Let Me Love You Again
Chapter 34

Maya

I looked up and froze, losing myself in the blue eyes of the man I had left sleeping in my bed.

I looked up and opened my mouth. I took a step back, but I was caught.

Mrs. Dare looked at me confused and then looked at the bag I had attached to the stroller.

“Maya?” she repeated, confused.

“Um, I…” I began to say, thinking of a plausible excuse.

“What are you doing here?”

I looked around like I could find the right excuse.

“Have you seen Nate?” continued Mrs. Dare “I’m trying to get the key from the concierge but this gruff continues to say that Nate has not returned home for a week”.

“I’m not a gruff lady, it’s the truth. Mr. Dare hasn’t returned to the complex in a week, I still have all his mail here”.

“And you didn’t call anyone? You didn’t see a man coming back for a week and you didn’t call the emergency contacts?!” almost shouted Mrs. Dare.

I felt so guilty. Nate had been missing for over a week to take care of me, he was off the grid, and now he was making his mother worry because he took my illness.

“Mr. Dare left and said he would not come by for a few days and ask me to collect his mail”.

“Obviously something happened since he won’t answer my phone calls and you won’t give me the keys to get into his apartment!” blurred Mrs. Dare.

“But he’s not home! I can’t give the keys to anyone!” the man replied.

“I’m not anyone, I’m his mother!” Mrs. Dare was upset.

Axel, with her tone of voice, jumped and his eyes filled with tears, his lower l*p trembled as he tried to hold back the tears, which he could not do because he burst into a desperate cry stretching his arms towards me.

I immediately untied him and picked him up, cradling him lovingly as Axel cried out in despair and grabbed my neck.

“Oh no,” Mrs. Dare said, hearing Axel’s desperate cry.

I found her next to me as Axel sank his face into the recess of my neck and clung fiercely to me. Mrs. Dare began to caress him on the head while I was rocking while I tried to find the calm that seemed lost.

“No, don’t cry, you make me cry too,” said Mrs. Dare, with her trembling voice, “I’m just worried about my baby,” she continued with her shiny eyes.

My heart tightened as Axel continued to cry, “I think it’s my fault,” I said with a string of my voice.

Mrs. Dare looked at me with clear eyes.

“I caught a fever and I was home alone. Nate came to keep me company and take care of me and got a fever after me. I told him to call you but he sleeps all day, I didn’t think you might be worried. Truth is, I didn’t think of anything but him with the fever and Axel and everything. I didn’t think you’d worry so much, I’m very sorry I didn’t want to create all these problems,” I said in one breath.

Mrs. Dare looked me straight in the eye without letting any emotion shine through “Where is he?” she simply asked.

“At my place,” I said, I was sorry.

“Why did Nate come to you?” he asked inquisitively.

I looked up and I felt a flash of heat in me. My face was definitely red. I couldn’t tell her that Nate and I were getting together to f**k.

Mrs. Dare looked at me carefully for a few minutes then smiled at me.

“Just tell me how he is,” she asked softly.

“He sleeps…?”

“No doubt about it, Nate is such a sleeper,” she said as Axel raised his head and looked at Mrs. Dare with red eyes.

Immediately, Axel extended his arms to her, claiming her attention. Mrs. Dare immediately took him in her arms and cuddled him with love.

“I don’t want to know the details, not if you’re not ready to talk about it. I can just say I’m happy,” she said as she cradled Axel and made him giggle.

“Please don’t say anything to Jess,” I said in an almost imploring voice.

“For the moment we leave Jess in the dark but you can’t hope that she doesn’t understand anything, you know how she is and you know what kind of tornado will trigger if she finds out on her own,” she said as she passed Axel over.

I picked him up and put him back in the stroller, strapping him tight, “I’m aware of that, but I want to be the one to tell her, I know she’s going to unleash all her wrath on me,” I said as honestly as I could.

“I think she’d be madder at Nate than you,” Mrs. Dare said as he reached out to caress Axel’s cheek, “Can you tell him to call me? I am worried”.

I nodded and Mrs. Dare sighed and then leaned over and hugged me gently before returning from where she had come.

I sighed as I frowned, doubtful. I didn’t know what to think. It seemed like everyone expected something from me and Nate except the two of us. I was very confused.

