(song: "Feels" - Kiiara)

Natalie had taken Kaden's advice. She called Gardner and asked if they could study in his room instead of at their usual locations. He was definitely hesitant about it at first, and Natalie couldn't understand why.

"Well. . ." Gardner rubbed at the back of his neck. "We can't study at my dorm room, but do you think you'd like to come to my parents house? We can study in my room there."

"Yes!" Natalie responded too eagerly. She had to double-back and make it sound less enthusiastic. "I mean, sure. If you think that's what we should do."

"Okay! Okay. . .so let's go then."

He tapped on the frame of his car and opened the driver side door to get in. Natalie quickly followed his action.

Natalie had met Gardner's parents a total of three times, but she'd not been to their Pennsylvania home. His parents had relocated from Virginia—where Natalie went to high-school—to move there. It was fortunate for him because he could see his parents on the weekends.

After an hour they reached the home. The house was large, classic and beautiful with a cemented in-ground pool visible in the back. There was a very traditional look and feel to all of it. It looked like the kind of home that would be a wonder to behold all fixed up for Christmas.

As they approached the door, Gardner turned to face Natalie.

"Look, I just need to warn you about something. I haven't really invited you over to my families place because I hate being here. My cousin is here every single weekend and I can't stand him. He is literally been someone I've never gotten along with. Just ignore him, please."

Natalie nodded with a little surprise.

Gardner pulled out his set of keys to open the door, but before he could do it the door flew open. A young man stood in front of Gardner with excitement.

"Aunt Molly told me you were bringing a girl over and I know you'd probably try to hide her from me. So I decided to come out here and meet her myself."

Gardner moved aside with the most irritated expression Natalie had ever seen. "Natalie, this is my cousin, Kaden. Kaden this is Natalie."

Natalie's eyes widened as she was staring face-to-face with Kaden standing in the doorway. Every inch of her wanted to release a blood-curling, scream but she didn't make a sound. She just stared at him like a mute.

It took Kaden a moment to put the dots together and realize that Gardner—his cousin—was the guy Natalie had a crush on.

"Natalie. . ?" Kaden was confused.

Natalie tried her best to discreetly signal with her two-fingers crossed like an x.

He quickly tried to fix the situation. "I mean, Natalie is a nice name. Nice to meet you girl whom I have never met!"

"Nice to meet you for the first time ever." She added awkwardly. She was such a bad actress.

"Yeah. Well, we need to go study, come on Natalie." Gardner looked like he didn't want to waste any more time standing out in the cold. He touched Natalie's shoulder and lead her inside.

She did her best to keep up with him, but there was so many things racing through her mind. Gardner had mentioned having a cousin, but he never talked much about him. Mentally she blamed Ashlynn! How could Ashlynn leave out such a colossal detail?

Kaden stepped in front of them the moment they reached the hallway. "Hey Gar, so don't you think that it might be a good idea to go get some drinks or prepare a snack for Natalie? They say it's better to study on a full stomach, you know?"

Gardner didn't look like he wanted to deal with Kaden at all, but the suggestion did make sense to him. "Natalie, I'm going to get some food for us. Just keep going down this hallway, my room is the first room to the right." He made a motion with his arm to emphasize the direction. "Kaden, don't bother Natalie."

Once Gardner dissipated off into the kitchen Kaden and Natalie mutually said to one another, "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Now that I know that the guy you are fixated on is my cousin, I'm going to tell you to abort your plan tonight!" Kaden whispered roughly through his teeth.

"You both go to the same university and yet fail to mention each other? Where is the logic in that?" Natalie shot back with just as much frustration.

Kaden pulled at his hair. "He hates me! He's always hated me since we were kids!"

Natalie lifted her hand up to silence Kaden. "Shh! I've got to go before he gets back and finds us here."

"Natalie, listen to me." Kaden reached to touch her elbows gently to get her to look him in the eyes. "Trust me, you don't want to be with him."

Their breaths became deeper and more deliberate. She found his touch to be way too comfortable when it shouldn't have been. Natalie stepped back from her until her arms slid away from his grasp. "Funny, I'm hearing the same thing said about you. You have a reputation around school."

"Natalie? What are you still doing in the hallway?" Gardner held a wooden tray with an assortment of grapes, sliced cheese and triangle-cut sandwiches. He by passed Kaden completely and nudged open his bedroom door for her.

