Chapter 4- Deal or No Deal
A/N- Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed my last chapter, reviews always make me happy so THANK YOU!
Disclaimer: I do not own nothing.
TheAlpahbetSong xx
When they got back everyone was there again just like the previous night; all milling around the food and drinks, most which weren't being touched. He suspected because they were waiting for the eggnog to come out. The only reason that some of the soft drinks had disappeared was because Lucy and the other kids had disappeared with it and a few cups to somewhere else, probably upstairs.
As they walked through the kitchen they could smell a turkey cooking in the oven. Her mum's Christmas turkey was one of the things Nell had initially missed most (apart from her family themselves) when she moved to LA. She had attempted one Christmas to cook a turkey the same way that her mum did, but even though she always helped her mum cook it, it still didn't taste the same.
Felicity turned around when Nell approached her and placed her hands onto her shoulder.
"How was your day?" Felicity asked.
"It was good, I bought three candles from Enlightenment," she replied.
"How long did you look in there for?"
"Umm, I don't remember."
"Almost an hour," Eric added.
"Really?!" Nell asked unbelieving whipping her head around to look at Eric.
"You made him endure that?" Felicity asked mockingly.
"I did not think it was that long," she said exasperatedly.
"What kinds of candles are they?"
"One of them is Egyptian musk, another is Lime and Coconut and the third is a combination of Chocolate and Caramel."
"I bet they smell good," Felicity added excitedly.
"Oh yeah," Nell replied in agreement.
Her mum went back to cooking and Nell and Eric ventured into the guest bedroom once again. Nell placed the candles with her suitcase on the floor and then collapsed into the bed.
"My feet are sore," she complained kicking off her heel-less shoes.
"Well we did do a lot of walking," Eric stated.
"And I did not wear shoes that can withstand that much walking today," she said turning her head to look at Eric who had his back facing away from her, "but at least I was warm," she added pointedly receiving a mock glare from Eric.
"I wasn't cold," he insisted.
"Sure, sure," Nell agreed still not believing his case line as she sat up and crossed her legs.
Eric turned to look at her, and he was- once again holding the black rectangular gift. He handed it to her.
"Merry Christmas Nell," he said.
Gently she took the top of the box off and carefully pushed the papers aside. Inside there was a clear crystal cut object, she lifted it out to get a closer look. It was crystal cut in the shape of mistletoe, a simple Christmas decoration to anybody else, but to them it was the story of an unspoken memory.
"Thank you, Eric. It's stunning," she said standing up to hug him, "Merry Christmas," she whispered as she stood in their embrace, "it really is beautiful."
"I'm glad you like it," Eric said breaking their embrace.
"Thank you," Nell said again smiling, before leaving them in a silence of nothing to say.
She turned away to put her gift down, she turned back around and for once his lips found hers first instead of the other way around. She smelt like the chocolate and caramel candle she had just bought and tasted like the Chilli Chocolate that she'd eaten on the way back. She didn't gasp when his lips captured hers, she didn't have time. She had been so completely taken by surprise that her lips had just melted to his like hot wax.
She could feel his lips that were slightly chapped against the wind and cold that they had just emerged from, but that really didn't matter. Because in the overall picture when you're kissing someone you've wanted to kiss for years, when they have slightly chapped lips you really don't care. Especially when they are a really good kisser.
One of his hands was nestled in her hair cupping the back of her head, as the other one wrapped itself around her waist pulling her closer. Her arms had wrapped around his neck, using him as support as she lifted herself onto her tiptoes to close the distance between their bodies. She took one hand off of his neck and grabbed hold of his shirt pulling him closer to her, begging him to kiss her harder, but he didn't. He stopped. Nothing more but he just stopped and pulled back.
Their bodies remained against each other although their lips did not. Both trying to recapture the air that had been displaced in their lungs. Eric noticed a spark in her eyes, and it scared him a little that he couldn't decipher what it represented.
"I'm sorry," Eric said, awkwardly now avoiding her eyes.
