"Shit, Luce" he muttered to himself. Placing on hand over his eyes and his sweaty forehead.
Living next to Lucy Heartfilia was the hardest thing he had ever done in his life.
It wasn't that he hated her, or that she was a bad person. It was the complete opposite. She was, in fact, the most beautiful person he had ever met in his life. Her pretty blonde hair, warm chocolate brown eyes, those full lips, her fuller bust, those insatiable hips and smooth creamy legs...he would do anything for her to love him half as much as he loved her. If that killer body wasn't enough, she was clever, thoughtful and an amazing friend. She was perfect.
He knew the second he met her that she was the single thing he wanted most in the world. He took every opportunity he could to get close to her and soon enough they were best friends. He would do anything for the girl and wanted to have the perfect relationship.
But he couldn't stop imagining her naked and sweaty underneath him. It haunted him. That's when he decided he need to work it off. He tried helping himself, but doing it three times a day was kind of hard and he didn't want to risk her hearing him moan her name.
After that hadn't worked he decided to start sleeping around. He wasn't proud of it but it was the only thing that could stop him from trying to sleep with her and ruin everything they had built.
It's not like he lost his first time to a stranger. He had lost it a long time ago in a huge mistake with his childhood friend. It was pretty bad though. He pissed off a lot of women when he called Lucy's name during sex instead of theirs. He made sure to only do that when he knew she was out though.
He had been completely torn up when Lucy had started avoiding him a couple of weeks ago. He assumed it was because she had guessed his feelings and wanted to stay away. Gajeel was always laughing at how obvious he was. But he couldn't stop. Their separation just made it worse. He was helping himself and sleeping around. That girl just drove him insane.
That led him to this evening. He had called her name. Twice. And he knew she was in.
She could have not heard.
He knew he was lying to himself but that was the best he could do. She seemed to hate him enough already as it is. She was giving the worst excuses that morning and had a fake smile on her face. She had run away from him. Then he saw her hugging Gray, when he was shirtless. He felt like punching Gray a lot that day.
He had tried to go up to her at lunch but she was guarded by Erza and Gray. Erza had been beating him up a lot lately. He wondered if it was because Lucy had told her that she wasn't interested in him and didn't want to be friends with him anymore.
And then when he waited in her room to talk to her, something he did do on the odd occasion when she left her door open - he always assumed it was an open invitation - he had seen the one thing he had been imagining since he met her. He had seen her completely naked. When he had breathed in sharply after not being able to take the torture of 'look don't touch' she had even turned around fully for his eyes.
He had to readjust when she wasn't looking. He knew it was bad, but when he covered his eyes he had made sure to leave a little gap so he could shamelessly watch her change. She was even better than he had imagined. She had the body of a goddess.
After all that, when they started their little 'talk' which Lucy seemed to still be avoiding him, she had started playing with the ties on her shorts. Natsu was looking so intensely at them he swore he could have burned a hole through them. It took him all his power not to pounce on her just then.
He groaned. Today was a nightmare.
He got up, not bothering to dress himself, and put his head against the wall that connected him and Lucy.
When had everything gotten so messed up? All he wanted to do was tell her the truth. Tell her how much he loved her, how badly he wanted her.
"Lucy" he whispered to the wall.
He dropped back on the bed, pulling the covers over his naked form and trying, in vain, to sleep. It was going to be another sleepless night over her. He sighed, closing his eyes and trying to will himself to sleep, or at least for the night to be over quickly.
It was Wednesday morning and despite what she had heard last night, Lucy woke up in a good mood for the first time in two weeks. She was beaming from ear to ear. She had had a wonderful dream where Natsu had confessed his feelings for her and they had gotten married and had a little baby girl called Nashi.
She stretched and got ready for the day in record time. Today she was wearing her traditional blue mini skirt and white and blue top with her black boots. She smiled in the mirror, applied her lipgloss, and skipped to the door. She grabbed her bag and walked out of her room still in a good mood.
Just like yesterday, she had managed to come out of her room the same time as Natsu. Except this time, her good mood was far from dissipated by his presence. In the face her good dream, his presence only heightened her elation.
"Good morning!" She chimed, giving him a huge smile as she locked her door.
He looked terrible. He had huge bags under his eyes and a sombre expression on his face which didn't lift when he replied.
"Morning" he said, fumbling with his keys, struggling to lock his door.
She frowned and grabbed his hand, helping him. He sighed as soon as she touched his skin, an obvious gesture of thanks.
"Are you okay?" She asked, eyes full of concern. He frowned at her look and shook his head.
"I didn't get any sleep" he grumbled. She bought her hands up to his face and gently cupped his cheeks.
"It doesn't mean you can't smile!" she said and beamed at him, giving him a good example to follow.
He gave her a weak smile that was only brief. She dropped her hands from his face and frowned. This called for drastic measures. She walked closer to him and wrapped him in a warm hug, burying her face in his soft, red t-shirt and clinging to him tightly.
It took him a minute before he held her back. When he did she felt like never letting go. He was so warm and inviting. And he smelled amazing.
She wasn't sure anymore if she hugged him for herself or for him. After a few minutes she reluctantly let go to see an honest smirk on his face, his tired eyes gleaming despite their fogginess.
"I thought you were avoiding me" he said, in his cocky voice. She rolled her eyes.
"I told you I wasn't avoiding you. I said I had a girl problem and now it's fixed. Well, it's not fixed but it's better" she smiled and she seemed to have won him over.
"Okay!" He smiled "Does this mean I get to walk you to class?" he asked.
"Of course, Mr Dragneel! No one can chaperone quite as well as you!" She joked, getting a laugh out of him.
God, she had missed that laugh.
"Only for you, Miss Heartfilia" he said with a wink causing her to blush. She smiled at him as he offered her his arm, which she gladly took.
