Chapter 9

Nikolas gazed out the window blankly while sitting on the window seat. He had been sitting in this position for the past two hours. His thoughts were endless, all Emily of course. He was silently berating himself for not telling her how he truly felt. The only excuse he could come up with was that it was his only option not to lose her. She had a boyfriend, she was happy. Besides, she already had enough on her plate and she didn't need him to add more to it. There was no way he could tell her.

All he could see were those tears in her eyes. He couldn't tell her the truth and seeing that she was just as scared about losing him, proved that. He gazed at the door when he heard the front door slam, and was pleasantly surprised when Emily barged in the door. He stood up as she stormed over to him and he was instantly concerned.

"Emily, is something wr--"he was cut off when she grabbed his face to pull his head down to meet her own, and kissed him fiercely. He immediately responded by opening his mouth and kissing her back fully. He didn't know what was going on but every instinct that was telling him to stop the kiss now flew from his mind when he felt her tongue slip into his mouth.

As fast as the kiss had started, it ended when she pulled back abruptly. His face was still in her hands and she looked at him intently.

Nikolas opened his eyes and stared at her in confusion. What just happened? "What's wrong?" He asked gruffly.

"You don't love me." She replied, her eyes never leaving his.

Nikolas opened his mouth to speak but she cut him off, "You told me that you just want to be my friend, and nothing more."

Nikolas was in a state of complete confusion. If he had told her that he wanted to be just friends, then why was she kissing him? Not that he had not enjoyed the kiss, because he had. He was about to speak when she cut him off once again. "I guess we can't do that if we're nothing but friends." She paused and looked at him. "Unless you lied, but you would never lie to me, right Nikolas?"

He started to shake his head in protest since he wasn't able to formulate a response right now but she dropped her hands from his face and turned to leave. She stopped short when she got to the door and turned back to face him, "That's too bad; I guess you'll never know what could have been." She stated and left the room.

Nikolas jumped up when he heard the phone ring. He gazed around his dark bedroom and rubbed his eyes wearily. It was just a dream. It had been one week since he had kissed her and he still had dreams about it. All of them were different. He glanced over at the glowing 2:15 am on his alarm as he reached over and picked the phone up. Who could be calling him at this time?

"Hello?" He asked sleepily.

"Hey sleepyhead, did I wake you?"

Nikolas smiled at the sound of her voice, but his smile soon fell when he realized that she sounded upset. Now fully awake, he asked, "Emily? Is something wrong?"

He heard her sigh through the phone and sat up in his bed. "I- um… Just had a dream and I couldn't sleep."

"Are you ok?" She sounded too shaky for his liking.

She paused for a few moments, "It-it's silly, I'm sorry for waking you up Nikolas. I should have never called, umm… I'll talk to you tomorrow, ok?"

"Emily," he said in that I-know-you-better-than-you-know-yourself tone. "You're obviously upset; otherwise you wouldn't have called me in the middle of the night. Tell me what's wrong."

"I just had a dream that left me a little shaky is all."

"Do you want to talk about it?" He asked gently.

"No. I-," She laughed softly, "I just wanted to hear your voice. It always calms me down when I'm upset."

He smiled. That had made him feel special to know that just his voice calmed her down. The feeling was mutual. From then on Nikolas had gotten her to talk to him. She told him her goals, dreams and plans for the future. She told him that she wanted to be a writer, and that her dream was to work at a prestigious magazine corporation one day. He had partaken and told her all of his dreams and goals, excluding her being his main objective of course.

He hadn't realized how long they had talked until he saw the sun start to rise. "Wow, it's almost 6." He whispered.

Emily gasped. He was so easy to talk to she had completely lost track of time. "We must have lost track of time." She laughed softly. "Nikolas, I'm sorry."

He furrowed his brows, "for what?"

She sighed, "For keeping you up all night on the phone." She said softly.

"I don't mind Em, really. I'm glad you called me."

"You are?"

"Yes. I'm glad that you trusted me enough to talk to me about everything." Honored was more the word. Even though he couldn't help but wince inwardly every time she had mentioned Julian's name.

"Nikolas, I talk to you about everything anyway. Why would I not trust you?"

"Well, we haven't really been that close lately. I'm just happy that we were able to fall back into that comfort zone that we shared before, ya know?"

"Yea, me too," she whispered.

As much as he wanted to continue the conversation, he could hear the exhaustion lining her voice. "Ok well listen, I know you're exhausted so I'm going to let you get some sleep."

"If I can sleep," She snorted.

"Emily, I want you to promise me that you'll at least try to get some sleep, ok?" He asked.

"Ok, I promise that I'll try. Thank you so much Nikolas, for listening to me ramble on and on about my screwed up life." She laughed.

"Em, you're my best friend. It was no problem at all. You know that all I've ever wanted was for you to be happy." He finished that last part softly.

"I know that, and I don't want you to think that I'm not grateful."

"I don't. Emily I'm happy to listen. I've lost count of all the times you just sat and listened to me excurse about my problems. I'm happy to do the same for you." Nikolas could practically hear her shrug.

"I don't do it so that you owe me something, Nikolas."

"I know that, and I'm not doing it because I feel like I'm obligated to. I do it because I want to."

"Well thanks."

"You're welcome. Now get some sleep. I'll pick you up around 3."

"Ok. I'll see you then." She countered.

After Emily hung up the phone she lay back on her bed and closed her eyes. She really should try to get some sleep. Nikolas was going to pick her up later and they were going to paint his cottage. She was really looking forward to spending more time with him. Plus seeing him paint should be pretty amusing to watch. Ever since their kiss, things have been different between them. They haven't really hung out lately and Emily was determined to get their old relationship back.

With that thought still floating around in her head, she quickly drifted off to sleep.