Nell bit back a small laugh at how stupid he could be at times. If you kiss someone and they kiss you back, both people were part of the exchange and therefore you don't need to apologise.
"For what?" she asked.
"I'm sorry if I pushed you too far."
"Last I checked I was the one who grabbed your shirt," Nell said leaning in so that her cheek was against his. She knew that her hot breath was wafting across his face. She could practically feel him shake.
"Yes," he said remembering and not pulling back from their close proximity, "I believe you did."
"There, it's settled," Nell said awkwardly regaining her posture away from Eric and placing her arms by her sides.
They stood for a while without saying a word. Averting their eyes from each other's glances. Nell got restless waiting for Eric to say something and of waiting for her to think of something to say, so she walked out of the room, with the words, "I'm going to see if Mum needs any help." She again left Eric standing alone his mind probably still confused by her reaction, if he wasn't she'd be surprised because she certainly was.
Nell walked out into the kitchen looking to help her mum with dinner again, but only to find that she wasn't there. She could not go back to the room and Eric, not because she regrated anything, but because she was on the edge of a mild panic attack. She wasn't sure if him kissing her counted as 'honest feelings', because that would be the difference between deal or no deal.
She walked out past the garage and into the living room where most people were milling about, she eyed the crowd for her mum, and not seeming to be able to find her poured herself a drink from the table next to her. Lucy found her standing by the table with her drink in hand.
"Hey, Merry Christmas Lucy."
"Merry Christmas, Aunty Nell," Lucy replied.
"Did you have a good day?"
"Yeah, to a certain extent," she said with belated undertones," because Adian decided to scare the beegesus out of me this morning with a cheerfully sarcastic Merry Christmas now here is the cat hanging on a coat hanger," Lucy replied, "Although I can't actually blame him because he won't own up to it."
"Brothers," Nell said
"Brothers," Lucy replied, "I opened up my cupboard this morning and Jim Jam was there, just hanging on a coat hanger."
"How?"
"Was he hanging?" Lucy asked for confirmation.
Nell nodded her head in response.
"From about here to here," she said demonstrating with her hands showing from her lower neck to the top of her head, "was inside the coat hanger, the bottom of his chin was resting on the bottom of the hanger. And the rest of him just hung limp. When I got him untangled from the hanger he leapt away from me very fast and is now currently taking refuge in the fire place, which means that it will be a cold night because last week our central heating blew out."
"Oh, damn."
"Yeah, and Jim Jam is stubborn and therefore is refusing to move from it. It is his castle we are invading troops and he plans and acts on defending it with his teeth and claws."
"I'm sure your Dad will think of something."
"Yeah, it will most likely involve force and the fire poker stick."
Nell laughed, "Sounds like him."
"Yep, it's not so much of a 'let's see if we can reason with him', it's more of a 'let's use all force and other methods at our disposal and see where that leaves us. World War 3- Cats against Humanity."
"I still think we'd win in that situation."
"Yeah, but the cats wouldn't go down without a fight and a lot of manipulation after they figure out how to speak English."
"That sounds like a book."
"I'm not sure if there are any published works of that sort, but a friend of mine wrote something of a similar sort for a creative writing competition."
"Did she place?" Nell asked, curious.
"No. Unfortunately she did not."
"Better luck to her next time."
"Yeah, she's already got more ideas, and I have had to listen to all of them. And I don't mean that like I don't like listening to them, because I do, but when I've heard fifteen alternate versions to the one storyline in a week, it becomes a bit too much."
"I understand. At work when our case load is major sometimes I get muddled between which footage is for which story, because some of them sound so similar and I have to differentiate between what is being run for each story."
"Do you always have a lot of stories to run?"
"Not always," Nell replied before she noticed Eric standing over at the back of the room where the family photos were. When Nell looked back over to Lucy she had her back turned and was arguing with one of her cousins.
"Merry Christmas, I've got to sort this out. I'll see you later," Lucy said running of with her cousin
"Okay."