"So what kept you up so late?" Lucy asked as they walked, still a little concerned about how tired he looked.
He winced a little and found it hard to meet her gaze which she frowned at.
"I was, um...thinking" he said vaguely.
Memories of last night flooded back to her and she suddenly turned red. Oh. He had called her name. And he had seen her naked. Great.
"Okay" Lucy smiled in spite of her red face and dropped the subject.
She still wondered if that meant he had any feelings for her. Maybe he just used the 'inspiration' from when he walked in on her earlier.
"Um, hey, Luce?" He asked, looking a little embarrassed and reluctant.
"Yeah, Natsu?" she replied with a smile. He sighed a little at her smile.
"There's a party at Gray's brother's house this weekend and I was just wondering if you were coming...or wanted to come, you know, with me…" he trailed off, scratching the back of his neck - his nervous habit.
Her heart was running a mile a minute. Did he just ask her out? No. He just wanted to hang out after they had spent so long apart.
"Err...I wasn't going to go but I guess I can go with you" she smiled.
Relief flooded his features and a huge smile grew on his face.
"Alright! I'm fired up!" He shouted as dragged her outside his class. "See ya later, Luce!" he said, enveloping her in a big bear hug before letting her go and bursting inside the lecture hall with a renewed enthusiasm.
Lucy continued her walk and bumped into Gray about ten seconds after Natsu had left. He looked smug, which meant that he had seen the whole thing.
"So what was that all about?" He asked and raised an eyebrow. Lucy inwardly cringed.
"Nothing" she tried to play it off. Gray wasn't buying it.
"So you've been avoiding him for two weeks and the first time you've hung out since then, let alone laughed and smiled, is nothing, huh?" he asked, still looking smug as hell. Damn that Gray.
"No?" she squeaked. Gray crossed his arms.
"So why are you in such a good mood? What changed your mind?" he asked. Lucy blushed.
"It's kind of awkward to explain…
"You didn't ha-"
"NO!"
"I mean he did but I didn't…"
"Huh?" Gray asked, looked confused. Then it clicked. "Oh! Shit. Sorry…"
"It's okay"
"So what does this have to do with you being happy?" he asked.
"Don't judge" Lucy held out her pinky finger to him. He took it and nodded.
"I swear I won't judge. Man I'm curious now…"
"Well last night, I finished my movie and surprise surprise, Natsu was at it again, if you know what I mean…" Gray nodded and gestured for her to continue "So I was racing to find another movie because they were being pretty loud and that's kinda when I heard it…" Lucy blushed.
"Heard what?" Gray asked, furrowing his brow.
"Umm...he may have kind of slightly said my name…" Gray seemed to take a minute to absorb all the words she said before his eyes widened and his jaw dropped.
"OH!" he said simply "Uh, could it have been a mistake or the actual girl's name?" he asked, clearly hoping she wouldn't be offended.
"That's what I was asking myself! Then the girl was like 'That's not my name!' which freaked me out a little and then I was like, I probably didn't hear the name right...then umm, just before he, you know, finished, he maybe sort of said my name again…" Lucy's face was bright red and hot to the touch.
Gray looked extremely awkward for a minute and then he did the one thing Lucy wasn't expecting; he laughed.
"Told you he's not that dumb. That guy is totally in love with you!" Gray laughed. Lucy frowned.
"I'm not so sure…" Gray stopped laughing.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean before all that happened he may have only slightly seen me completely naked by complete accident…" it, again, took Gray a couple of minutes to process all of her words.
"WHAT?!" Gray shouted, loud enough to turn a few heads. "So you think he was thinking of you because of that instead of the fact that he actually has feelings?" Lucy nodded "Well you are pretty hot…"
"Hey!"
"Sorry, Lucy!" he flinched as if she was going to hit him "So, wait. What does that have to do with your happiness?"
"Not much, I just had to get it off my chest. I actually had a really nice dream about us getting married and having a kid...anyway, I'm going to be late so I gotta run! Have a nice time trying to keep a straight face with Natsu when we hang out for lunch!"
With that she ran off, leaving Gray completely bewildered and undeniably not looking forward to lunch.
Lunch came pretty quickly. Lucy had warned Erza that she had to be civil to Natsu and that they were on good terms again so, for the first time in weeks, Natsu had joined them for lunch.
Gray looked awkward the whole time, remembering what Lucy had said to him earlier. He did his best to try and forget it.
"Hey! So who's coming to my brother's party?" Gray asked, trying to not look awkward.
"I'm taking shrimp" Gajeel said and Levy nodded.
"I'm going to bring Jellal" Erza said, blushing fiercely over her cake.
"I'm taking Luce!" Natsu said, slinging an arm over Lucy in the process which gave her a lot of secret looks from her friends. She simply smiled and looked up at him, finding he was already staring intently at her.
"Awesome. At least I'll have friends there! Last time I had to hang out with Lyon's weirdo friends. One of them had dog ears and kept on asking me about a sock. It was so strange" he shivered at the memory and they all laughed.
"What time do you want us to be at your house for?" Lucy asked.
"Uh, I guess around eight. Lyon's friends are coming at half eight so it would be nice to have you guys there already so I don't have to deal with them" he sighed.
"Okay!" they all agreed.
"Alright! This is gonna be a great party!" Natsu roared.
Gray had told them that he had invited a few other people around campus too; Mirajane, Cana, Loke and Laxus. He also said that Lyon had invited Juvia before he even knew he was throwing a party.
Lunch ended with feverish talks about the party, everyone couldn't wait for Saturday evening to roll around.
Thank you to everyone who had favourited/followed and left lovely reviews! I hope you enjoyed the new part :)
The last part is going to be fairly long so I'm debating whether to just do it in four parts instead of three, just tell me if you have any preferences :)