Undercover

5. Broken Heart

I was in his living room, legs resting on the couch, back on the floor, but pressed to the side of the couch. By this point, I had the biggest crush on him, but I was too scared to ever tell him. I don't think that I could say, "Hey Nathan, guess what? I totally have a crush on you and I think it might have been there since the beginning. Basically, since I met you." I mean, I could say that...but I was not brave enough to do that.

By this point, eight months had passed and we were literally inseparable. He had been asking about my brother a lot. Especially since I told him that Cayden would disappear for days at a time during some months and he would come back with more cash than he would usually have on him. There were times when Nathan wasn't around. And I didn't really know where he was. More than once, I had gone to his house with the hopes that we could go to the same diner we had gone to eight months ago only to find that he wasn't even home.

"Nali...you can't just go around telling people that you don't like chocolate pudding, or chocolate ice cream or chocolate cake." He said to me as he ate some chocolate ice cream.

"Yes, I can. And I already do. I have nothing against chocolate. I like chocolate. Just not the ice cream, pudding or cake. You could give me chocolate candy and I'll eat it right there on the spot."

He walked over to me and actually sat on the couch. He looked at me from above. But there was something else in his eyes, and I couldn't quite tell what it was. His parents had already rented an apartment somewhere else because that's where they had set up shop for their job. A lot of the time, they were over there, but it wasn't like they had rented the apartment to live in it. Today was one of the times that they were at the apartment.

"Move over," he said to me, which was unnecessary because there was a lot of room left. The whole couch was free. But he chose to get super close to me, our sides touching each other. I hoped he couldn't feel my heart going haywire.

"Hey Nali?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you ever think about settling down?"

My heart plummeted down to my stomach. Had he already found someone to settle down with? I tried to calm myself before I answered him. I didn't know how he did it, but he was amazing at being able to tell my mood from the sound of my voice. I didn't want to give it away. So I took a few deep breaths and then answered. "Umm...sometimes I do. But I'm assuming that I still have a lot of time to figure it out. Why? Do you?"

"Honestly, sometimes that's what gets me so down. I think about all of the people I've met. And I think about all of the kids that I've met through volunteering and I'd like to have a few mini me's running around."

I laughed a little. "I'm sure you'll find someone who will love you and love kids as much as you do. I think you're one of the people that deserves to find someone great and have a wonderful life and all of those shenanigans. You do realize that this question came out of nowhere, right?"

He shrugged. "I just wanted to know."

"Have you met someone that has made you start thinking about settling down? You hadn't mentioned this before."

"I think so. She's pretty amazing. And I don't know if she would want to date me or anything. I'm obviously not going to ask her to marry me straight off the bat. But I'd like to have her in my life as my partner."

"I see. Maybe you should ask her. You never know. She might like you too."

"Yeah abo-"

At the same time he was about to say something, my phone rang. Whoever it was had the most horrible timing. He was probably going to tell me who the girl was. And she would probably be prettier than me, and more interesting.