From The Shadows (From The Shadows #1) (10 page)

We talked back and forth about this for a while. Nathan was happy on my behalf and I think he was secretly proud of me as well, which pleased me tremendously. I wanted him to be proud of me and I wanted to deserve him. Getting on with my life, and working on getting myself out of the rot I had been in, because of Mike, made me feel like I could actually accomplish that.

Which lead me to the other thing I wanted to talk to him about.

“Nate there is something else I have been thinking about and I hope you will go with me?”

“Of course Nik! You know I’m here for you” He said. “You are my girl remember?!”

That made me smile again and I took a deep breath to gather my courage and then I blurted it out. “I want to get a tattoo..!”

Nathan looked at me like he was trying to figure me out before he finally said “Okay, you know I am all for the tats..” He held his arm out to prove his point. “But can I ask if you have put enough thought into this? I mean if you get one it will be forever” He made a pause before going on “You have to make sure that you really want it, and that it has great meaning to you.”

He did have a point. But because he knew me, better than anyone else, I frowned at him. “Would I really get one just because..?” I asked him a little offended. “And by the way you know how much I hate blood and those damn pointy needles!”

His cheeks got a little color when I asked this, because yes, he did know me that well and asking that had not exactly been necessary. “I just wanted to make sure” he said defending himself and all I could do was smile at him because I knew he was just looking out for me. But really?

“Yea I know” I answered on a breath and gave him an eye roll, which only earned me a tickle and Nathan rolling on top of me to hold me down while taking his revenge on me.

“Did you seriously just roll your eyes at my wish to look out for you?” He said laughing.

After he had tickled the air out of my lungs and I had no more air for laughing, he pulled me back up and asked me to tell him what kind of tattoo I wanted.

I explained to him that I just wanted a simple one saying “
Rising from the shadows”
written down the underside of my left forearm. And then I explained that I wanted it because I felt that getting a tattoo was going to be one more piece of setting me free from my past. That I was realizing; how I had to rise up of it. I did however not admit that a big part of
me rising up
was because he was the one to show me the light. He made me believe in me.

He seemed to be satisfied by my answer though, and we began talking about him getting me scheduled at his tattooist.

Nathan even told me that he thought it was sexy that I wanted one, and he promised to do everything to make me forget about the pain while I got inked. He even said that if it would help at all, he would strip for me and that just made me fall over laughing. God I loved this man.

Chapter 13

Next day I had to get up early and go back to work, and though I hated getting up early, I missed my colleagues and well I missed just working and not just sitting around thinking.

I had finally figured out some of what I wanted out of my life, and I had written mails to some schools to ask when and how I could apply for classes. I had even figured out that I could start taking cheaper classes from students already on their way to getting their Bachelor or Master’s degree in music. Those classes were a part of their
learning to teach
, and the students of these were called Bunnies, which had not stopped me from smiling every time it crossed my mind. It was simply too funny.

My search to find myself was already making me feel less afraid and that morning, to Nathan’s displeasure, I had insisted on walking to work, telling him it wasn’t that far and that I wanted to enjoy the great weather outside.

So I walked.

I kissed him goodbye and wished him a good day and then I put on my iPod and found some music that would power me up. I put on
Drown by Scarlet Sins
and off I went, singing along in my head.

When I arrived at La Scala I was in a great mood, ready to begin the morning shift.

Once a week we had Breakfast Buffets, and I loved to work on those mornings because they we easy and people were always in a good mood. All we had to do was keep the dishes filled on the buffet table, take drink orders and go around taking used dishes and silverware off the tables. Oh yea, and of course we also had to give people their checks when they were ready to leave again.

Around lunch time, when I was on my break, I went to check my phone and saw Nathan had texted me.

Hey bab
e


Just checking in to ask how your day is going and to ask when you are off?

I wrote him back and told him my day was going well and that I was on my break right now. And I also told him I was going to take an extra shift, because I had been off for nearly a week. I seriously needed that money now that I was going to take music classes. And though Nathan would not hear of it I also hoped I could begin to pay a bit of rent, now that he would not hear of me moving into my own place.

Nathan wrote me back that he would pick me up from work when I got off and I knew that was final. He had always been really protective of me and it had not lessened up since I had become his, so I knew the chance of him letting me walk home, when it was getting dark, was not going to happen, which kind of made me love him more. Not because he was overprotective but because he cared enough to be. I knew he would never forgive himself if something happened to me.

I put back my phone after eating a fabulous lunch that the cook had made for me; I then went back to the restaurant to serve the lunch crowd and later the dinner crowd.

To my joy the day seemed to flow very well and it had also gone pretty fast until around 5pm, when Sasha all of the sudden came towards me with a grim expression on her face.

“What’s wrong Sasha?” I asked worried because usually Sasha was the happy smiling kind of person and it took a lot to remove a smile from her face.

“.. I just saw Mike standing outside the window…” She waited a few seconds before continuing. Probably to see how I would react to the news. “.. Do you want me to get some of the guys or maybe call Mr. Leban??”

“Hmm.. No let me see what he wants..” I said tempting my fate, because I felt like I could lay down the world today. In the back of my mind I knew I was being foolhardy though, but I just had to prove to myself that I wasn’t a scared little girl. I didn’t need Nathan or any other man to handle all my battles for me. Or did I?

