Everlastingly Loving You - Chapter 72

“So, checked on Alistair yet?” Sophia asked Clarisse curiously.

Clarisse tensed.

“Yes, I have,” she answered, pursing her lips.

“He’s fine,” she said, blatantly lying to Sophia’s face.

“He was just a tad bit under the weather,” Clarisse managed to put on a convincing, small smile.

Sophia nodded slowly, “Well, if that’s the case… it seems like there’s nothing to worry about.”

She looked out the window, seeing Nicholas and Ava.

The curtains were drawn, so Sophia could get a better view of the two.

Meanwhile, with Nicholas and Ava.

“Why are we holding hands again?” Nicholas asked.

“Because, I want to,” Ava answered.

Nicholas shot her a look of exasperation.

“And?”

“There’s no ‘and’,” Ava answered wryly.

She had made him take a stroll in the gardens with her, and as Ava and he neared the lake, he had flashbacks of yesterday. Right before Sophia sprinted out the lakeside.

“I’ve got to go,” Nicholas said. His voice void of any emotion.

He ran out of there, away from Ava.

Away from the garden, and more importantly, away from the lakeside.

Images of Sophia flashed in his mind, images of her sitting peacefully on the lakeside, and her minutes before she kissed him on the cheek.

‘It was a mere kiss on the cheek,’ he told himself.

‘It was a mere kiss on the cheek,’ he repeatedly told himself.

‘It was nothing more,’ he tried to convince himself.

‘She probably thinks it’s nothing more,’ he realized.

The mere notion ruined him.

She thinking it was nothing more, that the kiss was just a simple birthday gift even if that one kiss meant the world to him… it made him distraught just thinking about it.

Nicholas was engrossed in thought; he hadn’t noticed Alistair calling out to him.

“Nicholas!”

“Nicholas!” Alistair repeated.

“Not now, Alistair,” Nicholas grumbled.

“We need to talk,” Alistair said to him, disregarding his previous words.

Nicholas furrowed his brows.

“Talk? About what?” He asked curiously. What was there to talk about in the first place?

“Who else?” Alistair asked in return.

“Oh.”

He scanned his surroundings.

“Not out here,” he said to Alistair.

Alistair nodded, entering an empty living room nearby.

Nicholas followed suit, closing the door behind him.

“So,” Alistair pursed his lips.

“Sophia tells me you can play the piano,” he said to Nicholas who looked at him in confusion.

Alistair added, mumbling under his breath, ‘Among other things.’

If only he knew. If only he knew he was the only thing on Sophia’s mind whenever she was with Alistair, or anyone else, for that matter. She didn’t bother trying to hide it – talking about Nicholas every chance she got to Alistair.

“You came to talk to me about… that?” He asked.

Alistair shook his head.

He didn’t know what to say to Nicholas. What if he ended up saying the wrong thing?

‘If you truly love someone, you have to let them go,’ were the words stuck in Alistair’s head, repeating themselves over and over again.

“I’m leaving Beldovia,” he finally told Nicholas.

Nicholas was both surprised and ecstatic to hear Alistair would be leaving.

“I’m leaving at the crack of dawn and I need you to promise me…”

“Promise me you’ll take care of her,” Alistair warned.

“That’s the only thing I want to hear from you before I can leave,” he admitted.

Nicholas stared at Alistair.

Take care of Sophia?

He didn’t think she needed taking care of, to begin with. His partner-in-crime was the strongest woman he knew, she was the last person he thought needed taking care of.

But, he promised anyway.

“I will,” he promised.

Alistair smiled.

“Sophia’s a good person. If she gets hurt, I *will* come for you.”

Nicholas blinked. He’d never hurt her nor did he ever intend to.

“I won’t hurt her,” he said intensely.

He uttered under his breath, ‘I never will.’

Alistair nodded, “Okay.”

He then told Nicholas, “She cares about you.”

“A lot, from what I’ve heard,” Alistair admitted.

His heart ached.

Nicholas beamed.

Had he not stopped himself, he would’ve asked, ‘She does?’

“And I care about her too,” he said instead.

“I know,” Alistair said weakly.

“I know you do.”

‘So don’t hurt her. She has feelings for you, no matter whether or not she’ll admit it.’

__

Sophia wanting Ava to leave was a major understatement.