Nell took another sip of her drink before walking over to Eric, who was still admiring the photo wall.
"Hey," she said.
He didn't turn around or make any comment.
"Eric?" Nell said again.
He turned around, looking slightly irritated, and possibly frustrated.
"Hey, what's wrong?"
"This," he said.
"What's this?"
"Us, and our-" he trailed off
"And our what?" Nell prompted.
"Our cover," he paused, looking hesitant to continue, "I just, I keep getting confused between what's part of reality l and what's the cover."
"And which one was that before."
"That's what I'm saying. I'm not sure. I thought that it would tell me, but then you just left without much of a conversation and I'm just-"
She grabbed his wrists and forced him to look at her, "what was it for you," she spoke softly and her eyes pleaded with him for an honest answer.
"Reality," he said quietly, "for me that kiss was reality."
Nell smiled, as she answered, "Me too."
He returned a smile that was equally as bright, and in Nell's opinion trademarked by him.
Honest feelings- The phrase kept echoing around her head. Was that considered to be 'honest feelings' or was that just an honest opinion. Were they the same thing, was there a difference, if there was a difference what was the difference.
"DINNER!" Felicity called from the doorway calling everyone in the room to attention, "I have turned the gas heaters on outside and the table has been set. We are eating outside," she finished before happily turning back towards the direction she had come from.
Everyone started making their way towards the food, Nell and Eric walked at a quickened pace trying to get through the doorway. All the kids were running down stairs and then through the hallway getting first dibs on the food.
Everyone who'd stayed at home during the day must have helped set up because the patio outside looked stunning. The inside of the roof had been adorned with white fairy lights wrapped around green tinsel, there was a lit candelabra sitting on a silver and green patterned tablecloth. The food that lined the table looked and smelt really good. The turkey was at the centre of the table and it smelt incredible, if none of the other decoration had of drawn people out of the house the smell alone would've been enough to capture the attention of the neighbours or any passers-by in the street.
People started digging into the food even before everyone was seated at the table, there was a plate of sliced ham, and also one of roast chicken. There were plates of vegetables including onion, carrot, parsnips, celery and potato. Needless to say that all the good parts of the turkey were gone quickly and for the most part washed down with a nice glass of red wine.
Thankfully for Nell and Eric the questions had stopped, and they weren't the centre of attention- the food was. Everyone was eating and barely anyone spoke for the first few minutes. After that conversation broke out, there was talk of Liam, Emma, Lucy and Adian's family holiday to Australia earlier in the year. They had landed in Perth first and from there caught a cruise that took them to Adelaide where they stopped for three nights before driving to Sydney, where the stopped for five nights they climbed up the harbour bridge and visited the Sea Life aquarium. They were also there in time for the Vivid lights show because they had gone in Australia's winter. They had then ventured up to Queensland for a week going to Wet n' Wild, Movie World, and looking at the sugar cane processing plant. But for the most part they just stayed around the heated pool at their resort. From Queensland they had then flown home.
Subtle questions had been asked all throughout dinner relating to the deal, and Nell still hadn't figured out whether it was sealed or not, so she pretended not to notice any of the subtle questions, and answer in the way that the actual question was asked in. And everyone else had to deal with Lucy and Adian screaming at each other in Pig Latin and French. Lucy's remarks in both were much more skilfully worded that Adian's. Eric understood the Pig Latin but understood next to none of the French, whereas Nell knew both and understood the conversation through to the end.
The conversation went something along the lines of:
"Otherbray, htswhay ouryay opway inionpay ofway ethay oodfay?"
PL Translation: "Brother, what's your opinion of the food?"
"It's really good," he replied.
"Ustjay ikelay emay, enthay" Lucy said with smile.
PL Translation: "Just like me then,"
"No," he said, "I said itway asway oodgay. Oodgay otnay itshay."
PL Translation: "No," he said, "I said it was good. Good, not shit."
"Osay ikelay ouryay acefay," She rebutted.
PL Translation: So like your face,"
"Ewscray ouyay," Adian said with no other comeback and way too much ego to surrender.
