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Claire didn’t seem to be paying much attention to him, though, as she continued, “I mean, I eventually want kids, maybe. But who says when? What’s it to him, anyway? It’s not like we’re married!”

  “Claire?”

  Claire was still forking her pancake, unaware Nate had called her name. He said it again louder, “Claire.”

  She startled herself out of her daze and looked at him.

  “I’m not going to get involved, but if I can say this. You are twenty-one years old, Claire. You have your whole life ahead of you to do what you want.” He grabbed her hand that held her fork. “If you want to have kids, have kids, if you want to travel, travel. Don’t let Dave, your parents, me, or anyone else tell you otherwise. If you don’t do the things you want to do now, you’ll wake up one day and regret it. Life’s not about living in regret.”

  Would he regret these moments with her? Knowing he might never get to be with her again. Knowing that he could potentially spend his life chasing someone who didn’t want him.

  “You’re right.”

  “I’m always right,” he said, winking at her. He let her hand go. “Now eat some of your food before it turns into mush.”

  She smiled a much better smile, one that bought the confidence back into her, and took a bite of her pancake.

  He was so close to telling her how he felt, telling her how much he cared for her. But now wasn’t the time. She needed to sort herself out, figure out what she wanted before he could tell her.

  “So what are your plans for the day?” he asked.

  “Nothing at all. Dave left my keys in his letterbox before he left for the airport. So I’m free if you want to do something?”

  “I may just have something in mind,” he said, grinning.

  ***

  “Thanks so much, Liam,” Nate said, leaning against the bar.

  “No worries, mate, anytime,” Liam responded while adjusting the settings on the camera.

  Liam worked as a photographer at a studio that specialized in olden photos, like the ones where people dress up in olden day costumes and take pictures. He’d always told Nate if he wanted a session to come down free of charge, but it had never really interested Nate until now.

  “You boys better be ready for me!” Claire called out from the change room.

  Nate could only imagine what she looked like in the costume Liam had chosen for her. They had decided to go with the wild, wild west theme, mainly because Nate got to hold pretend guns.

  Yeah, yeah, you can’t take the boy out of the man.

  Nate was looking at Liam when he saw him straighten, his mouth opening as he stared past Nate.

  Nate turned quickly to see what had caught Liam’s eye, and there, standing there with the most self-assured look on her face, dressed head to toe in probably the most sexy outfit he’d ever seen, was Claire. “Ho-ly shit.”

  “You took the words right out of my mouth,” Liam said behind him.

  Claire’s smile widened, fully aware of what she looked like and the effect she had on them, especially Nate.

  “Ya’ll gonna stand there all day or are we gonna take some pictures?” she said in her best southern accident.

  Nate couldn’t help but take a long hard look up and down her body. The black and red corset was tight around her waist and chest, exposing her soft breasts. The slit in her skirt came up to her hips, fully exposing her long slender leg. A matching garter on her thigh made it even that much more tantalizing.

  Claire shook her head and pushed him aside to walk in front of the camera.

  Thankfully, Nate was holding a fake gun that hid his full blown boner, one that was unlikely to go away.

  “Ok so just jump up onto the bar and bend your knee up, leaving the other one hanging down the bar,” Liam instructed.

  Nate watched as she followed his direction. The moment she hitched her knee up all he could think about was how much he wanted to fuck her right there and then.

  He readjusted the tightening fabric around his dick.

  Yeah it’s definitely not going away.

  Half an hour and three costume changes later, they had finished their photo shoot. Nate had loved every moment of it. They’d laughed together as they struck their poses, trying to be as serious and sexy as possible, like Claire even had to try.

  “Thanks, Liam, I owe you!” Claire said, kissing him on the cheek.

  “It was my pleasure. I’ve been hassling Nate for months to come in for a shoot,” Liam responded, handing them a copy of the pictures on CD.

  “Well, I’m glad he chose me to come with him. And seriously, if there is anything I can do for you-”

  “Well, I was thinking-”

  “Hell no!” Nate interrupted, pulling Claire away.

