Chapter Fourteen

A beautiful large painting of the sunset catches my eye. Instead of following Nathan through the maze of his house, I stop to admit the beautiful use of colour and technique used to capture the fluffy clouds drifting around the oranging sun.

"Do you ever get lost in here?" I ask.

"Yes, and confused." The way Nathan answers the question makes me double take his answer. He's not internally lost, but sounds like he struggles to fit into the world and where he should be with others.

"I never know where I need to be, and I hate leaving things behind in another state, that's horrific," he explains.

"I'm sure it is," I agree. I remember the time I accidently left my song book back at home before I left for my place in New York and it too weeks to get my parcel. I honestly feel like it would have been quicker for me to go back and get it myself. Ava was furious with me and the post people.

"Hungry for breakfast?" He cocks an eyebrow up.

"Starved, really." I lightly chuckle.

Nathan and I arrive inside the kitchen and he immediately starts hunting through the fridge to find something to cook. I expect him to pull out the ingredients for pancakes, but I'm surprised to find eggs and bacon. It's a nice change from having pancakes all the time. However, I could easily have pancakes as a side meal every day, especially if they come with Nathan.

"Eggs and bacon okay?" he asks.

"Perfect." I nod my head.

"Would you like an omelette?"

"Even better." I smile.

Nathan hands me a cartoon of eggs, bacon, a mushroom bag and a red capsicum. I place these on the bench while he retrieves the salt and pepper, chopping board, knife and a jug to stir the eggs in.

I take the initiative to start chopping the mushroom up. I straighten the chopping board and empty the packet of washed mushrooms onto the board.

"How do you want them cut?" I ask.

"Like this." Nathan's body very softly presses again my back. His arms circle around me and his hands over lap mine. He softly moves my hands and starts chopping the mushroom into small cubes.

"Okay." He let's go of my hands and swiftly moves to crack a few eggs into the jug. I hope up a couple more mushrooms before scooping them up and adding them into the jug.

"Now the capsicum." Just like before, he places his body behind mine and grabs my hands to direct how he wants me to chop it up. I'm almost sad when he steps away to muck around with the stove top.

Once I've chopped it up, I add it to the mix and stir it around. Nathan is already in front of the stove with the bacon sizzling away in the pan. I walk over and hand him the jug. He swiftly takes it from my hands with a smile on his face. He pour the content of the container into the pan and hands me the spatula.

"Watch the food?" I stand in front of both pans with an intense gaze on them.

Nathan appears behind, again, guiding my hand with the spatula to shuffle the bacon around. When he steps back, I shive slightly.

When the food is cooked, Nathan dishes it up evenly on two different places. He turns off the electric stove while I quickly put the dirty utensils into the sink to be washed later. Nathan carries the dishes and cutlery while I follow after him with two tall glasses of fresh orange juice.

We head back outside to where we were last night. I make a conscience effort to avoid the pool and where I tripped in favour to heading straight towards the table and chairs.

Now that I have daylight to look at his backyard, it looks just as scary as last night.

"You really could get lost in here."

"We're still waiting for one gardener to come back," he teases.

"Still stuck in wonderland?" I ask.

"Or Narnia, but who really knows?" We both giggle.

I dig into my food and sip on the orange juice in between bites. Nathan and I talk about last night, especially the moment I fell into the pool and depicted a drowned rat. Within a few minutes I'm chomping down the last piece of bacon and the last drop of orange juice.

"What are we going to do today?" I ask.

"Anything you want." He casually shrugs.

"More swimming?" I eye off the pool with a bright smile.

"What about Roza?" he asks.

"Shoot, right! She could come swimming too?" I waggle my eyebrows.

"Just remember you have to wear your mask around her."

"Fine, I won't show her my awesome hand stand then." I pout.

"I'm find with her coming to the house, just as long as you're okay with it," he explains.

"I'll grab my phone and message her." I jump up from the chair and charge towards the room Nathan and I spent the night. I grab my mobile phone out of my clutch and find a message on the screen from Roza.

'Nathan passed your number along. Thanks for coming last night, I hope you had fun, kisses.' – Roza.

I open the message and type back to her, 'Thank you for last night, indeed a lot of fun. Your welcome to come to Nathan's for a swim, I'll have Nathan send you details.' – Sienna.

'I'd love to come, be there soon.' – Roza.

"Nathan, can you message Roza your address?" I shout.

"Okay," he calls out a minute later, "she's on her way."

"Then we'd better clean the breakfast mess up." I stack the cutlery on the dish and collect the cup in my other hand. I return to the kitchen and rinse off my dishes in the sink. Once I'm finished cleaning I look at Nathan with a giant smile.

"Do you have any clothes I can borrow?"

"Shirt and boxers work?" My stomach flops, I can't wear shirts and boxers in front of Roza, especially since her family are designers and have an appreciation towards clothing. I need something fashionable.

"Hm," he mutters.

The doorbell rings and I go running for Nathan's room. Instead of chasing after me, Nathan heads to the front door to collect Roza. I put on my black mask and I try to straighten out my appearance but I don't have enough time to straighten the knots out of my hair before Roza come springing into the bedroom with a wide smile on her face, which is immediately thrown away.

"Sorry, am I disturbing you?" Guilt flashes across her sharp features.

"No, Sienna tripped into my pool last night and she's just borrowing some of mine while she waits for her dress to be washed," Nathan is quick to explain.