PL Translation: "Screw you."
"Pourquoi?"
F Translation: "Why?"
Adian glared at Lucy, with very little idea what she said, because her French was much better than his.
"Comprende moi?"
F Translation: "Understand me?"
"Non."
F Translation: "No."
"Tu parle en francais."
F Translation : "You speak in French,"
"Non, je comprende quel le mot 'non ' est. "
F Translation : "No, I understand what the word no is."
"C'est votre la limite,"
F Translation : "That is your limit."
"Oui," he said smiling as if he were proud to have a disadvantage.
F Translation: "Yes,"
"Okay, enough squabbling in Pig Latin and French," their mum Emma warned.
"Sorry Mum," they echoed.
"Care to tell the table what that conversation was about?" Emma asked.
"Not particularly," Lucy replied.
"Yeah mum didn't you get any of that?"
"A little bit, but you spoke too fast," Emma replied.
Lucy and Adian high-fived each other.
"Lucy is learning French in school and taught Adian the basics," Emma explained to those who were tuned into the conversation.
"And basic conjugation of verbs," Nell added.
"Parle-vous francais?" Lucy asked Nell.
Translation : "Do you speak French?"
"A friend started teaching me a little bit and then I self- taught myself," Nell replied.
Eric's eyes widened in surprise, "How come I didn't know you spoke French?"
She turned her head back to face him, "I guess you didn't because we never worked on an article from anywhere of French province."
'Of course' Eric thought, 'he wouldn't actually get a real answer from her now if it related to their actual lives. But basing it off the story his best guess would be Kensi taught her'.
"But you would've thought that it would have been mentioned."
"But it wasn't, and now that it has been you know. Besides it's not like it's a big deal."
"No, it's just that its cool, I didn't know that you spoke any other languages."
"Speaking of big deals," Karmin interrupted, "any news?" she pried.
"No," Nell replied, "and I'm not going to be the one responsible for if someone ends up broke or not," she said with an angry twitch in her voice, "and nor is Eric."
"Woah, um, Nell please don't bring me into this," Eric pleaded.
"You were brought into this before you knew what the deal is," Nell commented.
"For the record I still don't know what the deal is," Eric imputed.
"You still haven't told him?" Karmin asked from across the table, alerting everyone who hadn't been listening to the conversation at hand.
Nell didn't reply.
"You've got to put him out of his misery."
Still no comment from Nell.
"You know he'll find out eventually," Felicity said.
"But not yet," Nell insisted.
"Well it is really all up to you."
"Yes."
"When everyone is finished same deal as last night, plate in dishwasher, if the dishwasher is full then wash it up yourself," Felicity said making the topic change obvious to the whole table.
Felicity then proceeded to ignore any more conversation on or relating to the deal, maybe she didn't want to know much more, maybe she wanted a surprise at the end, or maybe she was uncomfortable with the whole situation from the beginning. After all, the deal had been made between Nell and her sister, who had then unfortunately told their mum, and then leaked it to the rest of their family.
Later when dinner was partly packed up from and everyone had decided that it really was way too cold outside to continue all conversation out there. It was team effort from all the kids who were on a sugar high from all the soft drink consumed to get the dishes into the dishwasher and washed up. They had willingly offered to do the washing up. Although there was much speculation that it was because they were all cold and knew that if they washed up they 1) got to stay inside and 2) got to keep their hands inside the hot soapy water.
Some of the candles that were inside the house had been lit filling the indoors with enticing scents. In the kitchen there was Sugar Plum, in the living room there was Pumpkin spice and in the bathroom there was Fig and Lime. When Eric and Nell came inside they realised how cold they had been sitting outside. Maybe it was just the food and wine that had kept them warm, but once that had worn off and they had come inside they had realised how truly cold they had been sitting outside. And they were sure that they weren't the only ones.
