Chapter 71

Olivia

After a night spent tossing and turning, the sun finally rose. I hardly slept at all the night before, as my mind was too addled by the memories of what had happened yesterday.

My kiss with Nathan still burned heavily on my lips. What I saw after that, when I shouldn’t have been spying, was now burned into my memory.

With a sigh, I reluctantly got out of bed. I knew that I would have to face Nathan eventually; we would need to talk about the kiss, at the very least. It was also likely that he heard me last night as I rushed away from his room, but I was prepared to at least lie about that.

I didn’t particularly want him knowing that I stood there, peeking through the crack in his door, and watched like a pervert while he had an intimate moment by himself.

My footsteps echoed through the quiet house as I groggily descended the stairs. The morning light filtered in through the windows, casting a soft glow over the little villa.

As I rounded the corner to the kitchen, a peculiar sight caught my eye — Nathan was hunched over by the washing machine, haphazardly shoving his sheets in. Confusion furrowed my brow as I approached him.

“What are you doing, Nathan?” I asked, my voice still hoarse from sleep.

We only washed our sheets once a week, in the same load in order to save on water. It wasn’t the day of the week that we washed them.

As I spoke, Nathan jumped slightly and finished shoving his sheets into the washing machine, even more quickly this time, as though he wanted to get them in there before I could see them.

When he finally turned to face me, his cheeks were flushed a deep crimson red with embarrassment.

Nathan straightened up quickly, a nervous smile appearing on his face. “Oh, uh, I'm just washing my sheets,” he stammered, avoiding my gaze.

“But we wash our sheets on Wednesdays,” I replied, puzzled by his strange behavior.

“I know, I know,” he said hurriedly. He slammed the washing machine door shut and stood, poking at the buttons for a moment until the machine began to fill with soapy water. “I just got really hot last night, and, well... they got sweaty.”

He turned and finally looked at me, his blue-green gaze meeting my eyes. That unspoken tension between us felt even more palpable now, and for a moment I parted my lips as the desire to finally talk about our forbidden kiss was begging to come out.

But a flush crept up my own face as my mind quickly replayed the events of the previous night, and I quickly closed my mouth.

I felt as though I could see Nathan in his bed now as I looked at him, the intimate moment I had wrongfully witnessed still fresh in my memory and replaying like a broken record. My heart raced, and I could feel my cheeks burning.

As I stood there, the most likely possibility sprang into my mind: he had made a mess in his sheets overnight. Sweaty sheets could be left in the hamper and replaced with clean ones, but if it was the other option…

No wonder he would want to get them clean as soon as possible.

There was a long, uncomfortable silence between us that hung so heavily in the room that I was sure it would eventually fall down and crush me. It seemed as though both of us had a mutual, unspoken understanding about what really happened.

“R-Right,” I stammered, my voice barely above a whisper. “Sorry to hear that. It was a little warm in the house last night, I guess.”

For a little while longer, we stood there in an awkward silence, unable to meet each other's gaze.

The unspoken tension hung heavily in the air, a palpable reminder of the forbidden kiss we had shared. We both knew what had happened, and each carried our own private feelings about it.

Once more, I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to get it over with and talk about the kiss now, or just let it peter out until there was no need to talk about it at all.

It seemed, however, that my body and my mind made the decision for me before I could consciously pick an option.

Breaking the silence, I shifted my attention to the mundane task of making coffee.

“Ahem… Coffee?” I asked, clearing my throat as I brushed past Nathan. “I’ll make it this morning.”

“Uh, sure,” he replied, his voice sounding just as shaky as mine.

I needed something to distract myself, to regain a semblance of normalcy. I ground up the coffee beans, then dumped them into the machine and clicked it on. The sound of the coffee machine beginning its work filled the uncomfortable silence, and I finally felt as though I could breathe.

However, as I reached for the creamer in the fridge, my heart sank. It was empty, and a quick glance around revealed that our grocery supplies were alarmingly low.

“Nathan, we're almost out of groceries,” I said, my voice tinged with concern.

“Really?” Nathan asked, walking over to peer into the fridge. Our bodies, although not touching, were too close as he stood beside me. I sidestepped away, needing a little bit of distance between us in order to rationalize the strange events of yesterday.

“When was the last time you went shopping?” I asked.

He scratched his head, a sheepish expression on his face. “Probably last week. I guess we should go, huh?”

I nodded. “I can at least run out and grab us a couple of things for now.”

Nathan, however, shook his head. “No,” he replied, shutting the fridge and walking away. “We’ll go together.”

I hated to admit it, but the thought of being alone in the car with Nathan both on the way to the grocery store and on the way home made me feel sick to my stomach.

I was hoping to be around him as little as possible today, in order to move on from our taboo kiss and the intimate moment that I witnessed in his bed.

“I really don’t mind going alone—” I began, but Nathan surprisingly chuckled and shook his head again, interrupting.

“It’s fine, Olivia. It’s better to go together, so we can make sure that we have everything we need.”

Before I could even open my mouth to respond, he added, “Actually, why don't you get dressed first? I have a plan.”

I frowned, a mix of confusion and curiosity swirling within me. “Okay… But I need to eat something first before we go anywhere. The morning sickness is worse on an empty stomach.”

Nathan shook his head gently, a determined look in his eyes. “Trust me, Olivia. I already have a plan. Just get dressed.”

“Um… Alright,” I replied, finally relenting. It seemed as though Nathan had made up his mind about something, and there was no arguing against it.

Reluctantly, I went to my room to get dressed, my mind swirling with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension. What did Nathan have in mind?

And more importantly, how were we going to address the elephant in the room — the stolen kiss that lingered between us?