Getting Under Nathan

30: "It's uni."

Chapter 30 - "It's uni."

"Do you promise you'll speak to your mum about it?" Nathan asked me as I pulled my coat on.  

"Yes, Nathan, I promise," I smiled, leaning to kiss his lips in an effort to reassure him. "She'll have already decided anyway; she's known for long enough." 

It was the end of my weekend with Nathan, and he was pestering me about my family's plans for Christmas. We'd had a great weekend - not much of it had been spent outside the bedroom - but now it had come to an end, like it always did, and Nathan was back to being his usual organisational self.  

"I just think it would be really nice," he said, for about the hundredth time that weekend. "Christmas is all about spending time with family and I hated spending last year's away from you." 

"Me too," I replied, winding my scarf around my neck. "We'll sort something out. Don't worry." 

He smiled and bent to kiss my lips again. "Are you sure you don't want a lift back?" 

"I'm sure," I insisted. "The roads are far too icy. I'd much rather take the tube." 

"Okay. Text me once you're back," he said. "And take care." 

I leant to give him one final kiss, which Nathan took as an invitation to push me gently against the wall, trapping me there with his hips and chest. Compared to the rest of the weekend, this kiss was relatively tame, but maybe that was because I was pretty impenetrable with the six layers of clothing I was wearing.  

"I'll miss you too," I smirked afterwards. "I'm looking forward to some dirty dancing on Friday night..." 

"Famous last words," he teased, winking at me.  

"I can handle whatever grinding you throw at me," I assured him, pulling his flat door open, determined to finally leave.  

"If you say so, Bella." 

With one last smile at him, I left his flat and jogged down the stairs, hoping to get my blood flowing before stepping out into the icy December evening. There were barely two weeks of university left before the Christmas holidays, and I couldn't believe how quickly the time had flown. I'd done so much in the last three months, met so many different people and made some good friends along the way. Was it just the university bug or would they end up being friends for life? I pondered this as I headed down into the tube station. Jack and I were just getting closer and closer; I couldn't imagine losing him, especially now that he was getting close to Nathan too.  

As I sat on the platform waiting for my train, I took out my phone and called Jess. Like most friendships, the longer we'd spent at university, the less we'd spoken. We still chatted on Facebook every now and then but we hadn't had a good natter in a while. My sentimental attitude had urged me to ring her.  

Jess picked up after the fourth ring, and sounded happy to hear from me. I knew she had a lot of essays to hand in before the Christmas holidays and so I quickly assured her it would only be a brief chat.  

"How's everything with Nathan?" she asked me.  

"Really good," I replied.  

"Is everything settled down after the Louisa thing?" she then asked, almost cautiously. For some reason, Jess seemed hesitant to ask me, as though she was worried it would upset me.  

"Definitely. We're better than ever," I said. "Sometimes you need a decent argument to remind yourselves how good you are together." 

"Yeah, there's that saying, isn't there? How does it go...? Something about two people needing to fall apart to realise how much they need to fall back together."