The Warning

Nicholas Melvin• Selena

"Nicholas Melvin." The man from before says while stretching his arm to me. Nicholas? Like father St Nicholas?

This is clearly a message from God, Father Nicholas was a Christian Bishop who helped people in need. Maybe God is showing me signs to why I should be attracted to Nicholas.

He is like father Nicholas.

This is ridiculous, even I can't convince myself, its just a name.

"I think this is the part where you tell me your name and we shake hands?" He says it more like a question while smiling at me.

"Oh! I'm Selena Racter." I say with a smile of my own and put my hand in his for a shake.

Too perfect. My small, smooth hand in his big, rough ones.

Instead of just a simple hand shake, he brings my hand to his lips to kiss it. His pink lips soft, a bit wet and very warm.

His lips linger over the back of my hand for a tad bit, intensifying the energy of the butterflies in my stomach.

All this time, his eyes haven't left mine and his smile slowly turning into a smirk as he gently drops my hand.

"I see you have met Mr Melvin." Our moment is parted by a voice that I am too used to.

My father.

Did he see what just happened?

Of course he did. Its my father that we are talking about; he sees everything. He has got eyes everywhere. He is like the Jesus on earth; omniscient.

"Sir Racter. Its good to see you again." The man that I have come to know as Nicholas stands up from his chair to shake hands with my father.

His respect gets recognition from my father as his face moulds into the one of an impressed man.

See? Two more signs.

One, the Bible says to respect our elders and he just did that.

Two, he just managed to make my father a less miserable man. Even for just a second.

"You too son. How is your old man?"

"He is doing great. In fact, too great that if you look behind you; you will spot him." Surely when I follow the direction his finger which is pointing behind my father, I see a middle aged man who is already on the dance floor busting some moves.

A champagne glass in his right hand, the contents inside almost gone.

"That is Macus for you." Father says, adding in a chuckle before looking back between Nicholas and I. " Could I have a word with my daughter, Nicholas. I will have her back in no time."

He says with a smile on his face but this one isn't the same as the one when he started talking to Nicholas. This one seems forced.

What is he going to tell me off about now? Is it about me sitting on the wrong seat? Is it about getting my hand kissed?

I keep following my father until he waits in a quiet place where its just the two of us.

"Do you know who you were talking to?" Father asks in a whisper voice as he looks around, trying to see if there is anyone else.

"Nicholas Melvin." I answer shortly.

"Tsk. Don't be smart mouthed with me young lady." Um...Didn't he just ask me who I was talking to?

"He is THE Nicholas Melvin. The son of Macus Melvin who owns the hotel that we are staying at."

So that's why he is not mad at me about Nicholas kissing my hand.

Money.

Money has the power to change and how we see things around us. It makes us turn a blind eye on the things that are important.

Take a policeman for example. He can be easily manipulated by money to make a crime disappear.

"You better not mess anything up. I want you to keep him happy, do whatever he asks of you. He is a good kid." Father says, his hand on my shoulder.

"Yes father." I answer back and he removes his short, chubby hand from my shoulder; giving me permission to go back.

Back to him.

I find him sitting in the same position but instead of looking at me, his eyes are set on the phone. When he feels my presence next to him, he smiles and confiscates his phone to focus on me.

Nicholas stands up and takes my hand in his.

Quietly, I follow wherever he is taking me until he stops on the dance floor where his father was before going to interact with everyone else.

Which leaves just the two of us.

"Dance with me?" Do I have a choice? Do I want a choice? Probably not, even if he had asked me before coming to the dance floor; I wouldn't have refused him.

Without answering, I nod my head with a small smile on my face.

He takes my other hand which he was not holding and tries to wrap both of them around his neck but because of our height difference, my arms are not long enough.

So I end up holding his biceps and he just lets out a little laugh.

His arms circle around my waist, his hands land on the small of my back making my heart beat a faster.

My breathing a louder as if my airways were closing in on me.

Chances is that this is another sign of why I should be attracted to Nicholas Melvin; he gets me excited.

Or maybe its because I have never been in such an intimate position with any other man.

His beauty doesn't help as well.

The way he is staring deep into my eyes is't helping as well.

The way that his face is in front of mine isn't helping as well.

His face is n ot exactly in front of my face but above because Nicholas is really tall. Probably around six foot and I stand at five foot four; so Nicholas has to crane his neck to look down at me and I do the same but look up.

We both get dragged out of our bubble when the song stops and we get off the stage with people clapping their hands.

I hadn't realised that we had an audience or else I wouldn't have continued.

My cheeks flash from embarrassment and I hold a little tighter onto Nicholas' hand which was still holding mine.

By the time we get back to our table, everyone has started manoeuvring around the tables to get to their seats and my father is already standing on stage holding his champagne glass.

"You are quite good at dancing." Nicholas whispers in my ear, feeling his hot breath on my face makes it heat up. I have no doubt that my cheeks are red under all this blush powder.

"Thank you. You were good yourself." Truth is, we didn't even dance. We were only swaying around the dance floor and busy acting as if we were lovers. I'm not complaining though.

For the next few minutes, the room is surrounded with deafening silence except for my father who is making a speech.

He starts by thanking the team that helped him get all this together; his wife and daughter, lastly he thanks everyone who attended tonight and wishes everyone a happy night.

All this time I was staring at Nicholas' back as he had turned to look at the stage. Sometimes he would look at me and we would exchange smiles. Sometimes he would brush the back of my hand with his thumb. He hadn't released my hand when we came back and has long since been playing around with it. Right now our fingers are intertwined together.

I bet anyone watching us would think that we were two humans born to love each other.

The way that we are interacting is even fooling me as well, making me think that Nicholas is staring at me "lovingly."

For all I know, he is probably thinking that I'm weird, creepy and insane for always staring at him. But his actions say otherwise.

When the starter finally got to our table, Nicholas and I are already engaged in a full on conversation. Him doing the talking and me, mostly listening.

I was happy that we were getting to know each other but he had let go of my hand eat.

"So, we encouraged our little sister to make my mother's sofa her personal trampoline. In return for doing what we asked of her, she wanted us to chant king, king, king. I don't think that she realized that a king was a man but we did it anyways. She jumped and jumped until the sofa broke. She soon started packing her bags, scared that if mom and dad came back from work she would be in trouble."

I laugh as he tells me some of his childhood stories. Apparently, he and his brother had been troublesome kids but they did their deeds through other people.

"What happened then?" I ask, my curiosity getting the best of me.

"My parents did find out, they were mad but as soon as my little sister's waterfalls started working, they suddenly started doing what she was meant to.

They apologised for being mad and bribed her by watching Peppa Pig.”

I laugh again, partly at how their little sister sounded spoilt. But who am I to judge?

I manage to get through the main meal until I'm full. I think that Nicholas notices as well because of what he says next.

"Do you want to get out of here?"

hey guys, what do you think about this chapter?

lysm- N x