The woman next to her looked at me and scowled, probably thinking I was stalking Nell.
I turned my attention back to Nell and ran my tongue along my bottom lip and I could see the shock on the old woman’s face. Nell bit her lips together, trying to stop herself from laughing. Knowing the lift ride was coming to an end, I decided to step things up. I bit my lip, dropped my gaze to her breasts and cocked my eyebrow.
The door opened on the ground floor and the old woman made a quick exit, followed by an amused, but would never admit it, Nell.
“You’re terrible!” She said, spinning around and shaking her head at me.
Laughing triumphantly, I did a bow.
“How are you so successful? You’re a fucking child!”
“I tend to act like an adult at work. Mostly. What’s the point in life if you can’t have a little fun?”
“What’s he done?” Logan asked, walking towards us from the bar. Chloe was on the end of his arm, both smiling like moronic idiots.
“He made an old lady uncomfortable in the lift by letching over me.”
I held my hands up. “She didn’t need to watch.”
Nell pointed her finger. “You didn’t need to do it.” The humour in her eyes gave her away. She wasn’t mad. She was probably annoyed that she didn’t think to do it herself.
Chloe laughed and pulled Nell’s arm, linking it through hers. “Let’s go see this hotel!”
The girls skipped off pointing things out and playing what shit would go where. Logan and I trailed behind bored stiff.
“We could just go to the bar and neither of them would notice,” I said as we waited at the entrance of one of the rooms they could have the reception in.
“Tempting but the second I leave she’ll fucking notice. Women have this…gift for noticing the shit we screw up on and not a lot else.”
“You’re right there. Apparently everything is my fault, even the things that aren’t. Like yesterday for instance, it’s my fault that we only got one Breakfast tea bag each but two Earl Grey. Please tell my how that’s my screw-up?”
“Oh, it is,” he replied.
“What? Whose side are you on?”
Logan tipped his head to the side. “You’ve got a cock, it’ll always be your fault and the sooner you accept that and learn to nod and repress, the happier you’ll be.”
“Well, it’s a good thing Nell and I aren’t in a relationship.”
He raised a light eyebrow. “Of course, that would be ridiculous.”
“Fuck off.”
Laughing, he shrugged one shoulder. “Damon, just make it official, yeah.”
He made it sound so easy. You didn’t just do something with Nell, unless it was purely physical and made your eyes roll back into your head. The girl was complicated personified and I didn’t fully understand why.
“I would. She wouldn’t.”
“She would, she just needs to stop being scared.”
“Hey, if you have any suggestions on how to do that…”
He smiled apologetically.
“That’s what I thought. I don’t know, if she’s going to be with someone I like to think I’m the one she’d let in but whether she will or not anytime soon is anyone’s guess.”
“Sorry, man.”
I shrugged it off but it did bother me, more and more each day.
“If it helps sometimes people need more time than others. Not everyone’s path is perfect and straightforward. Look at me and Chlo, I loved her for years before she started feeling the same way and even then it took her months to be okay with it. For whatever reason Nell just needs time.”
“I just wish I knew the reason. You knew with Chloe, which must’ve made it easier to understand. All I’ve got is a stubborn woman that drives me insane.”
“That’ll never change! It did help; especially since I’d been through the same things as her, but waiting to see if she’d ever come around and be cool with us was excruciating.”
Excruciating. Yes. That hit the nail on the head. For so long I’d been repressing my feelings for her and what it was doing to me, because being with her wasn’t an option. But I could only bury what I felt for so long and now…
“I don’t know.”
I had a feeling eventually things between us would blow up and that’d be it. Even knowing that, I still couldn’t walk away before it turned to shit. I was committed to seeing it through, no matter what the outcome would be. If there was a slither of hope I was staying until I knew otherwise.
“Have faith, man.”
That was all I had. There was a chance, albeit a miniscule one. Maybe I could get through to her, help her overcome or face whatever she was hiding.
“How long do you think they’ll be doing that for?” I asked, moving on from my failure to properly connect with Nell on any real level. They both looked crayon eating special, holding their arms out to the length of what I assumed were tables and other shit that’d be needed in the reception room.
Logan laughed and took out his phone. “A little while longer I hope. How dead do you think I’d be if I posted these online?”
I watched him take a couple photos.