Witness Protection ✔

The Switch

The days were coasting by quite comfortably lately. The tension between Nathalia and Darius was slowly ebbing away as they got more and more familiar with each other.

Nathalia had accepted that she wasn't the cause of his cold and brooding personality, something she struggled with when they had just started living together. She'd been worried she was annoying to him, but she didn't know in what way. By not knowing how she was annoying him she couldn't fix it, which in turn made her feel bad.

His neutral face just happened to be a scowl. A scowl he managed to wear very well. Sometimes she'd catch herself staring at him. She wasn't used to spending time with men as handsome as he was. She felt like he missed a career opportunity as a model, since his face seemed to come straight out of a magazine.

His straight nose accentuated his well-defined jawline. A jawline that started to show a 5 o'clock shadow. It never got longer than that, suggesting it was a choice made by him and not a lack of grooming. Nathalia liked the look, it made him look more rugged than he already did.

Nathalia had also been spending more time in the living room. Most of the time she'd be watching Netflix, but since they'd packed her Nintendo Switch she decided to put the little console to good use as well.

Like she was doing now, as she sat on the couch playing Animal Crossing.

The game was a simple one, yet she enjoyed it tremendously. She was just about to reel in a real big fish when she felt the couch dip beside her.

Looking up she found Darius staring at the screen.

"What are you playing?" He asked.

His voice held no judgment, but Nathalia couldn't help but feel slightly embarrassed to be caught playing such a childish game.

"Animal Crossing," she replied as she lightly laughed at the silliness of it.

He stared at the screen a few moments longer before asking, "how do you win?"

This made her think about the game, it didn't really have an ending.

"Well, It's not really a game you play to win. It's more about... just playing? If that makes any sense? It's very relaxing," she explained.

By the look on his face, she could tell it didn't make sense to him at all, but he nodded anyway. She hadn't expected him to understand, so she didn't mind.

He didn't say anything after that and neither did she, so they sat in silence as he watched her play her game. This went on for a few minutes until a question popped into her head.

"Do you like playing video games?"

This made him look up again. His grey eyes made her realize exactly how close together they were sitting at that moment. She could see every little detail inside of them, from the light grey edges to the dark speckles at the center.

"I used to."

By now she was used to his cryptic answers, but that didn't stop her from asking more. She'd found that while he wasn't willing to give too much away at first, he wasn't opposed to answering direct questions. He rarely was truly open with her though, and if she'd ask too much he'd shut down and not answer anything anymore. Whether he didn't like talking about himself or if he didn't want her to know anything, she didn't know. But she was trying to find out.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I used to play video games as a kid, but haven't for a while now. Guess I don't really have time for it"

"Well you've got all the time in the world right now, don't you?" she countered.

A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips, it had only lasted for a millisecond but she'd caught it.

"Yeah, I suppose I do."

His almost smile made her smile in return. "So what kind of games do you like then?" she asked.

"No idea, I haven't played in years."

"You look like a Playstation guy, maybe we could get a ps4 next time we're in town," she started excitedly after sizing him up for a moment, "maybe we could play some multi-player games! I'm generally not very good at videogames but since you haven't played for a while we could be equally bad."

When she was younger she'd play video games with her cousins at her grandparents' place. She remembered how fun it was to play with them all night long during the summers and was excited to share that with Darius. He admitted he played games as a child, so she thought he'd enjoy it as well.

"That sounds really fun, but it's gonna have to wait," he said.

"Why?" She questioned.

Nathalia couldn't really think of a reason why they should wait, as they had plenty of free time.

"I'm leaving soon, my replacement will be here on Monday so I'll leave sometime after he arrives."

Nathalia felt as though her heart had stopped.

A replacement?

He said it all so casually but it had completely blindsided her. Why would he leave? Maybe he didn't like being around her after all. Maybe she'd been so annoying, he felt as though he couldn't even do his job. Had he been waiting for this moment since day one? A million thoughts were racing through her mind, but she settled on asking just one.

"Why?" She croaked out. She hadn't meant for it to sound so pathetic, but it did.

He studied her face for a second, his brows furrowing together.

Why did I ask him that? I must've sounded so desperate. What's it to me why he wants to leave? He's not the one hiding. He can go wherever he wants to go.

"It's just for a week Nat, I'm not allowed to work for too long without a break. It's union rules and all. I'll be back next Friday."

Nat.

Not Kat. Not Katherine. Just Nat.

This was the first time he'd called her by her first name. Well, half of it at least. This, combined with the news of him not leaving permanently, filled her with emotions she had trouble containing.

He's coming back!

"Oh," she laughed, embarrassed by her internal overreaction. "I thought you meant permanently."

He didn't reply to that. Instead, he just smirked. Nathalia dreaded to think about what he meant by that. So she chose not to think about it at all. Instead, she thought about the man replacing Darius. Would he be similar to him? Or would they be complete opposites?

"So do you know who's substituting you?" she asked after a brief silence.

Darius nodded before replying. "We worked together for a while, he's very good at what he does so you don't have to worry about that."

But Nathalia wasn't worried about her safety. What if she couldn't get along with this person? What if he was a creep? She didn't want Darius to go but understood that he had to. It would only be for a week.

"Can you tell me more about him?" she pressed.

He looked towards the ceiling and scratched his neck. "His name is Chris, he's 36 years old... about 6'4"..."

None of these things mattered to Nathalia, but she realized she couldn't exactly ask him about the personality of the man. What did catch her attention was his age, she had expected someone Darius's age to replace him. She hoped she could get along with someone a lot older.

"You'll be fine," he assured her, "if you don't like him just avoid him. And if anything happens you can contact Julia. Or me."

His attempts to comfort her were very sweet, but did little to actually calm her nerves. Besides, there was no way she was going to bother him during his time off. So she tried to lighten the mood again.

"Let me guess, his name isn't really Chris?"

Darius just chuckled and confirmed that no, his name wasn't really Chris.