chapter 13

Nate's POV. 

I looked outside my bedroom. 

Onlookers would probably think that I was having the time of my life but that was negative compared to what I felt. 

It wasn't every time that I had the opportunity to give my best at the rink, but whenever I did I took the chance and it earned me a lot of status among my peers. 

But that wasn't even the saddest part about it. 

Most of them just saw this as a way to get closer to me and elevate their status by association, which wasn't entirely bad; it just made me even more sheltered than I should have been. 

But that wasn't even as bad as living under the same roof as the person who had made my life miserable by taking my mother's life.

A soft knock brought me out of my reverie, and I headed to the door, hoping to tell whoever it was that was standing there off because I had made it clear that I didn't want to be disturbed. 

If it were my stepmother trying to play The Good Wife just to get on my good side, she would see the wrong side of me, and I wasn't even joking. 

"Hey..." Jessica's eyes shone with a flicker of uncertainty, before returning to their normal features. 

Now, Nate, how on Earth do you go about understanding how a person's facial features look? If not for the fact that I was only trying to get on the bad side of life? 

"This is a disaster," I said. 

She cast a glance at the hallway, before barging in without my consent and striding to the middle of the room. 

"I know that I should not be barging in like this but I couldn't help myself." She paced around. 

That wasn't an apology, but it seemed like she was going through a mental crisis rather than just trying to get on my nerves.

I regarded her with my cool mask just like I had done to everyone who tried to get close, uh, because one of these days they would end up leaving, and I didn't want to get attached to anyone.

"It's just that I was almost going to my room and then I stumbled upon..." She ran her fingers through her hair. 

Sexy red nails peeked from underneath the mass of brunette...

I shook myself internally to rid the thoughts of her looking so lovely. 

"Look, I don't mean to ramble but I just needed to speak to you tonight because of what I overheard when I was passing by in the hallway." 

There was nothing that screamed attraction from her body language, it almost seemed like she was in fear, and I felt this fierce protectiveness inside of me to ensure that she was protected from every monster in the closet. 

"Did you stumble upon the Grinch?"

She deadpanned.

"Well, you can get on with the conversation instead of making me guess..." I headed to my bed.

"Because you're not good at that." She scoffed.

There was one thing I admired about her, and it was the fact that she could stand up for herself when the need arose. 

My father wasn't supposed to get the license to dominate over somebody else's child especially if they had proven to be wonderful people. 

Well, maybe that was an overstatement of her character, but I didn't think that she really had it in her to be provocative or annoying, except when she wanted to be on purpose. 

There were a lot of things that I also wanted to tell her off on because I was not an ardent follower of whatever it is that she was doing but as long as I was concerned, I wanted to hear a side of the story before just jumping into conclusions and I meant it 

"Let me get this pretty straight. You come over here, saying that you have something to tell me, yet you stall and back out at the last minute, and expect me to be happy with whatever it is you were coming to dump on me? Is that truly how you perceive my values to be?" I demanded from her 

She was one of the few people that I regarded especially when it came to stuff like this, but I was not going to allow myself to get swindled into the business. 

She was one of the people that I had also wanted to keep at arm's length because she just didn't know when to stop. 

"I overheard your father talking to someone about you trying to be too nosy, and he might have spoken about trying to get rid of some evidence." She explained.

The hairs on my nape prickled, looking through as though I had made a huge mistake in my life and I couldn't even come to terms with the fact that I had made a huge mistake. 

If my father was speaking about this to someone, that meant I was on to something, and I needed to be very careful before he blew hot on me. 

I had many reasons to be very afraid but one of them remained the fact that my father would never go through the length of making sure that I was okay except he had something to gain from it. 

"And he didn't see you did he?" 

She shook her head. 

"look I want you to keep this under wraps as much as you can but most importantly, I also need you to be very careful, I also need you to be as quiet as you can about everything that you have seen in this house because it could potentially come back and backfire and I don't want that for you," I explained as logically as I could hoping that she for her own good stayed away from any problems that being affiliated with my family would bring to her.

"What are you going to do about it now?" 

"I am going to sort it out but... You are going to be by my side."