~Stay With Me~

Dolores took a deep breath before letting herself in and closing the door behind her. She strode across to the other side of the room where Nicolas was with careful steps. He was shirtless and asleep, although he looked like he was having trouble sleeping.

She stepped by his bed to study his bruised features. There was a bandage on his head and red patches on the sides of his body. Her fingers reached out to touch the marks and check for fractured ribs. It was no feat for her as her Mom used to do the same when she had accidents as a kid while riding her bike.

His eyebrows twitched occasionally as though he was terrified of something or someone. His whole body stretched and stiffened before slackening to loosen his taut muscles. She reached out for a pillow, stretching his head out on it so he could have a fitful rest.

Everytime he stretched, Dolores watched his face contort with pure pain and it made her heart squeeze with worry for him. He was asleep yet he looked like a little kid who was haunted from the monsters in his dreams. His breath pattern also seemed irregular.

Entranced by how vulnerable he looked on his bed, pale and frightened, Dolores was surprised when her fingers came up to the side of his face of their own volition. She did nothing to stop them from coming in contact with his warm skin. Her fingertips brushed his jaw slightly and she paused to watch his reaction but he wasn't responding. She did it again and he ground his jaw hard, lightly tipping her fingers away.

She dropped her hands, looking around his room. It was as a guy's room should be; blue posters, photos of his favorite footballers from the La Liga season and a gaming pc on his reading desk instead of books. A photo of his family sat beside the pc but another smaller one caught her attention. In it was a woman with his hair color lifting a toddler in her arms. The baby's head tossed back and his little pink mouth was wide open in a display of happiness.

It was beautiful to behold.

"Dolores." She turned back in shock with her hands pressed to her chest at the croaky voice. Her gaze rested upon Nicolas whose eyes were still closed but his breathing pattern had changed and gone back to normal.

She walked back to his bed, gently smiling at him. "You're supposed to be resting doofus. How did you even know it was me?"

His eyelashes fluttered open to reveal his gorgeous gray orbs and with a croaky voice he answered, "Let's just say your scent has been imprinted in my brain." He tried to lift himself up but his elbows buckled underneath him and gave way. He toppled back on the bed, groaning in pain.

"You shouldn't be awake now. What happened to you? You look like you've been run over by a truck a million times." Her eyes were all over his smooth skin which was now tainted with angry red and purple bruises.

Instinctively, her fingers moved to his sides again but his were faster. He held her hands in place.

"Lay still. It won't hurt." She assured, pinning him with a gentle gaze. He calmed down and let her do what she needed to. After confirming that his ribs weren't affected, she trained her curious blue eyes on him. "What happened to you?"

He winced as if to say something in reply then stopped abruptly. "I'll be fine, Dolores. Let's just say I was mistaken for somebody else."

"Mistaken identity and you got beat this much?" She was not buying that lie from him. "Does your head still hurt very much?"

As her hands reached out again to touch him, he flinched slightly prompting her to place her hands back on her thighs.

"You're acting like a protective mother bear now. It's kinda cute." Nicolas managed a cheeky grin at her downcast face. He chuckled and earned himself a small slap on the shoulder.

She didn't find any humour in his words as the feeling that something was wrong somewhere couldn't be shaken from her system. She was scared of losing a loved one. Just like the way her Mom had been taken from her.

Startling her, he reached for her hand and squeezed it with his gaze never leaving her face for a second. "I know you're worried but I will be fine." He paused for a while as though carefully selecting his next words in his head. Then he looked back at her. "You're not going to just leave when things get rough too, are you?"

That's when Dolores realized she had voiced out her innermost thoughts to him. She sighed in resignation. "We're stuck. Like glue."

Scooting closer, she pressed a kiss on his lips for some seconds before pulling away. Their gaze lingered for a few seconds before Nicolas ran his fingers through her hair, drawing her close to kiss her deeply. Her hands carefully dropped on both sides of him in order not to get him hurt than he already was. She leaned over so that her body reclined halfway over his.

He pulled away for air with a groan and a gasp prompting an awkward laugh from both of them. When he reached out to her again, she leaned over and in the process, her palm dug into the injured spot by his shoulder.

"Oh, fuck." He gritted out.

Like a splash of cold water doused all over her, Dolores dragged her hands away in haste. "Oh my God. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you."

It first shone in his eyes before it came like a low rumble in the middle of his chest. He was laughing at her. The nerve of him.

"You douchebag. I thought I had killed you already."

"It's fine. It's okay. It didn't hurt that much. I mean, it hurt but not like that. The look you gave just seemed so priceless." He beamed up at her.

She reluctantly forced herself up from his bed as she wiped her palms on the baggy pants she had hastily thrown on. His eyebrows furrowed deeply in confusion and his expression changed when she grabbed her purse.

"Are you leaving?"

Dolores paused in her actions but felt gleeful for his interruption. She half expected him to stop her even though she knew she was more than late for her appointment with her therapist.

Rolling her blue eyes, she gave a reply in the most sarcastic and snarky tone she could manage. "No, shit sherlock. I'm trying to go get my bed so I can sleep in here with you and also miss out on school work."

"You don't have to. You could share my bed." He failed to grasp the underlying sarcasm in the tone she had replied him with. His gray eyes shone hopefully at her and suddenly the last thing she wanted to do was leave. He made a painful effort at making room for her on the spacious bed.

Stunned, Dolores walked back to his bed and tucked herself in really close to Nicolas. However, she was still careful to pay attention to his injuries just in case she pressed against any of them. He turned his head sideway to study her profile. Soon, he had their hands entwined to the surprise of Dolores.

He raised their joined fingers to their view, squeezing hers tenderly and Dolores saw the lines of calluses and scars that told to no little length how rough life was to him. After some minutes and a harsh expel of breath, he spoke. "It was Carlos."

"Carlos? What-- oh." It finally dawned on her what he was talking about. She was yet to figure out what he could have done so bad to be meted out such treatment. "Why?"

He remained mute for some moments and when Dolores reasoned he didn't want to speak about the topic, he looked at her again. "I don't know. It's probably because I stopped hanging out with him."

If that was all, then it made no sense to her. There was no way one would attack somebody without a valid reason for it. But, it was Carlos they were talking about and he probably wouldn't need a reason to bully any weakling he gets in his treacherous claws.

With a sigh, she arose from where she laid, grabbed her purse and tossed it over her shoulder. "I'll be leaving now. You can manage, right?"

"Please don't leave yet. Stay a while longer, can you? There are things I need to say but haven't quite found the courage to say them. If you leave now, I'm pretty sure I won't have this gusto to speak about it ever again." His voice cracked with untold emotions reflecting in the glossiness of his gray orbs. "Please?"

'There is definitely something up with him.'

She gave a perfect roll of her ocean eyes instead. "I can't believe I'm about to say this but, one day of being absent at school won't hurt, would it?"

With that, she tossed open the blankets again and laid next to him. Once again he took her hand in his, intertwining them together and raising it up to his view.

Nicolas cleared his throat subtly before speaking when he noticed Dolores finger trace his scars and calluses. "My mom." He started. "She left us when Aurora was six. I overheard her tell my father, one night during one of their infamous arguments, that we weren't good enough for her. She would always try to compare the families of her rich friends to ours and often made us act prim and perfect whenever we were all out together with them on a lunch date."

Dolores didn't say a word but listened with rapt attention at the sudden revelation. He must have bottled these things up deep inside until they started to hurt. It was rare for someone like him to suddenly open up to her without her asking questions. Her suspicions became confirmed about something mysterious happening with him.

What are you driving at, Nicolas?

~~~{•}~~~

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~~Tequila~~