Love Bites [on hold]

☆|twenty-one

The rest of the outing followed the same routine. After lunch, they went to a warm, secluded area of the main park in town. It was a few minutes closer to home, so they came across a lot of college students with textbooks and backpacks as they strolled along the sidewalk. Charles and Natalie were towards the front, with his parents at the back. She wasn't sure why exactly he held her hand like they were two lovebirds waltzing in the winter sun.

They talked about college and work and future and finances. She took notice of how the term future never included their future as a couple, but simply the future of the company. Natalie sat idly without really concentrating on their chatter, and wondered if they had really cared whether she and Charles had true feelings for each other.

On the other hand, Carla looked like a mother witnessing the birth of her first grandchild. Her laughs and smiles and cheers were exaggerated and overused to an exhausting extent. Charles noticed it, too, as he kept glancing her way with a faint smile. However, he was too polite and devoted to hurt his mother's feelings by point out such a defaut.

Finally, at something past five in the evening, they were let off the hook. Charles drove his parents back home, because apparently they came with a taxi, before leading them to tbe aprtment complex. The sun had long set by then and the dark blue hue of the sky covered everything.

The trip upstairs was spent in even more awkward silence, and she let out a breath when the doors opened and revealed the very familiar sight of their floor. Charles unlocked the door and led them both in.

"Well," She started as he turned around to lock the door and shrugged off her coat. "That was something."

"My mother loves you," He stated before throwing his keys in the glass smokepit with a jiggle. He pulled off his coat and hooked it on the hanger sticking from the wall.

"I don't think your father feels the same way," She said with a shrug.

He gave her an apologetic look. "He's just not very friendly with strangers."

She raised her eyebrows and folded her arms. "So I'm a stranger?"

For a second there, his ears pinked and he looked flustered. He reached out a hand to scratch the back of his head. "I didn't mean it that way."

"I know you didn't mean it that way. I was just teasing you," She mocked. She hadn't realized how close they were until she had reached out and pushed his hair away from his face.

The gesture must have caught him off guard as well because he seemed to have malfunctioned for a second. His eyes shot down to stare at her lips before he looked back up at her wandering eyes.

"What the hell are we doing right now?" He blurted out, but his serious expression didn't falter.

She shook her head. "I stopped thinking about it a long time ago."

"We shouldn't be up this close," He went on, but his hand seemed to disobey him, for it reached up to cup the side of her face and trace her neck.

"I know."

"We shouldn't have held hands today like it meant something," He persisted. "We were doing it for show, weren't we?"

"If you say so, Charles," She replied and leant into his touch.

"I shouldn't be thinking of you this way."

Her head snapped up and she looked him squarely in the eyes. "What way?" She breathed.

He took a step closer. She could smell him as clearly as she could see the gold in his eyes without having to squint. His body brushed against hers and his other hand landed on her hip.