Beautiful Catastrophe

Chapter Ten:

"Ah, fuck." Nathan muttered under his breath before continuing to shave his jawline.

After failing to shave his face with his left hand because of his shoulder, Nathan tried using his right hand but was doing a terrible job. He didn't understand why, but this morning his shoulder hurt more than it had before over the last few days. Nathan was left handed and so wasn't used to using his right hand. He found it unbelievable that with every try, he managed to cut himself. It was becoming more frustrating with each attempt.

Kim should have been getting dressed for the day ahead of them, but instead she stood on the other side of the closed bathroom door, listening intently. She had always been a nosey person.

"f**k!" He grumbled in anger before she heard something being thrown inside the bathroom.

"Nathan?" Kim called quizzically; she wanted to know what was going on in there and what was taking him so long.

"What?" he snapped from behind the door.

"I need to brush my teeth, are you nearly finished in there? Can I come in?" her voice was soft and quieter than usual. For a moment, she had sounded as though she was making an attempt at being nice to him. But that didn't last long.

"Yes." He grumbled.

She almost burst into laughter at the sight of a very pissed off looking Nathan gripping the edges of the sink in front of him. He was shirtless, half his face was covered with shaving foam and there was blood dripping from some parts of the skin on his face. Her eyes wandered from him to the razor thrown on the countertop.

"What?" He barked at her once he noticed she was trying to supress her laughter.

"So that's what has you so cheesed off." She ignored his aggravation and smirked at him before jumping up to sit on the countertop right beside the sink.

Kim noticed how his expression softened a little, as if he could've laughed at the situation but forced himself to stop. She swung her legs and continued to look at him, waiting for a reply. Nathan pinched the bridge of his nose, unsure as to whether he was annoyed at Kim or himself for finding the whole thing funny too.

"Kim, your statement could be laughable but not because it's funny, because you're funny. And not like haha let's laugh together funny, I would be laughing at you, not with you if I wasn't in such a bad mood."

"In what way?" she asked in a smug tone, quirking an eyebrow at him.

"Look at you. A twenty six year old sitting on a countertop with Care Bear pyjamas on wondering why I'm so cheesed off... I'm just two years older than you and I haven't used that term since elementary school."

"You're two years older than me and you can't even shave your face." Kim retorted.

"You're unbelievable." He sighed, making her giggle. It was a strange thing for Nathan to hear from her, it stuck out in his mind, bounced around his brain like an echo and made him want to smile.

"Oh boy, your panties are really in a twist." She continued on, receiving a glare from him.

Kim rolled her eyes and then picked up the razor lying near her. She tapped it against the basin of the sink and whisked it around in the water for a minute to clean it out.

"Come here." Kim said gently, all jokes aside then.

She felt sorry for him for some strange reason. Nathan hesitated, his eyes quickly connecting with hers. A silence full of tension filled the air before he decided to take the first step towards her. Neither spoke for quite some time. Nathan walked between her legs and allowed her to run the razor over his skin with ease.

She tipped his chin upward a couple of times to get at all angles, all the while he was watching her carefully- readying himself for her to slit his throat at any moment. The razor glided over his jaw smoothly. He noticed how her brows furrowed in concentration. It was just a couple of minutes before she was pressing the damp towel he had put aside over his clean-shaven face. By then, the cuts he made had stopped bleeding. Kim patted another dry towel over his face that was only centimetres away from hers. She had been avoiding eye contact the entire time but couldn't shy away from it anymore.

"Now." She almost whispered with finality once she looked him in the eye.

She examined his face quickly, he seemed to be distracted. Kim thought it was the perfect time to get him back for all he had done in the previous days of their trip together. She noticed him leaning in and staring fixatedly at her lips. She allowed him to keep on going until his eyes were closed and his lips were almost touching hers. It was then that she moved to the side to avoid him and hopped down off the counter.

"You need to hurry the hell up." Kim acted as if nothing had happened. She smacked him on the behind before saying "Go get dressed cranky pants." And with that she headed out of the bathroom, a grin plastered widely on her face that he could not see. She closed the door behind her, leaving him staring at the handle.

That girl would be the death of him, he thought.

*****

"So, ballet huh?"

"I thought you said no small talk." Kim retorted.

A conversation seemed like something on the cards for both of them, considering they had been driving for a couple of minutes already and had barely said two words to each other. Nathan seemed to have been brooding quietly about the bathroom incident for quite some time. She found it hilarious but refrained from telling him so. She watched him carefully out of the corner of her eye, until he had decided in his own head that he would get her back sooner than she thought.

"Fine then..." he sighed.

