A week early, be happy :)Probably won't update for another week. Back to school for the kiddos soon.

As I've said for the past 8 chapters, I do not own "Fairy Tail". That honor goes to Hiro Mashima.

Chapter 4 continued

Both of there POV's, mostly Natsu though

He closed the door to their room. And put the back of his head against it for a minute. He couldn't imagine living without her either. He was frustrated, but couldn't even figure out why he was frustrated. He just had no words or thoughts to express his emotions right now. Then his nose started hurting again, damn these Fuckin flowers, he lit his fist on fire prepared to burn them to ash.

"AAAHHHHH!"

Natsu turned quickly to the scream. It was the lady from downstairs. She was cowering in fear and looking at him. Whoops, he didn't mean to scare anyone. He turned off his hand . "Hey, whoa. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you at all. I didn't know you were there." He held his hands up in a peaceful non-threatening gesture.

"W-w-w-was th-there a p-p-problem with the room, s-s-sir?" She stuttered in fear.

"I'm sorry again. I've just had a frustrating night, and the flowers are bugging me."

She looked very confused. "The flowers, sir?"

"Yeah, they bother my nose." Feeling a need to clarify, "My magic amplifies all my senses and so right now they're really bugging me."

"I'll have them removed right away sir." Her confusion of the situation helped to alleviate her fear. She started to walk away.

"Hey, um ma'am?"

"Y-Yes, Sir?"

"Do you know where I can get some dinner?"

A few minutes later she showed him to the hotels restaurant. She was acting much friendlier toward's Natsu. She was holding his arm and was talking excitedly in his ear. "So you're one of THE Fairy Tail mages that won the Grand Magic Games?! This is so exciting! I watched a lot of it on lacrima vision. I'm so sorry I didn't recognize you from before Mister Dragneel." Natsu wasn't really aware of the flirtatious way she was being with him. His mind was pre-occupied with other blond matters.

"Just Natsu." He said distractedly and gave her a grin.

"Well… Natsu, please let me buy you a drink. It's not every day, I get to meet a celebrity."

He didn't really want too, what he really wanted was to go back to Lucy, and was thinking of how to turn this lady down. "OH MY GOD! I just remembered!" Her pitch hurt his sensitive ears. "You're that fire mage that took on the 2 dragon slayers by yourself!" Dragging him to a booth and shoving him in, she sat right next to him, actually almost on top of him. "Oh please tell me all about being in the Magic Games, you must be one of the strongest and sexiest fire mages in all of Fiore!" He rubbed his chin and hair. Swallowing a groan. I'm a dragon slayer, not just some fire mage. He didn't bother saying it out loud though, since he didn't really want to have a conversation with this women.

"Hello Sarah, Hello Sir, May I start you off with some drinks tonight?" A random waiter said.

"I'm good, could I see the to-go menu?" Natsu said hurriedly. He didn't want to sit here any longer than necessary.

"Nooo, I insist you have at least one drink on me." She was practically purring. It was seriously creeping him out. 'Please.?" He looked at the lady, Sarah, and decided to be polite and have one drink. He could be courteous while waiting for his dinner to cook.

"Fine, do you have anything with fire in it?" Natsu reluctantly asked the waiter.

"We have Fire-Whiskey."

"That'll be fine, just 1 glass."

"I'll have my usual Joe." She turned to smile at Natsu. "So Natsu, what brought you to these parts?"

"The train." He dead panned with an eye roll.

She annoyingly giggled as if he had told a hilarious joke. "You're so funny", she lightly hit his arm. And left her hand on there. "You're really built." As she started rubbing up and down his arm.

Natsu was feeling really uncomfortable. His ears were going red. He was starting to get the cornered animal feeling, and just wanted to escape.

"Here are your drinks." The waiter put down a flaming whiskey for Natsu, and some tropical thing for Sarah. "And here are the menus."

"I know what I want to order", Natsu quickly said. "He pointed at the page with dinners on it, "I want this page to go."

"The entire page?" The waiter couldn't believe it.