"Oh." Roza nods her head, "I never go anywhere without a back-up," she says before pulling out a white pair of bikinis.

"Really?" I'm surprised but thankful at the same time.

"Never been worn either, and you can keep them too." She grins happily.

"We'll let you change." Nathan drags Roza away from the bedroom and presumably outside by the pool. I dash into the bathroom and quickly strip out of the baggy clothing and into the bathers. My grateful attitude takes a tiny turn when I realise how tiny these bathers are on me.

The top is a cute tube that has twisted material across the front which joins in the middle of my bust. The strap is a long piece of fabric which is stitched along the side of the top which gives it shape and style. There's two little gold bands on either side to bedazzle it. The bottoms are high waisted, but there are patches of rectangle material missing that go over the hip bones.

I tug on the material to try and make it fit right, but without a top and some board shorts, I feel very exposed to everyone. As I make my way outside, I tug on the back to stop it from creeping up unmentionable places.

"Don't laugh." I look down at the top and adjust it once more. When I look back up, there's a shocked look on Nathan's face right before he dives face first into the pool by accident. The water splashes all over the pathway which makes Roza chuckle.

"You look amazing," he compliments as he resurfaces from the water.

"Way better that I ever could," compliments Roza.

"Thanks," I say, a small blush creeping onto my cheeks.

I bypass the pool and flop onto the long chair placed near the pool. I grab the towel and throw it over my body to stop the stares. I feel more comfortable conversing with everyone now that I have my body covered.

Just as I settle down, the blanket is being yanked away from my body and a cold gust of wind filters across my skin.

"You should be proud of your body regardless," she replies with a triumphant smile. "And if you want to wear a bikini, you should wear it proudly and without fear. Peoples thoughts can be washed down the drain." While I appreciate her speech, I find it hard to accept from someone who has a model figure.

"Thank you." I grab the sun screen and quickly start applying it to my skin. Once I have completely lathered my body, I stretch out on the chair and enjoy the glowing sun. I look up and find Roza taking selfies with her phone.

I shake my head with a chuckle, I could never post any kind of photo like that on Instagram. I cover my face with another towel so that she can't get me in the shot.

"Aw, smile with me," she encourages.

"No way!" I shout.

"One picture, please." She begs.

"One picture only." I sit up and start fixing my hair so that it's more of a styled mess than an actual one. Before I allow her to take the picture, I move around to try and get the best angle. Roza laughs, but she's doing the same thing.

We both smile and Roza clicks on the white camera button, digitalising an image of us.

"I'm going to put this on Instagram." I don't stop Roza from putting it on Instagram, I look at the pool and go running towards it. I hold onto my mask and I burst through the surface and sink to the bottom. I slowly resurface and blow bubbles into the water.

The water trickles down my face, which is cold and irritating. I find myself remember that this only needs to be a couple more weeks before I leave the record label and take over my life and music career.

"Just a couple more weeks," I whisper to myself.

A splash behind me alerts Roza's presence. I spin around and smile at her. Her golden blonde hair has turned a shade darker and is slicked back with water.

"I promise to tell, I mean, I wouldn't, if you know, sorry, big mouth." She blushes porously.

"I appreciate it." I smile.

"How long do you plan on wearing it for, must be hard."

"Couple more weeks, hopefully," I explain.

"What happens next? What about your music?" Roza begins to panic, and it almost looks like she could cry from the water swelling up in her light blue eyes.

"I want to fly solo and do my own thing for a bit. I'm hoping this will happen after the music awards. I'm legal a free woman after that because that's when the contract expires, but I need to have my third album recorded and submitted before that all happens." I'm slightly unsure about telling Roza, but I go with my gut on this one. This is something I needed to get off my chest.

"I'll support you regardless." A large engulfs her lips.

"You're the best!" I raise my hand for a high five, which she quickly returns.

We continue to splash around the pool and dunking each other in the water. I'm careful about my mask so that I don't lose it in the water in front of anyone. In the background, I can hear my phone tinging like crazy from notifications. Roza really must have uploaded our picture on Instagram.

"I'm going to kill my phone before I spend another minute listening to it." I swim over to the edge and dry my hands off before looking at the screen. Just as I pick up the device, I catch the green miss called notification before it's drowned out.

I quickly type a message back to Lucy.

'What's up?' – Riley.

'Can we go over dress design plans?' – Lucy.

Before I can say anything Nathan chimes in with, "What's wrong?"

"Lucy wants to run over some design plans," I say.

"Why don't you just bring her here? Designers should be able to make house calls," Roza says.

"I'll check and see what they say. Lucy is a design student from a prominent fashion school that I've enlisted in to design my dress. I wanted someone a little bit different for this style of dress," I explain. I justify why I haven't gone with Volkov Designs and why an amateur would be hired for the task.

"It's okay." Roza shrugs her shoulder, "Daddy is up to his neck with work. Besides, I'd rather design something cute for a music video or party for you." She beams.

"I'll hold you up to that offer!" I wink back.

I message Lucy with instructions to head to Nathan's house to show me the designs and that we're just splashing around in the pool, so she's welcome to come over at any time. Once I've sent the message, I put my phone down and jump back into the pool. I paddle towards Nathan and start splashing water on the two of them.

"You're so dead, Sienna," screams Nathan as he chases after me.