Rays of sun glimmered through the windows and the large door, making a halo of light around Andrew as he walked into The Bookmark. Both waitresses looked at him immediately, both serving clients. The place was more crowded at lunch time since the workers with small lunch breaks needed to eat somewhere close to work.

The brunette went back to writing someone's order, and the blonde went behind the counter as soon as she finished serving a couple in his usual place by the window.

Andrew leaned against the counter, a smile directed at the frowning girl only a few inches apart from him. A few strands of her hair had fallen off the ponytail, framing her face. It was unusual to see her with her hair down working, yet the five seconds she took to put all back in place for him to notice she looked beautiful with it surrounding her features.

"Good morning, gorgeous," he greeted.

She rose an eyebrow. "You need to get a watch."

He smiled. His own was still working, though the bracelet was old and damaged.

"Do you want to get out for lunch?"

It wasn't the first time he asked, but their lunch times never matched. That day was one of the few exceptions, and he was hoping she would say yes. He was aware he should meet more people instead of annoying Nicole, but he liked her.

"I'm working, don't you see?" she asked, gathering dirty spoons and tea cups her coworker had left there instead of taking them to the kitchen.

"I know. When are you leaving? I can wait."

She shook her head. "My shift ends at three."

He stared at her. She had told him she would cover that shift too, but he had never expected it to be so long. That left her only a two-hour break between shifts.

"When are you eating, then?"

She shrugged, planting her palms on the counter's stone and leaning towards him. It didn't bother her, as most things didn't. She was a workaholic, better yet, she needed a distraction from her life, so she didn't let herself have space to be alone with her mind.

"Maybe I'll take a bite of something later. I'm not that hungry anyway," she said. "Do you want anything, or are you going somewhere else? Liz is upstairs."

"I'll eat here," he sighed. "Give me two burger menus."

"Two?" she repeated. For someone who ran only on coffee, that was a lot of food.

He nodded, and she tapped his order on the computer's touch screen with the back of her pen before putting it back in her apron's pocket. She went back to the kitchen to prepare his order, and he headed upstairs.

Eliza was colouring a book on a table by the banister, and he sat in front of her, dropping his bag on the floor. She perked up immediately, smiling at him with all her eighteen teeth.

"Witty, look!" She pointed at the drawing of Rapunzel. "I can paint within the lines!"

"Wow, that's impressive." He looked at the book and the colourful, harsh lines all over the drawing. "I can't do that."

She eyed him, thinking he said that just to make her feel better, like most adults did. It was actually something he had never done since colouring books was a luxury he didn't have.

"It was Nicole who taught me," she explained. "But her whole sketchbook is black and white. She drew you once."

A faint memory of Nicole drawing on a notebook in class came to his mind, one he had almost forgotten it. He had peeked at it once, but she had pushed him away. It was odd that she would have shown it to Eliza. It wasn't, however, strange at all if Eliza stole it from Nicole when she wasn't looking.

"She did?" he asked.

Eliza nodded, taking a sip of her orange juice. "When you were on your laptop. It was raining."

As if she knew they were talking about her, Nicole arrived at the top of the stairs, two plates with burgers balanced on one arm and a round tray with drinks and chips in the other. It always amazed both of them how Nicole and any other waiter could muster such a perfect balance.

She didn't carry the usual fake smile she did when serving other people. She looked as tired as she felt, working several hours after having classes all morning and knowing she would still have to study when she got home. He appreciated she didn't have to put that facade on when she was with him.

Andrew got up to help her, but she let out a shriek. "Don't! If you touch me everything, will fall."

Her knees bent slightly and she placed the tray on the table before taking one plate from its low stability on her arm. In seconds, she had deposited everything on the table and had the tray under her arm.

"Anything else?"

"Yes," he smiled and pulled back the chair next to Eliza. "Eat with me."

She gawked at him. "I'm working."

He glanced downstairs. Most people were leaving and the brunette waitress was picking at her nails. The crowded hour was slowly passing and Nicole could enjoy a break.

"They don't need you downstairs. Breath for a second." He gestured to the chair. "The cafe won't catch fire if you stop for a little. You deserve a pause."

She shook her head, knowing if Eliza made the smallest mention of her break to her family, Nicole would be fired on the spot. Yet Eliza was pouting, as if inviting her to sit down.

"Come on, Nicole!" the girl pleaded.

"Come on, Nicole!" Andrew imitated, doing a similar pout.

She only laughed, but gave in. She sat in front of Andrew and left the tray by their side. Liz jumped off her chair with her book and pencils, making her way to another table.