Someone turned the television on and put a basketball game repeat on. Eric didn't pay much attention as he was more interested in trying to figure out what Nell, her mum and her sister were standing in the corner talking about, but unfortunately his lip reading software was all the way in Ops and he couldn't read lips like Kensi so he had next to no clue what they were saying. He could only make educated guesses based off of body language- which, again was not his forte, but he'd picked up a thing or two from working with Nate. His best guess was that they were talking to Nell about LA, or discussing the deal- either way he was probably involved.
He had to draw his eyes from the conversation when the figures of Blake and Liam, Nell's two older brothers, came looming towards him. They sat down one on either side of him and trained their eyes on him, with a grimace of sorts stuck on their faces.
"Um, hi," Eric spluttered out nervously turning his head from one to the other.
"Dad may be okay with you, but he forgot to ask you some questions," Liam started.
"And we wouldn't want to get the wrong idea of you," Blake continued.
"Okay," Eric said still sounding unsure, "but is it questions or an interrogation?"
"Semantics," Liam replied.
"Past relationships are tricky stuff and no one really likes discussing them, but will anything that happened between you and any past relationships, affect the one you have with Nell?" Blake asked.
"No, they are past relationships, because they are in the past," Eric replied.
Agreeing look, Right answer.
"Do you see a future for yourself and Nell?" Liam asked.
"Currently, I do."
Sceptical look, wrong answer.
"Currently?" Liam asked.
"Currently is present tense, do you see a future where you could change your mind?" Blake asked.
"I am not a seer, I can't see the future," Eric shot back, hastily, "Every decision someone makes has several sets of directions it could go, besides from good or bad, and you're both married so you know that the present changes the future and so that you don't want to do anything to affect the present because that, ultimately will affect the future," Eric explained, "so whatever I say or think now changes the future and currently I am unsure of many things, but as soon as a decision is made on any of those things it blocks off a future path. So if I give you a definitive answer now I am confining myself on that one path. So I don't and can't know what our future is or what it may hold, but I would never intentionally put Nell in any danger and I could never hurt her. She is too extraordinary for that."
The brothers shared another glance.
"He's good," Blake said.
"Yeah," Liam agreed, before turning to Eric firmly patting hitting on the back saying, "You're good. As long as you're not lying."
"I'm not lying," Eric said.
"He's not lying," Blake said.
"Do you want a beer?" Liam asked.
"No thanks, I'm good."
"You sure?" Blake asked.
"One," Eric said, "I'm not known for my high alcohol tolerance."
"Ah," Liam said, "oh well," as he walked off to find a beer.
They didn't grill Eric after that, they sat and watched the repeat of the game, it was a pretty back and forth game, there were no game changing scores and before half time someone had swapped his beer for a glass of ridiculously strong eggnog. Very similar to the one that Nell had made for OSP last Christmas that he hadn't dare lay a hand on. His previous suspicions that he had of it being a family recipe were most definitely confirmed this year as it smelt just the same as the previous concoction.
The television was turned on mute and Christmas Carols were played. There was a lot of 'Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer', 'Frosty the Snowman', '12 Days of Christmas', 'White Christmas' and 'Deck the Halls' and there was a lot of jolly singing, probably at hands of the eggnog and other alcohol. And then one of the kids plugged in their phone or iPod of Christmas Parodies. It was mostly funny and not so great parodies of '12 Day of Christmas' and 'Jingle Bells' including an Australian Christmas version called 'Rusty Holden Ute.' Although some of the young kids had started to or completely drifted to sleep and it was extremely cold everyone rallied up outside holding candles to sing 'Silent Night'.
Nell walked up to Eric holding their candles he took his with a 'thank you' and a smile. Everyone instantly quietened down when the beginning of the song played and many sang softly along. Part way through the song Nell rested her head on Eric's shoulder and he intertwined his fingers with hers as they sang softly with the lyrics all the way until the last note.