  Liam shot his arms up innocently. “That’s not what I was thinking, so settle down. No need to get all Mike Tyson on me. I was actually going to ask if she had any friends that she could set me up with.”

  Claire laughed and shrugged Nate’s hand off her. “Yeah, I think I might just have someone in mind. We were planning on going out tomorrow night if you guys wanted to meet us?” she asked, looking between Liam and Nate.

  “Yeah, we’d love to,” Liam answered for them.

  Nate stared at him and his ridiculous lopsided grin. Whatever Liam was playing at, he didn’t like it.

  “Well, what do you say, Nate? You’ll come out and meet me and the girls?”

  Nate pulled himself from his stare-off with Liam. “Yeah, of course I will,” he said looking down at her.

  “Great! It’s settled then! This will be so much fun!” she said excitedly, grabbing Nate’s hand and walking him to the door. “See you later, Liam.”

  “Bye guys,” Liam chuckled behind them as they left the building to go out onto the street.

  “What’s all that about?” Claire asked nudging him in ribs.

  “Nothing,” Nate muttered.

  Claire jumped in front of him causing him to stop walking and look down at her.

  “It wasn’t nothing. Tell me, Nate.”

  He rubbed his hand over his head. Was he that easy to read? “I dunno, Claire. Do you really have a friend or is it you who wants to go out with him?”

  Claire looked at him in disbelief. “You’re kidding, right?” When Nate didn’t answer she continued, “I really do have a friend to set him up with, and the only reason why I invited him was because I thought it would be great for all of your friends to meet mine. I would never go for any of your mates anyway.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  Good. It was hard enough contending with Dave, let alone his own mates.

  They both smiled at each other. Claire turned and walked back towards her car, speaking excitedly. “Now I just have to pick out what to wear!”

  “I thought you said you weren’t interested in anyone? Why would you need to worry about what you’re wearing if you don’t want to impress them?”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t want to impress you,” she said, winking up at him.

  “I think you’ve already accomplished that today. Many, many times.”

  She moved her eyes to his pants. “Yeah, I think we’ve established that.”

  “Thanks for stating the obvious.” He jokingly covered his crotch with his hand. “Like you can blame me. I’m only human.”

  “Oh, but a very hot and horny human at that.”

  He grabbed her hand and spun her quickly into him. “Careful now. Don’t tempt me.”

  “I’m only human,” she whispered, licking her lips.

  Every side of Claire he loved craved for more. Unfortunately, he didn’t get to see her playful, flirty side often. He had no idea what that meant. He hadn’t asked Claire what her relationship status was with Dave and if they were even still together.

  Regardless he had made a promise that he wouldn’t try anything on her, not until she begged him to, and he would do everything in his power to keep his promise.

  **
*

  Claire rubbed her stomach. “That was so good!”

  Nate laughed at her expression. Leaning forward, he wiped the spilt sauce on her chin. “I’m glad you enjoyed it. Your face certainly says you did.”

  “Hey!” Claire said, playfully hitting Nate’s arm.

  After their photo shoot Nate had spent the afternoon at the beach with Claire watching and training her surfing. She was definitely getting good, better than he had expected her to be at this stage. But she was too confident sometimes. She took on bigger waves than he liked, pushing herself beyond her limit.

  When she’d finally had enough and was exhausted after nearly three hours of surfing, they went back to Nate’s and ordered in. Claire was too drained to even drive and since Nate couldn’t drive, either, they had pizza delivered.

  “How come you never told me about this place before?” Claire asked, making herself comfortable on the daybed.

  His apartment block had its own rooftop terrace with a barbeque, bar area, and daybed.

  “I’d forgotten about it until you mentioned how good a balcony would be in my apartment. Then I remembered this place.”

  “You don’t come up here often?”

  “I used to, but not lately.”

  Claire looked back at him, confused.

