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"What\'s wrong?" Gael asked, taking a step closer to her and lifting her chin.

Angela turned around and headed towards the kitchen. She couldn\'t look him in the eye. "Would you like something to drink?" she asked because she surely did. God, it\'s been so long since she had to define a relationship that she forgot how it worked. "I\'m gonna have a glass of wine."

"No, I\'m okay." He watched as she poured herself wine and took a sip from it. The atmosphere suddenly felt serious, and he became nervous seeing her looking nervous. This kind of seriousness wasn\'t what he expected after watching a comedy-drama French film with her. Was she still worried about the orphanage? He had wanted to leave here earlier in the hopes of finding ways on how to deal with that hateful man, Herman. But she looked like she had a lot to say.

She came back with a tall glass of wine, and they sat on the sofa, a foot apart from each other. She nursed the glass in her hands, her finger tapping on the rim absent-mindedly.

He didn\'t like the distance between them, so he inched closer and attempted to place a hand on her shoulder.

"No, don\'t." She slightly recoiled, putting more space between them.

The sudden avoidance surprised him that he instantly raised his hands up as if to show her he\'s keeping them to himself. "What\'s going on, Angel?"

"Sorry." She sighed, a small hint of a smile peeking from her lips. "It\'s just hard for me to start this, and if you touch me, I\'d… I won\'t be able to do it. You distract me."

Oh.

He softly chuckled. "O...kay?"

Angela nodded. She glanced up at him, and he waited for her to begin whatever it was she wanted to tell him, but then she looked away, and his curiosity was eating him up. 

"Just spit it out, Angel. Whatever it is, I can take it," he said with a little bite in his tone. He didn\'t mean to sound impatient, but the longer she deflected, the more anxious he got. The harshness in his tone must have been quite apparent because she straightened her back as if on defense, and he regretted how he spoke to her right away. 

"I haven\'t done this in a while, Gael. It\'s hard for me. I\'ve been on so many dates, but they were all just casual and never really lasted. So I\'m freakin\' nervous right now."

His brows drew together. "You want to talk about us?"

She shrugged. "It\'s been a lot of fun these past days, and I don\'t think I\'ve had this much fun in a really long time. And it\'s all because of you. I just… I don\'t know what we\'re doing, really." He didn\'t say anything, and she continued to speak her mind. "You met my father last Sunday, and he hadn\'t been nagging me to go on dates anymore ever since. So I guess that was a success. But we both knew that wasn\'t exactly real during that time, right? However, that same evening, you spent the night here. It was certainly more than what friends would do." 

She averted her gaze and smiled to relieve the awkwardness. Angela was really trying.

Gael could already feel where she was leading with this, but he waited until she\'d tell him everything she wanted to say. She\'d been acting a bit off ever since Oliver dropped by earlier.

And then she added, "But that was supposed to be only a night… It\'s been two days. You\'ve gone out of your way to help me with the toys and even came with me to the orphanage. I flew with you to your city and met your family. And what happened on the plane—"

"Do you regret what happened on the plane?"

"What? No! Do you?"

"Fûck no."

She let out a sigh of relief as though his answer reassured her of something as her response did to him. Angela nodded. "We\'ve just been spending a lot more time together… And I\'m… I\'m afraid of doing more because I don\'t know where or what we are now."

Everything he\'d been doing the past few days was confusing for him because he wasn\'t supposed to be anything more than friends with her. But damn it, it was so hard. All he knew was that he wanted her around, so he\'d just been doing what he wanted to do.

Instead of answering her sentiments, he ran his fingers through his hair and told her, "I found a few more notes…" He saw the slight shift in her fingers. She gripped the glass tighter. "They\'re not hate notes."

Angela tipped the wine to her mouth, taking a giant gulp this time. She opened her mouth as if to say something but closed it again and cleared her throat.

"Don\'t you want to know which ones I found?" he questioned, seeing as she wanted to keep quiet. He had thought about not telling her he\'d found more notes, thinking that she had written them while she was buzzed. People say the meanest things when they\'re drunk—they could be lies, or they could be truths. So what was it with that note? Was that a lie, or was that the truth?

"Why are we talking about the notes, Gael? I was drunk when I wrote them." 

"So...everything you wrote was a lie then?"

Her eyes snapped at him, and he kept his sharp, challenging her to admit it. She was the first to look away. Gael tossed one folded sticky note at her side, which she refused to open but held it in her hand. Then he said, "I don\'t know what I\'m doing, Angel. All I know is that I can\'t stay away from you."

"Me neither…" she muttered. 

He took the wine glass from her and placed it on the coffee table. Then he moved closer and kept her hands in his. "What do you really want?"

Angela gazed at his grey eyes. They were so calming—the kind of color she found comfort whenever she closed her eyes and thought about him. "I want to be able to trust you. I want to trust that you won\'t hurt me."

Gael felt like his heart was being squeezed hearing the words she was saying. He didn\'t want to hurt her too. He shook his head. "As much as I want to promise you, I can\'t do that… I don\'t know what will happen in the future, and I might end up hurting you. But if I do, I\'m definitely not doing it intentionally."

She knitted her brows together. "What kind of assurance is that?"

"I\'m not going to hurt you, Angel. I\'m just doing what I want to do, and that\'s to be with you. Right now, I just want to keep seeing you."

The confusion in her eyes remained, and he wished it were that easy to erase it. But at the moment, he just couldn\'t tell her the kind of assurance she was possibly expecting—not when he still needed to settle the matter with the Morellis. He didn\'t want to lose her, but he also didn\'t want to promise her something he\'d only probably break. 

Angela nodded, her shoulders drooping. "I shouldn\'t be making a big deal out of this, right?" She softly smiled.

\'Fix this, you dickhead,\' a voice in his head said. 

Closing his eyes for a brief second, he gathered his thoughts. When he looked up and met her gaze, he brushed the hair away from her face and cupped her cheek. "I know I\'m asking a lot for you to be patient with me. I want to be able to tell you the right words that you deserve to hear. But before that, I...have to be the right man. Right now, I just want to be there for you, Angel. That\'s all I really want. If you let me stay next to you…"

Nodding, she placed a hand over his. "I want that too."

Gael exhaled a sigh of relief, hoping that it was enough for now. There was no way he\'d be able to leave her anymore—not when he was way in too deep like this with her. He pressed a chaste kiss on her forehead. 

"I\'m gonna be busy the next few days. I need to take care of some things, so I might not be able to see you as often."

"That\'s okay... I have some things to do too, anyway."

"What does your schedule look like this week?"

"I\'m meeting Samantha and Becca tomorrow. And I have parties over the weekend. I\'m mostly free in the evenings. Why?"

He quickly checked the calendar on his phone and asked her, "Let me take you out tomorrow night."

A small smile spread across her face. "Like a date?"

He nodded. "I know we\'re doing this sort of backward, but I want to take you out on a proper date."

Angela bit her bottom lip, the sparkle in her eyes returning. "Okay."

Gael got to his feet and she followed. Leaning in, he kissed her lips and told her, "Don\'t stay up too late. I\'ll see you tomorrow."

When he left, she unfolded the note in her hand, recognizing her handwriting. A sigh escaped her lips as she read:

[ And suddenly, you know: It\'s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings. -Meister Eckhart ]