"You two enjoy your date. If you need me, I'll be two tables away so I can eavesdrop."

At least she is honest. Andrew grinned.

"It's not a date," Nicole told her.

"It totally is, listen to the kid."

Andrew gave her one plate, her chips, and her drink, ignoring her stare.

"I'm not a kid," Eliza repaid. "I'm a strong, empowered woman."

She sat down precisely where she said she would, her back turned to them, and started colouring the following page. It was Aladdin and Jasmine on their flying rug. Instead of painting them with the classical colours, she made Jasmine blonde and Alladin's eyes green.

"You know this is not a date, right?"

Nicole grabbed her burger and took a bite, starving even if she didn't admit it. He did the same, but not without answering her first.

"It could be."

She stared at him, a silent question written on her face. It wasn't the answer she was expecting, but she didn't really know what she thought he would say. Just bluntly saying it wasn't didn't seem like something he would do, and the idea of him dismissing her so fast didn't sit right. However, saying it was, seemed like many steps were being skipped and they were something they weren't.

"I mean..." she started, unsure of what to say. "It's not like you and I are that close. We don't know that much about each other."

He frowned, taking a sip of his drink and leaning back. They had never used the word friends to describe them, though that could be a suitable word. It wasn't, however, the one that defined their relationship.

"But we do," he said. "Just because I don't know your favourite colour doesn't mean I don't know what annoys you and what makes you happy. And that's more important. Don't you think?"

He had a point, and she knew it. Maybe they hadn't exchanged superficial facts about themselves, but they had spent a long time chatting about life, making each other laugh over steamy cups of coffee in late afternoons.

"You don't even know what is my major," she pressed, taking another bite.

"It's Law," he answered as if hurt she dared accuse him of that.

Andrew didn't bother to ask her if she knew his, since it was so obvious. He spent days doing school projects and studying by her side. She had to know. In the days he was done with it, she sat by his side and he taught her a thousand simple things she should know.

"That literally proves nothing," she said.

He smiled at her stubbornness. It wasn't clear to either of them why were they arguing over that. After all, they never wanted to go on a date before. However, they wanted to know more about each other, even if they had already had significant knowledge of what they were like.

"Tell you what," he pushed his chair closer to hers. "Let's play 21 questions. You start."

Nicole was quite surprised at how he was allowing her to ask anything. They both knew favourite colours weren't the questions either of them intended to ask, and some uneasiness built inside her. Fear that he would ask something she didn't want to talk about made something coil inside of her.

Taking a deep breath, she reminded herself she wasn't forced to answer to anything she didn't consider appropriate. She was still in charge of the words that left her mouth, and some things would always be only known to her.

"Why'd you move from New York?"

Andrew swallowed dry, though his smile didn't waver. He expected that question, but he hoped it wouldn't leave her lips. Even if he was trying to not be paranoid, it was still hard to talk about that.

"I wanted to make my life my own. Live it by myself."

"Sounds lonely. Couldn't you do that there?"

She was prying even more. He saw it coming; he had all the prying questions predicted, and a vain answer ready. Or so he thought.

"Not your turn." He took a sip of his drink. The anticipation was killing her and he knew it, even if she didn't show. "Why Law?"

A heavy sigh almost escaped her lips, but she would never let him know there were things she was hiding.

"I like it. I want to help people who suffered."

Even if she hated the idea of one day accusing an innocent or defending a murderer made her sick to her stomach, she still had a passion for that line of work. Her sisters called her crazy, said she would hate it in the end, but she didn't let her courage waver.

"I think you're not telling me all," he argued.

She bit her cheek, debating if she should share such a personal detail of her life with him. It wasn't something she liked to talk about. Very few had heard her talk about it in her distant manner, as if it didn't eat her inside.

"My father cheated on my mum a few years ago," she started, and he froze. That wasn't what he was expecting. "The divorce wasn't easy and my father was trying to keep everything and leave her nothing. The house, the car,... us. Mum couldn't afford a decent lawyer. He would have had everything in the end. I want to help people in my mum's situation."

"Would?" he repeated.

She stared at him, and his face went pale as he realised what she meant.

"The divorce was never finished, and I never saw those lawyers again. But I saw the one who dealt with mum's will. Everything went to my dad still, but at least my sisters and I got something out of him as soon as we turned eighteen."

"I'm sorry. I-"

She shook her head. "Don't. I heard that far too many times. I'm okay."

