50 Ways To Spend Your Christmas, Stuck With an Annoyingly Hot Emo Delinquent [20]

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That morning, Nathan decided to go to his house again. I offered to come along but he shook his head no and told me that the last thing he wanted was for me to be involved in any fight that could suddenly erupt between him and his parents.

Which was understandable...since the last time I went to his parents' house, I never experienced drama like that before. And god, I was so sorry towards the crystal kitties..

Mom went to this spa treatment called fire cupping. Yuyu Hiroyuki, Nathan's eccentric aunt turned out to be very pretty with her blond hair and hazel eyes. Her skin was tan and she wore a white uniform with the logo of 'Dazzled' on the collar of her shirt.

She kindly offered me the same treatment my mom was taking, but I politely refuse. Partially because I didn't think I need a spa treatment...

Okay that was a lie. I would love to be pampered once in a while but hell, I didn't even know what fire cupping was and it sounded intimidating enough. I would like to stay until my mom was done but she said to go sight-seeing.

Which was ridiculous because I had no idea how to go sight-seeing without her. Back in UK, the first time I had my outing to go around town was one hell of an experience. I got lost. At least 15 times since my 'tour guide' (which happened to be Scott) read the map backwards.

And when he handed it to me I couldn't even understand what the map was trying to say.

"Screw the map," I remembered Scott saying lazily. "Let's go get something to eat!"

"What the hell are you talking about?! We're on top of a damn roof!"

"And whose bright idea was that?" Scott snapped and I glared at him. "Yours!" I barked angrily. "You thought it would be such a bright idea to get to a high place so you could see where the museum was!"

"Your point being?"

In the end we hailed a cab and I paid for it since the reason why Scott didn't want to take a cab in the first place was because he had no money but decided to keep quiet about it.

Ever since then I never dared to go sightseeing with anyone with bad sense of direction ever again.

18) When in doubt, get lunch.

So it wasn't that far of a walk until I could find a decent restaurant that doesn't look as if I had to pay a liver for it. It was tiny, not that crowded but as soon as my mocha latte came I never wanted to leave. God, to think I had such good luck that day.

It was almost suspicious.

"What's that? Your 6th refill?" a deep voice said from behind me and I turned around, smiling politely. "Hi," I said. "And shut up, I've only had 3 of these," I said, rolling my eyes. He pulled the seat across from me and looked at me questioningly.

I shrugged and said, "Sure."

He sat down and ordered another mocha latte for me and a hot chocolate for him. "Not a fan of caffeine," he said, shooting me a sheepish grin. He had gray eyes and messy light brown hair. Like Nathan, he had his lips pierced.

I made a mental note to check on him later.

"I'm Quinton Bridgers," he said with a polite smile. I returned the smile and answered, "Pleased to meet you. I'm Charlotte. Charlotte Cassity."

So that was how Quinton Bridgers and I had lunch together, talked about a lot of things and ordered more food. By the end of our lunch we were both bloated beyond our comphrension. Despite the slight intimidating appearance he had, I was pretty much comfortable with him the entire time.

Maybe it was because of Nathan.

A sudden depressing thought struck me. God, I had been judgmental towards people all these time haven't I?

* * *

His fingers lightly touched the strings of the violin, plucking it. All of the instruments in the house were for decoration purposes only and truthfully Nathan never gave them a second look. He didn't even care about instruments.

But he knew Charlotte loved to listen to classical compositions. She only didn't tell anyone much because her friends once ridiculed her about it. Nathan remembered perfectly the night that they talked about it.

Her facial expression was serene...somewhat happy when she told him. And when she caught herself, she glared at him and told him, "I know, you want to laugh. Go ahead," Charlotte said. Surprisingly enough, even though Nathan thought he would...

...he just simply didn't.

What makes a person happy?

"Couldn't you settle this next year?" he repeated again, turning towards his parents who were sitting stiffly. "Just, do me a favor would you?" he sighed, his fingers ran through his hair. They were talking about this for hours.

And a few antique vases were thrown on the wall but he didn't really cared about them now as they were all very exhausted. "We've discussed this a hundred of time, Nathan," his mother cried out. "Why don't you stop thinking about yourself for a moment?!" Nathan snapped back, his patience was running out.

"I agree with Nathan wholly," his father, William Bradley said with an air of arrogance. When Nathan heard he agreed with him, he almost had a heart attack. He had to triple check to see if his hearing was right...

Until he pissed his father off.

His steely gray eyes gazed onto Nathan. "Tell you what," he said. "If your mother agrees that this is all absurd and ridiculous, I'll take you out of that detention center. But only if you promise that you'll never do such an act--"

"I never did!" Nathan defended himself, shooting his father a look of disgust. "And frankly, I can't believe you would believe in such accusation."

That was right, he thought wistfully. He never did do anything wrong to the girl.

But he felt guilty nonetheless.

The doorbell rang and as loud as she could, his mother said, "The door's unlocked!"

"Stop finding reasons to end this conversation, Jane," William said. "You know I didn't do anything wrong." Jane, though, rolled her eyes. "Yeah, and I'm size 2."

Nathan rubbed his temple vigorously. This trip was not working out as well as he thought it would be. In fact, it got a lot more worst with his parents constant bickering, forgetting the fact that their only son who didn't do anything wrong (and yet they won't trust him anyway) was still stuck as a soul who live inside that damn detention center.

Heck, if he became a legal adult, he would probably be transferred behind bars.

The idea freaked him out more than anything.

"Mrs. Bradley," came a soft voice. It was a petite but cute 17-year-old girl with short chestnut hair and wide brown eyes. "Mom lent you the Tupperware..." she trailed off, her eyes fixated on Nathan so suddenly.

A look of surprise went through her face. Nathan didn't blame her, he was surprised too.

"Nathan."

"Ella," he said at the same time.

"Oh yes...let me just get that..."

Ella Brasher was his childhood friend. He recognized her by the charm bracelet that he gave her years ago. And who could forget those big brown eyes? He haven't seen her for such a long time. "Hey," he continued, his voice sounding strained.

"What are you doing here?" he asked and she shrugged casually, grinning. "I live a few blocks away," she said. "My mom and your mom have become close friends ever since!"

Nathan saw the other bungalow in the area. There were lots of them anyway, but it was quite far apart from each other. When they were still kids, they lived right across the street from each other. At the time, his mother was struggling with med school while his father was working as a secretary of a politician.

Then things started to change.

They moved out since they had enough money to buy a new house.

"Nice to see you again," she said happily.