"Yes, the whole page, to go. My partner is waiting for me."

Sarah pouted. "Are you in that big of a hurry? She's just your partner right?" She really wasn't happy. Finally a chance to have a date with a really hot, rich, mage, and he was blowing her off! "I'm sure I can…persuade you that I'm a lot more fun than any co-worker." She rubbed up and down his arm some more, drawing little seductive circles on it. Pushing her breasts against him and then she suddenly grabbed his thigh.

Proud of himself for not screaming. He shrugged/shoved her off, quite irritated. "Listen. I'm not interested in being here, right now, with you. I've had a long, miserable day. I want my dinner, some peace and some time with my partner. I appreciate the drink, but I am going back to my room once my food gets here." He was barely holding onto his patience . "Stop touching me. I don't like it."

With that being said he got up from the booth, leaving his drink untouched, and decided to wait for his meals by the bar. Leaving behind the annoying women. He didn't bother looking back once.

30 minutes later he was balancing the tower of take out as he headed back to the room. Thank God the flowers were finally gone. He entered the room and almost dropped all his hard earned containers. Lucy was standing there, in very short, white, robe. Swallowing, "Hey Lucy. I've brought dinner." He said while re-balancing his goods. I don't think I sounded un-normal.

"For the whole hotel?" Looking at the pile.

"Well I didn't know what you wanted, and I haven't eaten all day."

She walked over a helped him put things down, and opened the various containers. "It's like a buffet."

"Take whatever you want Lucy, I'll eat the rest." Natsu was feeling a little wired and intense. Lucy in nothing but a bathrobe was not helping him calm down. "Hey sorry I didn't dry any of your clothes yet. Why don't you pull out what you want to wear, and I'll dry it now while you're eating?"

"It can wait till tomorrow, Natsu. I'm so tired, I honestly don't want to bother. I'm just gonna eat, and sleep." Lucy was exhausted. Unlike Natsu, she had been awake for the entire train ride. She had tried to take a nap, but the train had been jerky with its constant stop and go. Even she had started feeling a little queasy by the end of the ride. And sat down on one of the couches to pick at her chosen dinner. Some chicken thing, that was pretty good.

"Are you sure? I can dry it no problem." Not that he was complaining. He rather liked the short robe.

"I'm sure."

"You know your hair is still really wet." She just shrugged her shoulder, as if saying no big deal. It was still dripping. Making the robe cling to her even more, in places he enjoyed to stare at. He watched her hair drip for a minute before making an offer. "Here I'll at least dry your hair for you. You got pretty wet and cold earlier, I don't want you getting sick tomorrow." He got up and he started running his heated hands through her hair. She seemed a little stiff at first, but eventually she started relaxing.

"You sure that's all you want?" he asked.

"Want of what?" She sounded a little panicked. "What is he implying? He couldn't be flirting with me? No not possible, definitely not possible. He's too dense to know about things like flirting. No I'm just over tired and seeing perverted sexual innuendo in innocent statements because I'm a pervert." She thought frantically.

"Food, Luce. Is that all you want to eat?" As he continued gently combing her hair. He could hear her heartbeat going nuts and now calming down. I just missed something weird didn't I?

Knew I was over reacting, She thought to herself. "Yeah Natsu. I appreciate it. But I'm just more tired than anything." She titled her head back against the couch, and closed her eyes in comfort.

He noticed with her head back like that, her neck was completely exposed, And from his angle he could see down the "V" of her robe. His cheeks turned red, and his hands shook just a little bit. He tried not to look, he really did (for maybe 10 seconds) but at that moment temptation was just too great. It wouldn't hurt to just 'look' right. As long as Lucy didn't catch him. He could see the creamy swells of her breasts. And her long, slender neck looked really hot as well. Tearing his eyes away from the temptation before him, he looked at her face, and saw that indeed her eyes were closed, with just such a peaceful expression on them. He could hear the steady, rhythm of her heartbeat and figured she had fallen asleep. Slowly he reached out a single finger and gently stroked her soft cheek, while with the other hand he continued to stroke her hair. His eyes filled with warmth and tenderness. "She is so beautiful." He then looked at her lips. They were full, and looked really soft. He took his finger off her cheek and he touched them, gently outlining them, and confirmed they were as soft as they looked.