He was finding it extremely difficult to stop the want he had from showing. He wanted to get to know her and that was a bad sign. She engrossed him without doing very much at all. For one to go from working in one of the world's best technology companies to ballet seemed like a strange change to make.

"I started when I was four and fell in love with everything about it." Kim stated, smiling to herself from the memories that came flooding back to her. "I gave it up for a while, my father wanted me to focus on the company and so I obviously did what he said."

She tried her best not to sound like she was seething but couldn't help it. She was angry at her father of course, but most of all herself for being so foolish.

"Did you enjoy working for your father's company? Or was that another thing he pushed you to do?" Nathan was still trying to figure her out, still trying to sift through her story to find holes.

"I was interested in computers and the company since I started high school. That was something I didn't need encouragement from my father for. But as I began moving up in the ranks, I found that I had little time for ballet or other things that were separate from the company. Even Shane was working there and so my life seemed to suddenly be based around the company and my father only."

"I'm sure being a part of the company wasn't your main passion in life if you felt that way about it."

"It's just- I don't know... I felt like my life had been planned out for me by everyone else. I felt like I had fallen into some kind of trap, my life was working out but it didn't feel right. Sure... I had money and power in a world renowned company, but at the same time it seemed to not be working out. I know it sounds confusing, but it was difficult for me to process too. I felt brainwashed, like I had been told to like the life I had so I did until of course I finally snapped out of it."

"Do you think that was a good decision?" Nathan wondered, clearly interested. She was surprised by his curiosity and took some time to think about his question.

"I'm not sure. Now I'm sitting in a car with some dumbass from the CIA- and that's not even half of the problem." She replied, a hint of humour in her voice.

"So Shane huh?" his words caused her to chuckle, he looked at her then and wondered what she had found funny.

"Is that how you bring everything into a conversation? 'So ballet huh?' 'So Shane huh?'" she imitated him. He cracked a smile which made her feel strangely rewarded.

"I guess it is."

"Why do you want to know about Shane?"

"Is it a touchy subject?" he answered her question with another question. He knew that way he would get an answer from her somehow.

"No." Kim replied quickly. "Shane was a big part of my life for a long time, but I told you already what he did and how I felt about it. I'm over it." She felt as though there was a small part of her that hadn't fully gotten over it and that she was lying to Nathan slightly. There was more to her story than she had told him, a key element was missing that she had purposely left out to avoid further humiliation at how much of a train wreck her life was back then. She wasn't good enough for anyone in her life back then, not even herself. But things were different now, she thought. She valued her opinions of herself over other's.

"Men are bastards, I understand that now."

"Not all men Kim."

Nathan seemed a little defensive, he felt like it too but why? He knew he was most likely worse than any of the men that were previously in Kim's life so why did it matter anyway? She rolled her eyes, causing him to squint at her.

"What?" He asked.

"You're a liar."

"Whatever."

There was a short silence in the car before she decided to change the topic. She didn't want to focus all her energy on the terrible past that haunted her every day now.

"So the CIA huh?" she mimicked his voice and nudged him with her elbow as she spoke.

"What about it?"

"Is it something you always wanted to be a part of?" Kim didn't want to mention his parents and was trying desperately not to bring them up by accident.

"Yes." He replied then hesitated for a moment. "My mom and dad were agents too and I always wanted to be like them." She felt as though that small sentence took a lot of courage to speak aloud.

"I see." She gave him a small smile but he hated it. She was reacting like everyone else- trying to give him sympathy that he didn't want or need.

"Cut it out Kim." He said, his voice cold and reserved.

"Wha-"

"I don't need you to feel sorry for me, so please don't try."

"I-" Kim didn't know what to say, she couldn't help but feel a kind of sadness in herself from hearing of both Nathan's parents passing away when he was young. "Okay." She nodded at him, trying to search her brain for another question to ask to change the subject. "Don't you get bored of all this spy bullshit and running away from people?"

"I'm not a spy Kim, I'm an agent." He scoffed, clearly not holding a grudge against her for sympathising with him. She as glad.

"Well yeah, whatever..."

"I enjoy it, as long as I'm working on my own. It can be quite thrilling at times, I'm always looking for an adrenaline rush. Plus getting to the bottom of things and getting justice for crimes done by people like your Dad is kind of rewarding."

"Nathan."

"Yeah?" he asked, looking at her for a moment then diverted his eyes to the road again.

"Please don't call him my Dad again, call him my father. It sounds more appropriate."

Kim wasn't comfortable with the word Dad still. A dad was a man who raised you, who cared for you and your feelings. Someone who would look out for their daughter, who would protect them and support them no matter what. A dad was a man who cared and loved unconditionally. Kim hadn't got a dad for a very long time, she had lost him many years ago...