********

When I got back into the apartment, I found Nate on the couch, and as soon as he heard me come in, he got up and met me, and then he took the bags and took them to the kitchen.

Axel was blissfully asleep in the stroller, so I untied him and took him to his room, gently resting him in his cot and covering him. I turned on the baby monitor and went back to the kitchen, where Nate was fixing the groceries.

“How are you feeling?” I asked as I began to help him sort out all the groceries.

“I can run a marathon,” he said in a hoarse voice because of the phlegm.

“At least you don’t have a fever anymore,” I answered, thinking.

We kept tidying up the kitchen as if it were something we did every day as if it were every day for me and for him, and in a way, I felt like it.

I’d always felt absolute peace and quiet with Nate, even though everything inside me was a tornado in his presence. I felt less alone and strangely, I felt loved, and even though I didn’t know for sure that was what Nate felt for me, it was real to me. The more days went by, the more I realized that feeling was strong, too strong, stronger than anything I’d ever felt for any Brad. It was like everything I ever felt for Brad was a crumb compared to what I felt for Nate.

I sighed as I opened the fridge to get something to cook. I had butterflies fluttering in my stomach and I felt strangely happier than usual. I didn’t care what was around me so much that I didn’t realize that Nate was approaching me and he surrounded my pelvis with his arms, he put his head on my shoulder and I relaxed against him.

“You’re quieter than usual,” he said in a whisper.

His voice gave me chills as well as his touch.

“I was thinking,” I said in all sincerity.

I felt Nate stiffening behind me and then he was just whining, putting his hand under my shirt and running his fingers over my stomach.

“To what exactly?” he asked with false calm.

“Your mother ambushed me outside your house, you know?” I asked and turned my head imperceptibly so I could look at his profile.

For a moment Nate said nothing then sighed, “She called me and told me,” he finally admitted.

I didn’t answer, I stood still while Nate grabbed me by the h**s and turned me around, and then lifted me up and rested on the kitchen counter, slipped between my legs, and put his hands on the sides of my body, looking me straight in the eyes. I got lost in his crystal blue eyes.

“Okay, I admit, she’s been giving me calls this morning, and then she threatened to come and find me at home, and I let her do it because I knew you were there,” he said in one breath.

I leaned my head to the side and watched him, even though his voice was taut, his gaze did not admit any sorrow. A*****e.

“Did you throw me into a trap?” I said in a cold voice.

Nate opened his eyes for a moment, “Not quite so,” he then said.

“So you didn’t make me meet your mother at your house?”

“Well yes but…”

“Why?” I asked, crossing my arms across my chest and lifting my chin. I crossed my legs over each other and looked at him seriously.

“You know you’re really sexy like that?” he winked instead.

“Don’t change argument, Dare” I answered by tapping my fingers on the arm “Answer”

Nate sighed and passed a hand through his hair, that way he messed them up giving them a confused and sexy look to die for.

Focus Sheppar. Focus.

“Because…” he looked around for a moment, “So you couldn’t back down,” he finally admitted.

“From what, your grace?”

“From me, from us”

“From us?” I asked, pretending to be confused.

I wanted him to say it, I wanted him to say openly that he really wanted me without games or subterfuge. I wanted him to tell me that he only wanted me and that the others didn’t exist like it was for me.

Nate put his hand over his face and then back in his hair, uncomfortable. I watched him seriously, trying to repress the impulse that wanted to throw at him.

He began to walk frantically from side to side as he began to babble something I couldn’t understand, gibberish.

“I’m not good at this, I don’t understand anything and I know that I’m an a*****e and I play games, but nobody has ever complained, but now it’s different and I don’t understand anymore, I’m not good,” he began to say.

I frowned, confused, as I followed him from side to side with my eyes. Nate was gesturing and he was passing his hands through his hair frantically, continuing to mumble something that was incomprehensible to me.

Then suddenly he froze in the middle of the room, turned to me, and looked at me for a moment that felt like an eternity. Before he comes to me, grab my face and k**s me like there’s no tomorrow. I was stuck for a moment, with his hands on my cheeks, then I let go and put my hands on his biceps, opening my lips and colliding my tongue with his.

I didn’t need anything but him.