Afterwards there were rounds of 'good nights', 'it was lovely to see you's' and 'thank you's' exchanged between family members as they slowly left the house, until there was only Felictiy, Phillip, Nell and Eric left. Phillip and Felicity declared as soon as Nell's cousins had left that they were going to bed, and s they made their way up the stairs towards their bedroom, turning off the lights as they went. Nell and Eric went back into the guest bedroom which smelt like a candle titled: 'Egyptian Musk' which had more a strong cinnamon scent to than musk, nevertheless it smelt flavoursome.
"Eric," Nell said getting his attention.
"Yeah."
"Thank you."
"For what?" he asked, mentally making a list of possibilities.
"For pretending to be my boyfriend and lying to my family, for dealing with my family's many grillings and answering all the questions. For giving me a wonderful Christmas gift, and letting me shop in a candle store for almost an hour. Thank you for your generosity of giving up whatever other plans you had for the holidays and flying across the country with me, and not getting mad at me for the stupid deal that I made years ago," Nell said.
"Before this my holidays actually looked pretty bleak, I mean besides from our Christmas Horror Movie Festival, I wasn't going to do much. So thank you for giving me a family and friends for Christmas this year."
"You're welcome," Nell said in a very soft voice portraying more emotion in her eyes that he swam in, than the voice that she spoke with.
"Recently, I have discovered that there is a difference between want's, need's and love's," Eric started, "and really none of the differences matter, but what does is that this cover, isn't just a cover for me," he paused letting it sink in," I don't just see this as a lie to tell your family to give reasonable belief for me to be here," pause, "it's the future that I see, the one that your brothers asked me about. What I see is us back here in a year's time doing this all over again. Me being stubborn and freezing to death because I refused to pack long pants, talking to your family about the happenings of the year, wandering through the city and eating unidentified pieces of chocolate. Watching you shop through 'Enlightenment' for an hour and seeing what Christmas candles they have out then. I see us singing strange Christmas carols about foreign countries and social media sites and spending three minutes ending the night with 'Silent Night," another pause as he evaluated the expression on her face, "but the discovery I made about want's and need's and love's is that I need you, I want you and that I love you."
Careless of whether he was finished or not Nell reached up fisting a handful of his hair in one hand and grabbing hold of his shirt pulling him closer to her as her lips glued themselves to his letting that be their skill of communication because neither of them were good with words. He held her waist gently whilst his other hand grazed the side of her face letting his fingers wind their way into her hair. Nell broke away suddenly, and let her eyes open slowly.
"What?" Eric asked.
"Are those your honest feelings?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Can I tell you a secret?" she asked rhetorically, "finding out your honest feelings towards me was the deal."
He looked surprised and slightly exploited, "Oh," he said glumly with a pathetic happy cover up tacked on.
"In the beginning it was a game, but then I got to know you better and realise my own feelings towards you, so then I figured that I needed a way to try and seal the deal. The flowers were my first attempt, the mistletoe was my second and after everything else I decided to take matters directly into my own hands, because I needed answers for myself. Somewhere along the way I realised my own feelings, but I needed to hear your words with my own ears," she finished.
The emotion displayed in Eric's eyes caused her breathing to falter for a moment and his face shone with a smile. They resumed their kiss at high intensity with Nell taking the lead with a firm grip on his shirt, until their kissing became French kissing and Eric pulled the control over to him.
Fiery kisses, heavy breathing, jawline explorations, and the thing that Eric did with his bottom lip that was just like wow. With that and newly declared feelings it didn't take long for shirt hemlines to become toyed with and for previous boundaries to become irrelevant. Then the bed came into the equation. They were so wrapped up and involved in each other, that neither were thinking all that much and time just became something they now had more of together. Tugging on clothes; teasingly placed kisses; and the wish that neither of them had to stop.
Sitting to laying, thinking to acting, asking to doing. Eventually clothes came off and necks became layered in kisses. When they reached the point of no return they both searched each other's eyes for answers before they continued. Moans and groans and moments of pure bliss until they reached the end. And lay, limbs entangled with each other, placing lingering kisses on each other before they fell asleep.
A/N- Thank you for reading, I apologise for the Pig Latin and French section if it got a bit tedious.
Please leave a review.