That wasn't the only reason she wanted to become a lawyer, but he didn't need to know that. That reason was sealed behind her lips, and Miguel's.

"Back to me then," said Nicole, finishing her burger and cleaning her hands on a napkin. "So, Miguel was talking to me the other day about this car they're fixing, which kind of led to the news about a fuel company he was reading about on the paper. That kind of stuff, you know?"

Fuck!

Andrew almost spit his drink to her face. He wasn't expecting it to evolve that fast, much less was he expecting it to go in that direction.

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

"Very interesting news, really. Something about the heir of the corporation being missing. What was the company's name?" she pretended to think for a moment. "Was it Watson? No, wait, I'm bad with English names. Oh right! Whittmore & Ryder!"

His smile was long gone, his eyes glued to hers. It wasn't fear that coloured them, but the stone-cold face he had mastered a few years back when his father started sending him to close his deals. At first, he was all funny and easy to deal with, but once they underestimated him for being young, it was over. He might have hated working for his father, but he loved the closing skills he had developed after watching his superiors.

"You really are bad with English. Watson and Whittmore sound nothing alike."

She shrugged. "They both start with W."

His change of behaviour made her uneasy. Although she wanted to get a reaction out of him, that wasn't the Andrew she was used to, and she wanted him back.

"What was the question?"

"I just thought there were many Whittmore in the world. But you were in the picture. Why did you run away?"

"You know, this is still the same question you asked me before. You just phrased it different," he said, looking unbothered. "I didn't run away. I'm on a personal holiday."

"A personal holiday telling no one about it."

He told some people, but most would never know where he was. If he had told someone, they would have forcefully moved him back to his family's home and kept him under vigilance. The feeling of his father's bodyguard's grip was a ghost memory all over his body. A memory he wished to get rid of.

"Alright, my turn," he said. "How did you get that scar on your shoulder?"

Her hand flew to her left shoulder instinctively. The memory of Andrew's lips grazing that spot played in her mind, but it was quickly replaced by a much more violent one. Yelling. So much yelling. She had thrown a glass to keep him away, but that had only made him angrier.

"If you don't drop the attitude, next time it will be your neck."

Her heart beat faster at the memory of blood, her blood. Breathing became hard, but she tried to conceal it. She was not about to break in front of Andrew.

"I cut myself," she excused and got up, collecting the things from lunch on the tray.

"Why are you lying?"

As someone who had spent his life perfecting the art of lying, he noticed her sudden change immediately. She looked tense and somehow fearful. He could see himself being caught by his father for the first time in her face.

"I'm not. I cut myself."

He got up too, holding her hand in place when she was about to grab his plate. Her eyes tried to find his, to see what he thought he was doing, but he was checking on Eliza. The small girl was colouring her book in her corner, dangling legs on the high chairs. Although she promised to eavesdrop, she seemed very entertained.

Andrew turned back to her and their gazes met. His harsh stare was long gone and the one she was used to was back. That should've calmed her down, but she didn't want to talk about that. Above all, she didn't want people to know and to pity her.

"Who did this to you?" his voice was tense, understanding what she was hiding.

It wasn't his intent to pry. He only expected a story of a fall from her bike as a kid, but her attitude told him it was nothing like that. There were few reasons a woman would lie about a scar.

"Is that why you don't want to see your father?"

"No!" she exclaimed. No matter how mad she was at him, she would never let him be perceived as an awful monster.

Both of them looked at Eliza, but she hadn't moved. She was too immersed in her colourings she has stopped listening to them a while back.

Nicole pushed his hand away and resumed gathering everything. There was nothing else she wanted to tell him, nothing else she wanted to hear him say. The looks of pity were something she could never live with, and she refused to get them from him, of all people.

"You can talk to me, you know?" he tried to keep her there.

She didn't even look at him. The idea of how their relationship would change scared her more than anything. Nobody really dared annoy her the way he did, and having compassion replace it would only make her feel bad with herself.

He wanted to say something, wanted to tell her he had been in her shoes, but the words didn't come. She didn't need to know how the metallic taste of blood was still very familiar in his mouth. Or how his father hadn't even bothered to hit him himself, but his bodyguards had their fun.

No matter how much he wanted to tell her he understood, and he didn't judge her for it, all he could do was stare at her back. Pushing her wouldn't help either of them. Whenever she wanted to talk, they would talk.

Hey!

Guess who is hating their writing this days? It's me!

I'm focusing too much on Nicole and Andrew is getting behind... Opinions on this chapter?

Thank you for reading!