Witness Protection ✔

Aftermath

It had been a whole day and the kiss wasn't mentioned once. Darius had been silent, but no more so than usual. He just hadn't brought it up.

Nathalia wanted to do it herself, but she didn't know how. A few times she'd almost done it but chickened out at the last moment.

The fact he didn't speak about it made her anxious and she had no idea what his thoughts on the kiss were. Maybe she was a bad kisser? Maybe that's the reason he didn't talk about it, he was trying to forget it happened at all.

But she had liked the kiss. It felt heavenly and now it was all she could think about, and every time she did her cheeks would go red as a beet. But it wasn't an unpleasant sensation. On the contrary, she wanted more. But it didn't seem like he wanted the same thing.

And if he wasn't going to bring it up neither was she.

Right now she sat with her knees in the dirt trying to pull out the weeds surrounding her vegetable plants. The work didn't bother her though, she liked the distraction.

She was just about to pull out a rather large piece of weed when the doorbell rang.

After wiping off her hands on her old jeans she stood up and almost walked inside before realizing how dirty her clothes were. On her knees were large spots of mud as well as on her thighs from wiping her hands constantly. She could either wait or try to listen in.

First, she tried to wait, but after a minute or so she grew impatient. She pressed her ear to the backdoor, which didn't do much. So she gave up and took a seat on the steps of the back porch.

She carefully peeled off her muddied boots after hearing the front door close again and went inside. Just as she reached the kitchen Darius walked in as well, carrying a large bowl and a tired look on his face.

"Trudy came to drop off this bowl of cranberry sauce and uh- told me we were to join them for their family Easter brunch." He said the last part with a sour look on his face, as if he'd rather pull out his hair. "And also this sauce smells like soap."

He said the last part with so much disgust she couldn't help but burst out laughing.

"I'm sure it'll taste fine," she said after she'd caught her breath.

"I'm serious, Nat. It smells like soap. Sniff it if you don't believe me."

She didn't know what she expected when she walked toward the bowl and sniffed it but Darius was right.

"Oh, you're right... It does smell like soap. Do you think it's edible?"

"I'm not eating it but you can do whatever you like," he said before pausing, "actually if you die because of food poisoning that'll be a problem so don't."

But Nathalia felt bad about it, this was Trudy's prized dish. She didn't want to disappoint the elderly neighbor. But the smell coming off it resembled the stuff she'd used earlier to clean the windows.

"What will we tell Trudy then? I'm sure she spent a lot of time making it for us. And it was her grandmother's 'famous' recipe she said."

"We can just throw it out and tell her it was the best cranberry sauce we've ever tasted, and hope she'll never bring us another bowl. She doesn't have to know. And it was probably more notorious than famous."

Deceiving the kind woman didn't feel right, but she also really didn't want to eat the soapy substance. So she just watched as Darius dumped the contents straight into the trashcan.

Suddenly she also remembered the invitation.

"So what was the thing about Easter brunch you mentioned?" she inquired.