it even a scenario where they needed to be? Very well, Nathan could be blowing things completely and utterly out of proportion. No one ever came up to him, looking for him to solve their problems and in utter honesty, he couldn't blame them. He saw some problems as being bigger than they were, and he knew he had to try the problems he knew to be real.

Nathan knew it was a problem that he didn't see Sean as much as he used to, knew it was a problem to threaten Mark for no other reason than for him attempting to gain Matthew's attention. Of course, he never got any, because Matthew loved Nathan more than all the stars in the sky. Now that he realized this, he knew he could trust Matthew to distance himself from Mark when he bought it was necessary, and that it wasn't any of his business.

Nine months of maturity had passed over Nathan's mind, he looked at everything in a new light. He was more cautious, more thoughtful now that the nine months were over. He hadn't been that way during the nine months nor the time before the nine months, but after it was done he had cleaned himself up as a person.

What was left was to clean up the relationships he had.

"Hon? You doing okay; you've been staring off into space for a while now."

Nathan smiled softly at the sight of his boyfriend, delicate and kind hearted as ever. Nothing had changed between them in the nine months other than getting to know and understand one another better.

"Thinking about Sean and Mark. I want to spend some more time with Sean, he used to be my best friend and it feels like I don't know him anymore," Nathan didn't bother to elaborate, but he told Matthew what he needed to know.

"What about Mark?" Matthew seemed a little more uneasy about mentioning Mark, all of their relations with him had frayed a bit over the past nine months.

"I want to give him a second chance. Sean was right about one thing, he does love you and I sure as hell can't blame him for loving someone like you, but that didn't give him the excuse to do what he did. However, I was kind of a jerk to him and I want to clear things up with him," he explained, "you absolutely don't have to be a part of it if you don't want to, just throwing it out there. I'll be with Sean today, and Mark maybe next week or so? I'd prefer to go alone, but you can obviously come with me if you want to."

Matthew visibly relaxed at the news that he didn't have to go, "okay. Send Sean my best regards, okay? And tell Mark that I want to give him a second chance at a friendship the next time you see him. I think you're onto something here, with all this cleaning up your relationship style thing. My Nathan's all grown up."

Nathan grinned, kissing Matthew's cheek and pulling him closer to his chest, "you know it, hon."

---

One knock.

Two.

Thr-

"I'm coming!"

"Are you now?" Nathan tauntingly shouted at the door to his scrambling best friend.

"Nate?" Sean grinned, opening the door. He was in a bath robe and his green hair was soaking wet, "you didn't really catch me at a good time, but it's nice to see you!"

"Sorry if I interrupted something," his tone was cheeky, "is it okay if I come in?"

"Yeah! Make yourself at home, I'm gonna go get dressed and then we can talk."

Nathan slipped into the house and shut the door behind him as Sean ran upstairs to find some clothes. The rooms around him were all so familiar and he took his time appreciating the surroundings before going into the kitchen to steep some tea for the hopefully long conversation with Sean.

It didn't take long for the green haired man to get back downstairs, light blue cotton shorts and a black short-sleeve shirt covering the no longer flustered Sean's body.

"So, what brings you down here?" Sean smiled, grabbing two mugs from the counter beside him and setting them next to Nathan.

"I've missed you, and I've been thinking a lot over the past nine months. I want to spend a lot more time with you, I've been dedicating a lot of my time towards Matthew and disregarding you and I don't feel like that's right. So, if you'll let me take you to dinner, my dear best friend..."

"Any excuse to get food, Nate. Any excuse to get food."

dinner chapter in the making