Forest Edwards is always running. Either literally, because of his dog, Fletch; running to escape his tiring work life; or, well, running away from the possibilities of love.
But when Natalie Dayholt, together with her dog, Bailey, waltzed into his...
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HIS EYES WIDENED as Haley pushed Natalie into his room, and Forest quickly rushed forward to steady her when she stumbled in.
It felt a little awkward holding Natalie in his arms — especially with Margaret and Haley watching by the side. But that was nothing compared to when Haley decided to say: "oh, Natalie fell for Forest!" Before grinning at Margaret. "And Forest caught her!"
He frowned as the two women giggled, before they mentioned something about getting a drink. They disappeared down the stairs, and judging by the looks they had on their faces, he knew that they weren't about to come back to find him in his room anytime soon.
He was pretty sure that they had left him with Natalie just so that the both of them could, well, talk.
Forest dropped his grip on her arms quickly, wincing as a sharp pain run through his arm. He wasn't actually supposed to take the cast out until about a week or two later, but he didn't really care. Trying to ignore the pain in his arm, he stood back with a shy smile. "You know, you should really be more careful."
"Yeah, Haley pushed me. But thank you." She mumbled, staring at her feet, as though they were the most interesting thing in the world. Then she glanced up, frowning when she looked at him, "sorry, did you hurt your arm again?"
Forest smiled gently. "No." He wasn't sure what else he could say right now, so he just stood at the side, blatantly staring at her. Natalie, too, stood quietly in the corner as she stared at Fletch, and from the way she shifted her weight from one foot to another, he could tell that she was nervous, possibly trying her best to avoid any form of eye contact with him.
Forest briefly wondered if it was because she felt a little awkward. Either from him catching her, or about her saying that she wanted to marry him for his cookies.
And he guessed it was the latter. Pushing himself off of the wall of his room, he walked over closer to where she stood. "You know, Natalie," he began slowly, "you don't have to feel so awkward about whatever you said, to the point that you can't even look at me."
She finally tore her gaze away from the dog, meeting his eyes as she blinked furiously. "What do you mean? I'm so not awkward." Natalie chuckled nervously, clearing her throat as he looked amusedly at her.
Then the corner of his lips quirked up a little into a knowing smile, "you're not awkward. Really?"
"Yeah, of course." Natalie replied easily, walking to his bed as she sat down on it. "As you can see, I'm uh, so unaffected that I can even, uh, explore your room." She looked around before giving a nod. "Yeah, nice walls."
He chuckled at the absurdity of it all. Natalie explored and complimented the walls of his room.
"Alright." Forest smirked, as he sat down beside her. "Since you're so...unaffected, then I presume we could talk about it?"