She despised Ava the minute she laid her eyes on her.

She’d been hogging Nicholas.

Nicholas wasn’t exactly hers, to begin with, but it was quite irritating, seeing Nicholas with another woman – as much as Sophia didn’t want to admit.

“So… let me get things straight, since Nicholas is with another woman, and Alistair out of the picture, you’ve come to your brother for accompaniment?” Louis asked two weeks later.

Sophia stared at him, “What’s so wrong with sister brother bonding time?”

“We’re not calling it that,” Louis refused.

“We so are,” Sophia replied as she got comfortable on the sofa, readying herself for a long, long movie binge.

They were about to have a movie marathon in their private theatre that’d been reserved especially for them.

Sophia and Louis had an assortment of their favourite snacks to go along with it.

For Sophia, she had a bag of popcorn, and for Louis, cinnamon churros.

Louis swirled his martini with an olive stick.

It was then the movie began, starting with all the classics.

As Sophia watched character after character confessing their feelings to one another, she was engrossed.

She wasn’t that big a fan when it came to romance movies, she personally thought everything was generic and cheesy, but it was different this time around.

“Where do they get off confessing their feelings like that?” Sophia asked, munching on popcorn afterwards.

“Do people actually do that?” She asked next.

“Highly, highly unrealistic,” she commented.

“Do they actually talk to each other that way?” Sophia asked, a disgusted look on her face.

Louis watched as his sister spouted comment after comment.

“You sure this is about the movie and not what’s going on in your life?” He asked his sister.

“What’s going on in my life? Course not,” Sophia denied everything.

Louis sighed, returning his gaze to the movie itself.

Sophia then switched movies.

She had enough with romance movies, for now, moving on towards action and adventure movies.

“There,” Sophia said.

Louis got more and more concerned by the minute.

He knew Sophia would deny everything, so all he could do was watch.

Hours later, Sophia had fallen asleep on the sofa.

Louis watched his sister sleep, wondering what he was supposed to do.

After a long period of thought, he decided to wake Sophia up instead.

He patted her gently, “Sophia, wake up.”

No movement came from Sophia. She was dead asleep.

Louis then thought of an idea.

Snickering, he whispered, “Ava’s leaving.”

Sophia opened one eye.

“What did you just say?” She asked, half-awake.

“Ava’s leaving Beldovia,” Louis said to her.

Sophia’s eyes shot open.

“What?!” She exclaimed.

She realized it was a joke.

“Oh come on, Louis, you mustn’t do that to me,” she said.

Louis had a goofy grin plastered on his face.

“So you really are jealous,” he said.

“Jealous, what? Ridiculous, I’m not jealous,” Sophia sputtered indignantly.

She groaned exasperatedly.

“Is it that obvious?” She asked then.

“That you’re jealous of Ava? Yes,” Louis admitted to his sister’s face.

Sophia grumbled, “There’s nothing about her to be jealous of.”

“It’s just… It’s the little things,” Sophia said, an emotional rant piling up inside her.

It’d been a couple of weeks that had flown by quickly, and Sophia was on edge.

Sophia couldn’t have breakfast without Ava interrupting.

She couldn’t go anywhere with Nicholas without hearing Ava chatting, neither could she have a conversation with him without her around.

“I want to be able to have a meal in peace without having her around,” Sophia admitted miserably.

“I want to be able to talk to Nicholas without having Ava butt in talking about how Nicholas used to carry a teddy bear wherever he went when he was still a child.”

“I want to be able to have a walk in the gardens without Ava spitting facts about every single flower we pass. I don’t need to know the anatomy of a gardenia, what does she take me for? An idiot?” Sophia spat.

“So, you rather it be him you were watching movies with rather than me?” Louis asked, testing out the waters.

Sophia shook her head in an instant. She hadn’t meant that, she hadn’t meant that at all.

“Of course not, Lou,” she said truthfully.

“You’re irreplaceable,” Sophia said as a matter-of-factly, “You should know that by now.”

Louis smiled appreciatively at his sister; his smile disappeared the minute Sophia continued on about Nicholas.

“You can’t believe the times I’ve had to get rid of Ava simply to talk to Nicholas,” she added before she finally concluded, putting an end to her rant.

“I just want my partner in crime back,” she said, sniffling.