  “The staircase to the roof isn’t exactly something I desired to climb after breaking my leg.”

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot about that for a minute. How’s it all going, anyway?”

  “Good, pretty much back to normal. Except of course not being able to drive. That sucks.”

  “Not when you have me to drive you around everywhere,” Claire replied, grinning.

  “True.”

  Nate picked up the pizza box and put it on the side bench. “Speaking of which, what do you want to do now?”

  Claire sighed. “Can we stay here? I’m spent, and I don’t really feel like driving home. It’s such a nice night out. Let’s stay here, talk a bit and see how we go.”

  It was a nice night out. The sky was clear and the cool breeze cooled them in the humidity.

  “Fine. But what happens if it rains?”

  “Then we’ll get wet and dry ourselves off. It’s not a big deal.” Claire grabbed his arm and pulled him to lie down next to her. “Come on! You’ll be fine. I’ll protect you.”

  Nate coughed. “I doubt that,” he said, giving in and making himself comfortable.

  He looked up at the stars, wondering to himself why he’d never done this before. Admittedly, the last time he’d been up here, he was drunk Fortunately, only one other resident on his floor had access to the rooftop and they were an elderly couple who barely left their apartment, let alone go to the rooftop. Body corporate had regular cleaners that would make sure the area was kept in good condition so he never had to worry about it.

  Apart from his mates, Claire was the first woman he’d ever let see the rooftop terrace. Then again, he’d never thought he would ever want a girl to be up here. How things had changed.

  “So, what did you want to talk about?”

  Claire stretched out her body beside him and yawned. “Anything. Anything at all.”

  ***

  Claire’s eyes slowly opened, the sound of a buzzing ringtone in her head.

  What the…?

  The annoying ringing continued. Her eyes squinted in the morning sun. She turned her body towards the sound, groaning. Nate was lying next to her, sleeping soundly, without a shirt.

  Now that’s something to wake up to in the morning.

  The ringing, however, was not something good to wake up to. She searched for the sound and found it coming from Nate’s phone in his pocket.

  She carefully placed her hand inside his front jeans pocket to retrieve the phone. Her movements were slow and calculated. She didn’t want to wake Nate. But just as she wrapped her hand around his phone, Nate’s hand grabbed her wrist with speed.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Nate asked in a raspy voice.

  “I…uh-”

  Thankfully the ringing from Nate’s phone interrupted her explanation. She quickly manoeuvred her hand to release his grip, grabbing the phone from his pocket and handing it to him. “Either answer it or turn it off,” she demanded.

  Nate grabbed the phone from her hand and held it to his ear. “Hello.”

  Nate’s body instantly tensed at the sound of the other voice on the phone. Then he leapt up off the bed and picked his shirt of the ground. He held the phone to his ear, quickly talking, “Yeah, sorry, I’m up on the rooftop. No, I’ll come to you. Okay, give me two seconds. Bye.”

  He hung up, putting the phone back into his pocket and throwing on his shirt faster than she’d ever seen him.

  Claire stared at him in bewilderment.

  He started for the door then stopped abruptly and turned towards her. He looked at her in deep thought.

  “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” she asked.

  “That was my sister. She is standing outside my apartment with my mum…”

  “And…”

  “And you’re here. If they see you…”

  Oh, so this is how it was going to be.

  Claire vented, “You don’t want them to see me because you’re embarrassed by me or something?”

  “No! No, not at all!” Nate replied shaking his head. “It’s just, well…”

  “Well…”

  She watched him take in a breath that may have just drained him of any air left in his lungs. When he let the breath out his mouth opened to speak, then quickly closed. His head hung low. “You’ll be the first.”

  “The first…”

  His head was still bowed as his eyes met hers. “You’ll be the first girl I’ve ever introduced to them.”

  “Oh.”

  He really must be a ladies’ man.

  “Oh,” he copied.

  “If you don’t want me to meet them, it’s fine, Nate, I don’t have to.”

