Mistakenly Eaten

66. Stay with me tonight...

Althea looked at Nicholas, wondering what he was doing in her room and Nicholas also noticed her strange stare and realized that she wondered what he was doing in her room.

He cleared his throat and straightened up, still keeping a straight and a happy face, trying his best to present her a strong and composed state, so that she would find his confidence confiding and feel a bit relaxed but at the moment she was simply confused about Nicholas’s presence.

“Oh, actually there’s storm happening, so we’re all just checking on the contestants and making sure that they are fine. It is mostly a precautionary measure, since it’s an island and the contestants are our responsibility so…”

Nicholas blatantly lied through the one that he had cooked up in his head, in order to explain his appearance in Althea’s room.

She nodded sheepishly and Nicholas realized that his abrupt entrance in her room could make him come off as a creep, so he decided to cover up his lies with an evened truth.

“I actually knocked at your door and when you didn’t open up, I thought that you may not be feelings well because Fiona and Andrew told me that you abruptly left from downstairs when the storm started, so I just wanted to check on you. I am not a creep who creeps in to people’s rooms at nights.”

Nicholas said the last sentence with less scrutiny and much relaxation, making Althea laugh out a little.

Seeing her feel a bit relaxed, did bring peace to Nicholas’s own split heart.

He was in shambles when he saw and heard how Althea had abruptly left her room and worried that the storm might not be the best thing for her mental health.

He remembered reading in Althea’s history, the one that was sent to him by his detective, that Althea’s father died during a stormy night in the ocean, when his boat broke down and flipped off, with the man trying to hide inside the boat’s cabin but the boat flipped and filled with water, drowning the man as well. The boat showed up in the morning on the shore, with his dead body stuck inside the broken glass cabin.

Nicholas was also sent pictures that were published in some local news paper and in those pictures, not only was Romeo’s dead body but also the pictures of his family, watching his body getting recovered.

This made Nicholas only realize how hard it must have been on the poor girl’s mind. The younger sister was only a few months old when the father passed away and hence, her mind had not witnessed the gruesome reality and storms and their cruelty. But he could tell that it did left an effect on Althea and did took a toll on her mental health as well, whereby she was left scared of thunders and storms and when he came to her room, tapping on the door and she didn’t open up, he knew that something was wrong.

Hence, he entered, even without any permission and seeing the window open and Althea wrapped up underneath the sheets, he could already tell how afraid she was of the situation.

The first thing that he did was close the windows but that startled Althea, making her look out the sheets and straightened up when she found Nicholas standing right in front of her.

“Well, that won’t be your first rodeo.” Althea joked, reminding Nicholas that he had come to her room without knocking previously.

He scoffed, rubbing the back of his neck, whilst still keeping his other one intact and hidden behind his back.

“Well, I guess, I am just comfortable with you in some way.”

“In a way, whereby, you feel okay entering my room, late at night?” she smirked slightly this time, a hint of lust and subtility wrapped in her words, that made Nicholas blush hard.

Well, he wished that he was in a phase with her where he could enter not just her room but her as well…

Nicholas immediately shook his head, not wanting to think much about anything that triggered the animal inside him but Althea lying in front of him, wrapped in her quilt, wearing a thin tank top wasn’t helping his imaginations to settle down.

“Well…”

Nicholas fumbled with his words but before he could’ve said anything, another thunder flashed right outside of Althea’s windows, startled her with fear and knowing that a sound would follow it, she immediately shut her eyes and covered her ears, not wanting to listen the sound of the thunder that would follow.

Nicholas noticed how stressed she was and immediately walked by her side, gently perching down in front of her.

Sensing that the sound of the thunder would’ve been gone by that point, Althea opened up her eyes and found Nicholas sitting up front and close.

He gently nodded at her, signaling that the sound of the thunder had passed and Althea also removed her hands from her ears.

“I don’t like listening to the sound…”

Before she could’ve said another word, Nicholas brought his hand in front of him and placed his earmuffs on her ears, making Althea realize that it was what he was actually hiding behind his back all that time.

“Here!” along with the earmuffs, he also offered a sleeping mask for eyes, urging Althea to wear that on her eyes.

“This…” pointing towards the earmuffs, he spoke loudly and mouthed more slowly and visibly.

“Cancels the noise and this…” he then pointed towards the eye mask. “Will, cancel the light. So, you can sleep in peace.”

Althea’s heart filled with warmth and her eyes filled with tears.

No man on earth, after her father had been that caring towards her, who had made sure to keep her warm and make her feel that safe. She breathed heavily, controlling her tears from springing down and simply thanked Nicholas, making sure to not to let her tears become her misery at a time when she felt so full of feeling that seemed simply unexplainable.

First the turmeric pods and then that earmuffs. She only wondered why he was always that nice and caring towards her.

She wanted to assume that he was a nice man, with a good heart and a good nature but that was a rational part of her. the irrationally, hopelessly romantic and hungry for love part of her heart that was yearning to grab and have the taste of pure love just for once in her life, wished and deep down made her believe that Nicholas was intentionally nice towards her and her only because he cared about her and liked her just as she liked him.

But nonetheless, she decided to appreciate his little gesture.

“Thank you for this.”

She stated and Nicholas smiled back at her gently, preparing to leave and just as he got up and turned to leave, Althea tugged on his hand, stopping him from taking another step away from her.

As he turned back, he watched as she removed the muffs from her ears and took in a deep breath, as if mustering up the courage to speak up.

There was a moment of hesitation and a stiff of stammer that Althea possessed and exhibited for a while, until words finally rolled out of her mouth.

“Can you please stay with me tonight?”

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Do you think Nicholas would stay or not?

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