"Nothing, I was just asking him where the bathroom was," she said before she moved into the bedroom.

Gardner waited until Natalie stood by his computer desk to close the door with his foot. He relieved himself of the tray and dropped down with a heavy thud against his mattress. "I can't stand him. He never takes anything seriously in life. When we were kids he took up dancing of all things. He had an opportunity to get a degree in a meaningful field and he wastes it on studying drama. No one in the family was happy with that decision."

Natalie sucked in both her lips and kept silent.

She had pipe dreams of being a singer, but when they were fifteen Gardner had explained to her the odds of her making money as a singer. She assumed that he knew best, and she wanted a comfortable life. When he suggested the medical-field to her she didn't even question it. If he was going to be there, she was too.

Still though, because she had at one point had those dreams, she respected Kaden's decision to embrace the arts even with the odds stacked against him.

Gardner patted the space beside him on his bed, "Should we start studying?"

"Sure." Natalie joined him, but it felt strange to her.

Two weeks ago she'd have been ecstatic to be in Gardner's room sitting beside him on a bed. For some reason she didn't feel anything about it at all. Maybe it was the shock of finding out Kaden and Gardner were relatives, maybe it had numbed her.

The two of them studied in their usual fashion. They wrote out index cards and tested each other on memorizing the written information over and over again. Gardner was the type that liked to be really thorough with studying, it was a quality Natalie liked about him.

After several hours, Gardner laid down against the bed and rubbed at his heavy eyelids.

"I am really sorry, Natalie. I'm really tired. I don't think I can drive us back without a nap."

Natalie smiled warmly at him. "Go ahead, take one. I'll wake you in one hour."

"Are you sure?" He asked without opening his eyes.

"Yeah, I'll just go watch TV for a bit."

"Natalie, you're amazing." Gardner mumbled sleepily.

It wasn't the first time he called her amazing. He often complimented her in this way when she'd do a favor for him. She used to feel butterflies every time he'd talk to her in such an endearing voice. This time, she didn't feel those. It still felt nice, but it wasn't the same.

Natalie was careful to close the door softly when she left the room. She followed the sounds of the television until it led her to the game room. Kaden had the front part of his hair up in a tiny ridiculous hair band and he wore a shirt that said 'Got Cats?'. He looked mesmerized by watching a chef's table cooking show while he held a fluffy, overweight Persian cat in his lap.

Occasionally he drove his hand into a bowl of popcorn and then dipped it in a nutella jar before eating it.

He was so weird.

Natalie stepped alongside the couch and wordlessly sat down beside him.

"How did it go?" Kaden tried to ask casually.

"It didn't go. We just studied." She replied just as casually.

Kaden lifted up the fat cat in his arms to kiss its annoyed face a few times. "Did you hear that Nibs? She didn't make the moves on cousin Gar. That means she doesn't know the truth yet."

Natalie laughed lightly and shook her head, "What are you even talking about?"

"It's not my secret to tell. Let's just say he isn't being honest with you. I don't want to see you get hurt by him."

Natalie never had considered Gardner to be the secretive type. "Kaden. . .why are you telling me this?"

Kaden turned his head in her direction. His fingers gripped onto the couch and he leaned towards Natalie. Nibs, the Persian cat, bolted away from the situation that was building. Natalie felt her pulse start to race the closer Kaden got. She stared at him with her brown-eyes wide open and her lips parted.

"Remember when I suggested that you get close to him and if he didn't pull away then that meant he was attracted to you?" His voice was quiet.

He was so close that all Natalie could produce as a response was a slight nod of her head.

"You aren't pulling away," Kaden observed.

"Neither are you," Natalie breathed.

The two of them stayed close to one another, but turned to watch the television set. Kaden placed the bowl of popcorn in his lap and the jar of nutella in hers. They watched the cooking show together, but there was no way she was focusing on it. Every-time Kaden reached a hand for the jar in her lap, or she reached for the popcorn in his all she could think about was heat and proximity.

Natalie didn't want to admit it to herself, but despite how strange he looked and behaved, she was attracted to Kaden.

Originally she thought that she'd reveal Gardner's real feelings for her, but it felt more like she'd discovered that maybe she had more than platonic feelings for Kaden. . .