Sorry about the long wait time for this chapter! A combination of lack of writing time, flaky internet and a brief drop in motivation led to this.
Most appreciated users:
Taavi224 – Thanks, I was pretty happy with the way it turned out in the end.
Mazzax – Nick made the assumption based on what had happened (accident/blacking out after playing AC2), and he reinforced it by seemingly being able to basic free-run without too much effort or failing. And yeah, having a guy as the protagonist definitely makes a difference. I didn't even have the idea for Nick starting by spending the day with the two girls until I'd already done the second chapter, haha.
For the sake of updating, I cut it again. Again, sorry about the long wait, and enjoy!
As soon as Nick began to recover from his little emotional outburst, he heard Laura calling "Nick? What are you doing up there?"
Aw, crap. This is getting embarrassing. Hesitating before he replied so that he could recover some of his composure, Nick answered "Nothing much, Laura! I'm just chilling up here, you know, enjoying the view?" Then, with a small surge of confidence, and before he could think about it, "I was wondering if you wanted to join me up here? You know…" Nick gave Laura his grin. "For a chat?"
Laura returned a coy smile. "I would be delighted, Nick. But how exactly do you intend me to join you?" she asked, gesturing pointedly at the balcony he was sitting on.
Nick looked at the balcony, how high it was from the ground, and then back at Laura. He shrugged. "Well, if you don't want to fall on your ass trying to jump on wooden beams, you can just jump up, and I'll pull you up."
Laura looked a bit doubtful, but nodded anyway. "Wait a second," Nick said, and leaned over the balcony close to the tipping point in order to catch her. "Okay, jump!"
She obliged, managing to jump up to a good height, and Nick stretched his hand out to catch hers. Catching and gripping it easily, he pulled her up to his level with a grunt. Thankfully for him, she was able to do the rest, pulling herself up onto the balcony's railing using both hands.
"How's the shopping going?" Nick asked Laura, as soon as she was settled next to him on the railing.
"Oh, really well," Laura replied. "Paula and I found some really nice dresses, and I happened to chance upon some great perfumes that were shipped from Venezia. Right now Paula is still trying some more dresses, and no doubt haggling over the price."
"That sounds pretty nice," Nick commented. "But, not that I don't have anything against paying less, but, uh…don't you girls have enough money anyway to buy stuff with?"
Laura gave him a look. "Come on, Nick, I'm not that spoiled –"
"Aha!" Nick grinned. "You just admitted that you're at least partially spoiled!"
"What? Oh, you –!" Seemingly trying to glare and giggle at the same time, Laura jabbed Nick in the ribs with her elbow.
"Oi. That hurt," Nick said in reproval, elbowing Laura back, which only seemed to make her giggle more.
"What? It can't hurt much more than 'falling on your ass trying to jump on wooden beams', as you put it," Laura got out between giggles.
"Eh? How'd you know about that?"
"Because," Laura explained, "I could hear you making the biggest fuss about it when I was trying dresses. So I decided to see what you were doing after the last dress, and here I found you."
"Right, I see." Nick shifted and turned around to face her, and glared into her eyes. "Don't fucking tell anyone."
"Okay, I won't," she said. "But I can't say anything for the people who are still looking at you."
Nick sighed without even looking. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately. "You'd still better not tell anyone."
"Don't worry, Nick, I won't tell." Unexpectedly, Laura reached over and took one of his hands, and he stiffened involuntarily for a moment. "I promise."
He let out a low chuckle, and let his own fingers wrap around Laura's. "Promise accepted."
Laura laughed. "You are strange, Nick. Strange and funny."
"Thanks, Laura. I knew that." Nick looked away from her, but at the same time he could feel her shifting closer to him. Much closer.
"That's what I like most about you," Laura whispered softly into his ear.
"Huh." Nick put his other arm around her shoulders. "Then what do you like least?"
"That's a hard one. Let me think…oh, I know."
"What is it?"
