The Masked Singer

[Chapter Sixty]

Chapter Sixty

I can't remove the betrayed look on Alex's face from my mind. The look of devastation, like I'd cut his chest and ripped his heart out. The image scars my mind and poisons my thoughts. Does he really feel this way? He should have known we wouldn't work on music together forever, we're separate artists and individual people. He's also in a band with members that are relying on him. This arrangement couldn't last forever, it just couldn't.

The sound of someone knocking on my dressing room door pulls me from my tangled thoughts. I place the make-up brush on the dresser in front of me, and then turn my attention to them.

"Who is it?" I call out.

"Nathan," he shouts out.

I smile at the sound of Nathan's voice. Grabbing my mask, I pull the fabric over my face and head towards the door. I yank the door open and find Nathan standing there with an arm behind his back and a large grin on his face.

"What's up with you? Why are you all smiley?" I ask.

Nathan bites his lip to stop himself from grinning, which makes me insanely curious to what's happening to cause such a reaction,

"Nothing." He shrugs his shoulders and points to his left eye.

It takes me a moment to register what he's trying to tell me – I've only finished applying one eye of my make-up, how embarrassing. Spinning on my heels, I dash to my dresser to address the situation. I grab the make-up brush and continue to apply the eye-shadow to match the other eye.

"It's okay, nothing I haven't seen before." Nathan sounds distant. As I look in the mirror, I catch his gaze. His eyes flicker away and a small smile appears on his lips. He then shakes his head and holds up the bag from behind his back.

"I brought food."

"What kind?" I raise an eyebrow.

"Well, I uh- hm." He scratches the back of his head, "Pancakes, ice-cream and syrup. I thought you might have been hungry and well, I like pancakes," he says.

"Starving actually," I correct.

Nathan places the plastic bag on the coffee table in the middle of the room and begins pulls the containers out and setting them around the table. There's a large container for the pancakes, a small tube of ice-cream and a bottle of syrup. I abandon my make-up and join Nathan at the coffee table.

Despite laying the pancakes out on plastic plates, it doesn't stop him from presenting the food in a beautiful presentation. He stacks up three pancakes, drizzles the syrup so that it covers the first one, which creates a puddle around the edge of the plate. Nathan then skilfully scoops out perfect ice-cream balls and places them in the centre.

"This looks amazing." I lick my lips.