  “No, it’s not that. I want you to meet them, I really do. I just don’t know if you want to meet them.”

  Claire thought about that for a moment. Would they not like her? Or were they not very nice people? Claire recalled their previous conversations about Nate’s sister and mum, no alarm bells. She didn’t recall ever being told they weren’t nice people. In fact she was pretty sure he had a good relationship with them. Then why wouldn’t she want to meet them…

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Because…They are going to think that something is going on between us. You’re the first girl they have ever met, and you just slept the night with me on the rooftop.”

  But there was something going on between them, or there wasn’t? Was there? No, there wasn’t. Maybe?

  “I’ll just explain to them that you’re my friend, we hang out sometimes, you teach me how to surf, etcetera.”

  She jumped off the bed, straightening her crumbled blue beach dress.

  “Are you sure?” Nate said, looking at her with a frown.

  Claire walked over to him and smiled. “I’m positive.” She clutched his bicep in her hands. “Let’s go meet your family. I’ve always been interested in meeting the person that created you.”

  “Uh, gross.”

  “Not like that! You and your dirty mind, Nate Williams!”

  “Now you sound exactly like my mother.”

  Claire playfully slapped his arm as they walked towards the exit.

  He grinned. “Bed hair really suits you.”

  Suddenly she remembered she was about to meet his mum and sister and she looked like she’d just gotten out of bed…well, actually, she had done just that!

  Crap!

  She froze, quickly letting Nate’s arm go and brushing her hair with her fingers.

  “You look fine, I was only joking,” Nate reassured her.

  She pulled her hair up into a loose, messy bun and prayed she looked at least half decent.

  They both walked down the stairwell in silence
.

  Nate looked at her and smiled. Either he was just as nervous or he thought the fact Claire was nervous was entertaining. She didn’t have time to analyse it because within a couple of seconds he’d opened the door and they were standing face to face with Nate’s mum and sister.

  For what felt like an eternity they all stood there staring at each other.

  “Oh!” Nate’s sister spoke first, the biggest grin spreading across her face. “Did we interrupt something?” She giggled.

  “Mum,” he said then looked at his sister and frowned. “Emily. This is Claire, a good friend of mine.”

  “Well this is a surprise,” Nate’s mum said excitedly. “I’m Debbie, Nate’s mum.” She held her hand out. Claire took it and shook it gently.

  “Friend, hey?” Emily questioned, still smiling at the situation. “Nice to meet you Claire, friend of Nate’s.”

  “Will you be joining us for breakfast?” Debbie asked.

  “Well-”

  “I’d love to,” Claire interrupted, Nate smiling at his mum.

  Debbie was nothing like what Claire had expected. If you lined a bunch of women up in a row and had to guess which one was Nate’s mum you wouldn’t have guessed in a million years it was Debbie.

  She was a lot shorter than Nate, in fact she was shorter than Claire. His height must have come from his dad because Emily was also tall.

  Claire thought judging by Nate and his dad’s surfing stories that they would resemble a surf-y kind of family, dressed in beach clothes and skin tanned from the sun. But Debbie was dressed in casual, cotemporary clothing, knee length white cotton pants and a sleeved red shirt. Her skin was fair and her brown hair was cut into a bob just below her ear. She looked normal. If normal was the right word? Okay, maybe she just looked normal compared to Nate standing next her. He was nearly twice her size, tanned skin with his tattoos out for show.

  Emily looked similar in age to Claire and was dressed in a high-waisted black skirt with a loose teal-coloured top. She topped it off with matching handbag and pumps. Claire assumed they were the three hundred dollar ones she’d been eyeing off months ago.

  This girl knew her fashion all right.

  Strangely enough, Claire’s own fashion sense had changed over the past few months. She used to be very much into fashion and went with the trends easily. She rarely went anywhere without makeup, heels, and lip-gloss. Yet here she was with Nate wearing a casual dress, no make-up, no heels, and definitely no lip-gloss.