"I think it would have to be…" Laura put her other arm around Nick. "…that you took this long to appear in my life," she finished in a breathy whisper.
"I never thought I'd hear that line from a girl," Nick remarked automatically, in an attempt to cover up the irritating fluttering feeling in his stomach region. He turned his head again to look at her. "You do realize we're in public in broad daylight, with a good amount of that public still staring at us like they haven't got anything better to do?"
"Does that matter?"
"It sort of does to me."
"Only sort of?" Laura moved her face closer to his. "That's good enough for me."
Nick grinned, and moved his face closer to hers. "Me too."
Before they could get the chance to kiss each other, an angry man's voice yelled out behind them "Hey, what are you two lovebirds doing on my balcony? You'd better get down now!"
"Calm your fucking farm!" Nick retorted, turning away from Laura to see a man who looked moderately wealthy holding a long wooden cane of some sort. Nick thought he could probably take the guy on easily, as a stick wasn't very dangerous compared to a knife or even just bare fists, and he was prepared to do just that to the guy for being that kind of dickhead who interrupted passionate moments.
But after a second of clenching his fists, he changed his mind, mostly because if he did try to take the guy he would probably call the cops, and dealing with them would be much harder than taking on one guy with a stick. And he didn't think Laura would be too impressed with him either for bashing up random guys, even if they interrupted passionate moments.
So he relented, this time at least. "Come on, Laura," he said, holding his hand out to her, which she took. "Let's go and find Paula." She nodded her agreement, and they both jumped down to the ground, while the angry guy continued to shout random stuff at them.
"What a dickhead," Nick muttered as soon as they landed on the ground, out of earshot of the angry guy,.
Laura, who had let go of his hand, looked at him oddly. "Dickhead? What does that mean?"
"Uh, yeah." Nick thought about how best to explain it. "You know, someone with their dick on their head?" he tried explaining, arranging his fingers in a somewhat resemblant shape on top of his head. "And they're usually really annoying when it comes to stuff, like that guy."
"Oh, I see," Laura said, with a short giggle. "Still, though, he can't be blamed; it was his balcony."
"I know," Nick replied, while he leaned down to smoothen out his T-shirt and jeans. "That's why I didn't bash him. Even I have standards, you know."
"Yes, so I see," she remarked, then pointed at somewhere in front of them. "There's Paula, over there! Come on, Nick." She skipped off ahead, but Nick didn't feel like keeping pace with her, so he just kept walking to where she was going, knowing that she wouldn't be going very far.
Sure enough, she stopped just outside one of the market stalls ahead, and Nick could see her talking to Paula as he caught up to her. "Hey, Paula," Nick greeted her with his grin. "How's the shopping?"
"Going very well, Nick," Paula answered, smiling. "I was able to find most of the other things we wanted to buy while Laura went off to find you. I don't think we'll be able to fit any more, though, unless we want to make another trip, and I don't really want to."
"Me neither," Laura agreed. "It's starting to get late in the afternoon, and I still have to get my hair styled. I think I will do that now, in fact."
"Bye, Laura!" Nick and Paula both farewelled her as she walked over to a hairdresser's shop on the outer edge of the markets.
"Does she do that often?" Nick muttered almost conspiratorially as soon as Laura was out of sight.
"Yes, she does, unfortunately," Paula replied amusedly. "At least every other week."
"Man, I know what you mean. Girls do that too, where I'm from. Except their idea of 'every so often' is something more like 'whenever I have one freaking strand of hair out of place'. That's another reason why I don't like shopping, actually."
"It seems we are both familiar with the feeling," the brunette remarked. "Anyway, Nick…I think Laura has found you just in time to be useful."
"Why?" Nick asked automatically, before he caught Paula's glance and followed it to the large and very heavy-looking crate filled with random items just behind her. His face immediately turned to dismay, and Paula laughed.
Under his breath, Nick grumbled "I hate being a fucking donkey."
derp romance~ =D