I began walking towards the front and as I spotted Mike through the glass door my consciousness finally took over. I began wondering if I should turn around and call Nathan before Mike noticed that I was on my way towards him. Too late though, because just when the fight or flight part of my brain finally was about to choose the flight option he turned towards the door and saw me.

“Fuck!” I exclaimed.

What was I going to do now? I had to go out there, that I was sure of, but what the hell should I say? I had to get him out of here. Did he know I got a restraining order against him? How was he going to act?

“Okay.. Nikki breath…you can do this!” I told myself under my breath.

Finally I got my feet to move again and I reached for the door handle, opening the door with what I hoped looked like a calm expression covering my face. As I stood there face to face with Mike though, I came to realize that I still had no idea what I wanted to say to him, so I just stood there staring at him with a big fat question mark on my forehead.

“Hey Nikki” He said in a voice that for a change sounded sober. “Can we talk?”

“I HAVE said what I wanted Mike. What do you REALLY want?” I spat out in a less than friendly voice, but really, what had he expected? He had done vandalism to Nathan’s place and he had struck him and tried to do the same to me.

“I just want to talk” He was trying to look sincere, and to anyone else it might have looked real, but I knew him too well. I really wished that I could not say I did, because it was a sore subject that only reminded me of what I had allowed to happen for too long. All the times he had tried to sweeten me up and then later treated me like crap when he got wasted, all of the times I had gotten too scared of him to fight back and just left my body mentally until he had gotten what he wanted and I no longer felt like there was a threat to my life.

He still evoked the feeling of cold running down my spine, but I was beginning to find my worth and I would be damned if I was ever letting him control me again. I was so done with the feeling of fear.

“Mike I think you should just go.. Before I need to enforce the restraining order I had made” I told him in a tired voice.

His eyes got big and almost popped out of his head. I had been positive that he would know that we had one, but apparently not. Or maybe, just maybe he had been too drunk at the time to remember.

“A restraining order?! But.. I love you Nik.. I just want you back!”

Was he serious? I couldn´t believe what I was hearing. He was so fucking good at acting clueless, but he was not going to deceive me again. Never again!

I began turning towards the door to go back into the restaurant, and back to work.

“Come on Nik.. at least think about talking to me later?” Again with the cluelessness in his voice and that fake hope. I was too mentally tired for this.

“Just leave Mike!”

I went in and closed the door behind me. Sasha was staring at me like she had expected that I would come back in tears, with scratches and like... well not quite sure what she was expecting, but a calm tired looking me was not it.

“Do you want me to take over your shift so you can get home?” She asked

“No, that’s okay, nothing happened that I can’t work through!”

“Okay, the order for your table, number 24, is up!”

Taking a deep breath, and letting go of Mike’s attempt to talk to me, I went to pick up the food ready to serve. And little by little the day turned into what resembled just another day at work. We were busy but not overflowing and our customers were happy.

The clock hit 6 pm and my shifts were finally over for the day. Nathan had arrived five minutes early to pick me up, and was now waiting at the bar, trying not to disturb the last few minutes of my shift. He looked slightly tired and I couldn’t wait to go hug him and just go home. I needed his arms around me too.

As I went to hang up my apron in the break room, Sasha called out for me.

“Hey Nikki, Hold up!”

“What’s up?” I asked

“Well Actually..” She scoffed her feet, looking like she was not quite sure if she should talk to me. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but I just wanted to make sure you were okay!” She said

“Yea I’m fine”

“Okay good..” She said giving me a small smile, which told me she wasn’t quite convinced.

I knew my colleagues would snap up some of what was going on, or at least they would sense that stuff had happened, but I had not expected Sasha to be the one to ask me. She had always seemed like the person not really interested in digging under other people’s surfaces and that had been okay, because I had never been the sharing kind of person either. I had always tried to keep my private life exactly that; private. People didn´t need to know what was hidden behind my smile.

“You know, if you ever need a girlfriend to talk to I am here for you” She offered.  

“Thank you” I answered, surprised that I actually liked the thought of talking to another girl. Maybe even a friend. Someone not standing in the middle of it all, because let’s face it; the one friend I had was Nathan and I wasn’t really sure I could even put him in the friend category anymore. And there was the fact that he was standing in this mess with me.

Sasha put a comforting hand on my shoulder, smiling at me before telling me good night and see you soon.

I gathered my things and turned to go back into the restaurant, to meet Nathan, but when I turned I found him leaning on the door frame, smiling at me with a soft crocked smile that made me feel like he was my home and that he could make the rest of the world disappear for a while. And as always he just had that pull on me, drawing me towards him and into his arms where I rested my head on his shoulder, letting my mind and body completely relax.

He leaned his head on top of mine before whispering into my hair, as he liked to do, “Hey baby. I’ve miss you so much today!”

“You did?” I asked smiling to myself and cuddling into his embrace even more. It was like I couldn’t get him close enough and a part of me knew it was because I needed to be sure he was real. Like only by being in full body contact with him made me believe it. I loved him so much and it had happened so fast. That he had said he loved me back was so hard for me to believe. It could not possibly be true, because I had believed for so long that I didn’t deserve kindness and much less love. But this man, my best friend, he actually did and if I was to believe him he had for a long time.

I didn´t want to question his feelings for me anymore, or mine for him. I wanted to just breathe it in and live it.