"I wonder what kissing is like?" He had never kissed anyone before. He's had offers, but he just knew he didn't want to kiss anyone but Lucy. The lady downstairs proved that enough for him. Her just hanging on him had made him irritated and extremely uncomfortable. Nothing about her had appealed to him in the way Lucy did.

He was a little tempted to try just a little kiss, just to see what it's like, but he also knew he wanted her to want to kiss him as well. So he stopped tempting himself. Her hair was dry, so he gently picked her up bridal style, and tucked her into bed. Gently rubbing her cheek one more time. I really need to stop putting myself in these situations. One of these days she's gonna kick me...twice.

He proceeded to eat the rest of the food. Most of it was pretty good. Feeling revived, he decided to tackle the wet clothes finally. He just hoped he could compose himself with the underwear this time. After over an hour later, it was finally done. It had been boring, and tedious, but it was complete. He wasn't as caught off guard by the underwear this time.

He was still awake. He knew he should try to get some sleep tonight, otherwise tomorrow would suck. The storm sounded like it was dying down, but it was still happening. They weren't going anywhere tomorrow either. A free day with Lucy, Yay me! He thought happily. Even more reason to sleep, so I can be awake to spend time with Lucy. He decided he was going to exercise himself to tiredness.

After 2 hours of sit-ups and push-ups while using his fire magic continuously; he was completely covered in sweat. He decided he would go take a shower and finally crawl into that soft looking bed with Lucy. He had pushed himself hard tonight. He wanted to make sure he was too tired to be tempted to try anything. It was his first time seeing the bathroom, and decided it was pretty nice. The shower was super strong, and stayed hot for the entire duration of his shower. Finally something worth the cost of this room.

After his shower, he decided to just sleep in his boxers. Lucy would probably be annoyed with him, but he didn't really care. Part of him, the part that wouldn't currently acknowledge it, wanted her to see his body. He was proud of his body, and worked hard on it every day. He wanted the girl he liked to appreciate it. He also wanted her to find him attractive. He thought she was sexy as hell, and kind of wanted her to think the same.

He turned off the lights, and crawled into the bed. And spent a few minutes just staring at her, watching her sleep peacefully. He wanted to hold her in his arms. Oh why not, he'll just say she started shivering in the middle of the night. He snuggled closer, and wrapped his arms around her and held her close. Breathing in her wonderful scent. Contentment filled his entire being. He could hear her soothing heartbeat, and could tell he had not woken her up. He gave into one more desire just this once, and chastely kissed her on her forehead. And proceeded to fall asleep with a smile on his face.

The summer after Junior Prom was bittersweet. This would be our final summer. He would be starting his new life in just 2 months. I was going to miss him. He wasn't going far away for college, actually to a local school, but I just knew he would meet new friends, have a new circle, and we would just fall more and more apart. I was a realist. I had been pining for him for 3 years. If we didn't get anywhere before, there was no way we would get anywhere with him moving on. I just knew it wasn't meant to be.

I had decided that I was going to start distancing myself from him, to make the transition more bearable for myself. I know I wasn't being completely fair to him, but I also wasn't in the mood to be fair either. Gradually I stopped inviting him out, and stopped going when invited. Making excuses. I got a summer job, which made it easy to come up with a valid excuses.

The occasional times we did meet up, I made sure to sit next to other friends.

The end of that July we attended a conference together. Michael started going out of his way to sit next to me. At the rallies, in the van, when we went out to eat. He would just make sure to sit next to me. I didn't say anything about it, though I most definitely noticed. I didn't know if I should be super happy or irritated. You can't just stop finding someone attractive.

Near the end of our trip he asked if he could speak to me after the rally. Not really thinking anything of it, I said sure, I'd meet him in the hang out room.