Chapter 62-Caught red-handed

Chapter 62: 62-Caught red-handed

’How long as she been standing there?’

Nathaniel’s expression shifted from surprise to equally stunned embarrassment.

A faint flush rose along his cheekbones, and the sight sent another nervous flutter through her chest.

He remained glued in place and Aymara too couldn’t move. That momentary shock didn’t last very long.

After a minute or two, Aymara’s thoughts finally caught up with her.

’Oh my God!’

She immediately stepped backward, nearly catching her soft slippers on the edge of the corridor rug.

Her hand flew to the doorframe for balance, and the sudden movement seemed to break the spell between them.

"Ah!"

The sound escaped her before she could stop it. She pulled the door shut, far too quickly, and the wood swung closed between them.

Click.

The latch caught with a soft click, but Aymara did not stop there.

Her fingers remained wrapped around the handle as though she feared the door might swing open again on its own. She glanced at it once, then twice, her face growing hotter by the second.

"No," she whispered to herself.

The corridor suddenly felt too narrow, too quiet, and far too warm. She could still picture the room beyond the door with painful clarity, as though closing it had done nothing to erase the image from her mind.

With a hurried motion, she turned the lock.

Click.

The small sound seemed absurdly loud in the quiet corridor. It echoed faintly against the walls before disappearing, leaving her alone with the frantic rhythm of her heartbeat.

Aymara tested the handle once, then immediately released it, horrified that she had even felt the need to check.

She took another step back, then another, until her shoulders met the closed door. The cool wood pressed against her spine, but it did nothing to ease the heat spreading across her skin.

Her face was burning. Absolutely burning hot. She slapped both hands over her cheeks.

"How...?" her voice came out as a whisper.

She could feel the warmth beneath her palms, and the realization only made her more flustered. She squeezed her eyes shut, but that merely made the memory sharper.

"How can a sickly person look like that?"

She stared at the floor in disbelief and then at her own body. It was unfair, completely unfair.

She had always thought of Nathaniel as someone she needed to protect. Someone whose health she had to worry over, someone who made her fuss and scold and hover. She had built an entire image of him in her mind, one that left no room for the sight she had just witnessed.

Now, after one brief glance, she was the one who couldn’t seem to steady herself.

Aymara slapped her cheeks again. "Stop thinking about it!"

Her cheeks only grew hotter and the more she urged herself not to think about it, the harder she thought about it.

The damp hair, he startled look in his eyes and the quiet, awkward pause after they had looked at each other. Each detail returned before she could push it away, lingering with maddening clarity.

"No!" she shook her head rapidly. "I didn’t see anything," she paused for a breath, steadying her breathing. "... And I definitely didn’t stare," she caught herself. "Okay, maybe I stared for a little."

Her face turned even redder. "A little?" she groaned and covered her face. "That was definitely not a little."

She could still remember the moment their eyes had locked. The soft drip of water from his hair. The sudden awareness of how close she had been to seeing something she had never allowed herself to notice before.

The embarrassment that caught both of them unprepared, the silence that enveloped the whole room and the way neither of them had known what to say.

And beneath all of it, an unsettling realization was taking root. The sudden awareness that Nathaniel was not only someone she worried about, but someone who could make her forget what she had meant to say and whose quiet smile could linger in her thoughts far longer than it had any right to.

Aymara wanted the floor to open and swallow her. She imagined disappearing into the earth, hiding somewhere no one could find her until the memory had faded.

Unfortunately, the corridor remained stubbornly solid beneath her feet, and the closed door behind her offered no escape from the thoughts racing through her mind.

After surviving the apocalypse, she had somehow been defeated by one unexpected glimpse and a pair of startled eyes.

She took a deep breath, slowly drawing air into her lungs until the tightness in her chest eased. Then she straightened herself, smoothed her clothes with trembling hands, and forced her voice to sound normal.

"I’m going to make food!"

The lack of an immediate response made her stomach twist. She stared at the door, suddenly wondering whether he had heard her at all.

She swallowed. "Come out when you’re done!"

Her voice sounded slightly too loud, and the words seemed to hang awkwardly in the air after she said them and then she ran away as fast as her legs could carry her.

Aymara practically flew down the corridor like a thief who had just been caught red-handed, her footsteps quick and uneven against the floorboards.

She nearly stumbled around the corner, caught herself against the wall, and kept going without looking back. Her pulse still raced for reasons she refused to examine.

Behind the closed door, Nathaniel remained completely still. He stared at the door for several seconds. The room had gone quiet again, but the silence no longer felt normal.

He could still hear the hurried retreat of her footsteps fading down the corridor, each one carrying her farther away while leaving the image of her startled face behind.

Then his ears turned red. He lowered the towel from his hair and slowly exhaled. A small breath of laughter almost escaped him, but he caught it before it became a sound.

The room felt suddenly warmer, though the damp air from the bathroom had already begun to fade.

"Aymara..."

A helpless smile tugged at his lips.

He could still see the brief surprise in her eyes before she had looked away. He could almost feel the warmth of her gaze lingering after the door had closed. The memory made his chest feel strangely light.

For a while, he remained where he was, staring at the place where she had stood. The awkwardness of the moment should have embarrassed him more than it did, yet beneath the embarrassment was a quiet, unfamiliar happiness he could not quite explain.

"How cute," his lips spread into a soft, amused smile. "Is the world ending... Or is ours beginning?"