"I've never told anyone this before," he said quietly. He brushed the blond strand of hair out of her gray eyes.
"It's okay," she whispered. "You can tell me."
He looked into her innocent face and wasn't sure if he should feel lucky or guilty. She wore very little makeup and the most inticing thing about her was her lips. Those lip-gloss covered lips. He already knew that those lips had never been kissed properly. Not even by that loser of a boyfriend she had.
"I'm not so sure Natalie," he finally responded. "You might not want to hear this."
"Natalie!" They could hear Aaron calling from a distance.
"I should go see what Aaron needs," Natalie said, gently caressing his cheek. He caught her hand and gently kissed her palm. "I'll talk to you later."
She walked away as he watched. Right before she entered Aaron's dressing room, she turned to look back at him. She smiled slightly.
He ran his hand through his hair and muttered, "What am I doing?"
He knew that she had some sort of power over him. And it wasn't that she tried to seduce him or make him want her. She was an innocent. She didn't care about who he was. He was her friend. She came to him when she and David fought. She vented her frustrations on being Aaron's dresser and unofficial baby-sitter. She giggled over the antics of his fellow bandmates with him. She laughed at his jokes. And man was that attracting to him.
He didn't want to lose her friendship, but he wasn't sure he could stand this platonic stage anymore. He was constanly trying to learn more about her. He knew the names of everyone in the pictures she was alway carrying with her. He knew that her favorite snack was chocolate covered pretzles. He knew that she wanted to live in an old-style Spanish house in Arizona when she finally settled down. He knew that she wrote songs in her journal which was covered with blue satin. He knew that David had cheated on her once, and she failed to see that he was again. He knew that she brought strays she found onto his bus because that gave her a reason to get off of Aaron's bus every now and then. He also knew the reason she had a job on Aaron's bus was because Nick had met her through an old friend, who was attending a fashion design school. Natalie had needed cash badly when her father went to prison and her mother had already died years earlier.
More than that, he knew the exact location of the silver specks in her gray eyes. He smelled her vanilla scent everywhere he went. At night he dreamt about her singing her songs to him. He tried to be around her whenever he could. And he had this burning sensation in his gut whenever she came around.
She wasn't like anyone else. And she was different from the girls he had been seeing the past couple years. Fast girls who liked his name. No, Natalie could care less. She didn't need a famous boyfriend. But if she'd have him...
About a half an hour later, she came back to where they had been talking.
"Tell me," she said. Her gray eyes pleaded for an answer.
"You really want to know?" he asked.
"Yeah, I want to know why you were crying," she said. "Aren't friends supposed to care?"
"I guess so," he said. He took a deep breath. "Every now and then, this all gets to be too much. I don't know. I guess I don't get to vent too often. And you know I love the guys...but I can't tell them what I'm feeling at all times. But there's someone who I know could take all of this pain and frustration away."
"So go get her," Natalie said. "Assuming it's a she."
"Yeah, it's a she," he smiled. "She's unreachable though. Taken."
"Oh," Natalie said. "Well, all's fair in love and war, right?"
"I never wanted to hear something more in my life," he said. Then he leaned down and kissed her gently on the lips. She passionately kissed him back.
"Wait!" she exclaimed. She pulled completely away from him. There were tears in her beautiful eyes. "I can't do this." With that she turned around and ran.
He just watched. She ran so quickly. Suddenly AJ came up and said, "Time to go on."
"Alright," he said quietly. He went to where the rest of the crew was praying. He sent up his own private prayer that Natalie would be okay.
He went through the motions during the concert. He tried to give the audience his all, but he couldn't concentrate. He kept picturing Natalie's gray eyes filling with tears as she tore away from him.
"You alright?" Nick asked after the show.
"Yeah, I guess," he said. Natalie was coming down the corridor towards them. She saw him and stopped. She abruptly turned and ran down the hall.
"What was that all about?" Nick asked.
"Maybe she hates one of us," he responded.
"Man, what'd I do now?" Nick whined.
"It wasn't you Kaos," he answered.
Later, at the hotel, he was sitting on Nick's balcony. Nick was inside playing Kid Nicky. There was a soft knock on the door, and somebody softly asked Nick a question.
"He's out on the balcony," Nick answered.
"Really?" Natalie asked.
"Go ahead and check," Nick said.
Natalie came onto the balcony. The wind caused her blond hair to fly into her eyes. He looked up as she neared him. His muscles all tensed from the nervousness he felt.
"About that kiss-" he started to say.
But Natalie said, "Let me tell you a story."
"Okay," he said slowly.
"All my life I've craved stability. My life would make "Dawson's Creek" look lame. I thought I had finally found that stability with David," Natalie said, the tears already welling into her eyes. "And I guess David feels like he needs stability too. He asked me to marry him."
"Wow," he said. "Congratulations, I guess."
Natalie looked into his eyes, "Yeah, but I told him I had to think abot it. When I said it, I didn't know why I wanted time to decide. But now I've decided."
"I hope you're very happy as a married woman," he said.
"Shut up and listen," Natalie said. "I can't do it!"
"What?" he asked.
"I can't marry David," Natalie said.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because it came to me why I asked David to wait," Natalie said. "And I couldn't believe that for the past four months I've completely ignored the feelings that have been growing inside of me."
"What are you saying Nat?" he asked.
"I love you Brian," Natalie said.
Brian looked up and said, "I love you too Natalie."
She bent down and gently kissed his lips. They sealed an unspoken promise. A promise to give the other everything they ever needed.
Natalie looked into Brian's beautiful eyes and though that she was the blindest person in the world, to let the world's most perfect man in the world fall in love with her and not even realize that she was in love with him too.
E-mail the author, Hayden
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