~°~Chapter Twenty-four~°~

"Nicolai!!" She exclaims, picking him up from the ground and twirling him around."How are you baby?" She tickles him a bit, making him burst into happy giggles.

"Higher Shanwa!!" The little boy orders, stretching his chubby hands to Virgil.

Virgil makes a face at this but soon finds his arms full of a squirming child as Nicolai scrambles to climb his head.

"Oy! Nic! You'll fall…"

"Why don't you take a seat." Mrs Colt offers, leading the way to the far side of the large room where there was a fireplace.

Shana's Aunt Daphne sat on a rocking chair in front of it, quietly knitting a colorful piece of fabric over her greatly distended stomach.

Dale and I settle down on two of the many cushions scattered around, Virgil is still struggling with Shana's three year old cousin that she might have mentioned.

"Stop humoring him Virgil." Daphne laughs lightly, rocking her padded seat. "It's because you spoil him that's why he keeps wanting to go higher."

"There's a dance coming up, mom." Shana informs her mother, opening the fridge to take out an apple to bite into it. "The Spring Dance."

"So soon!" Her mom clasps her hands together, her knitted blouse moving with her. "You're all growing up so fast!" She exclaims, teary eyed.

"Mom!" Shana complains, coming over to meet us. "You promised you wouldn't say embarrassing things."

Her mom pouts like a child and I stifle a laugh behind my palm. "You are only saying it because Hayden is here, you never asked that before even when Dale started coming over."

"But you didn't even regard my wishes." Shana insists, placing a hand over her heart like she was deeply hurt.

"I didn't even say anything yet or are you embarrassed Hayden love?" She turns to me with a warm smile.

I shake my head with a small smile too caught up in enjoying the peaceful scene before me to remember my social anxiety.

Virgil had sat down on a cushion a while ago much to the disagreement of Nicolai who was currently standing on his chest.

"See." Mrs. Colt fires on. "I mean in a few months you'll all be eighteen and that's it!"

"Mom?" Shana warns again.

My head bobs slightly from the chuckles I keep suppressing and suddenly I feel someone latch onto my hair.

"Fluffy." Nicolai giggles, practically falling out of Virgil's lap to get a better grip on my hair.

The room goes quiet, even Mrs. Colt swallows back her retort as everyone watches what Nicolai was up to.

"Don't grab his hair." Virgil ordered but the adorable three year old just ignores him, standing on his tippy toes to thread both pudgy hands in my long hair.

"But it's so swoft." He whispers in awe, immersed in gently pushing his palms through my hair.

The cushions are low enough that he can manage to do this without much of a struggle but soon he decides that he wants more and starts to crawl up my lap.

"He's all over Hayden on his first day of meeting him??" Dale exclaims in obvious shock, staring wide eyes at Nicolai who is still struggling to climb up my lap.

I gently pick him up and place him in my lap, with which he quickly wraps himself around me and buries his face and arms in my hair. "He says it's soft." I shrug with a self accomplished smirk, feeling soft as the child cuddles even closer.

Dale just scoffs, rolling his eyes. "And that's why he looks like he wants to eat you, he wouldn't even look at me for the first five times I came over." He complains darkly, crossing his arms in a pet peeve.

I just laugh at his dramatics.

Daphne gets up first, her full stomach bobbing with the movement. "We should leave you kids to yourselves." She smiles and her face glows, she looks so happy about the child growing inside of her. "Come on Nico." She urges the child still nestled in my hair, he'd moved down to my neck and was breathing so deeply I was starting to think he'd fallen asleep.

"Nuh uh." A mumbled reply floats out and Dale's mind is blown yet again.

"Nico?" His mom repeats, starting to get slightly impatient.

"I don't wanna." Nicolai insists, holding tighter onto me.

I'm at a loss for words at this, I've never particularly been special around children, I mostly stayed out of their way as a matter of fact and they did the same so I was as shocked at this extravagant display of affection.

"Sweetie, why don't you come to Auntie." Mrs Colt tries, patting her skirted thighs in encouragement. "We could go get ice cream."

His head lifts slightly at this but he buries it back immediately, shaking his head in disagreement.

"Hay-Hay smells pwetty." He mumbles from the recesses of where he has his head buried in the crook of my neck. "Like vanilla an' flowers." He lisps in his adorable baby voice.

I pause at this, 'vanilla and flowers?' I frown at this description because I don't even have perfume on, all I have on is a spray on deodorant which has a light scent because my nose is really sensitive.

"Come on Nico, I promise we'll hug later okay?" I try to persuade him, unaware of how still the room had become.

He looks up at me with huge, brown eyes when I say this. "You really mean that?"

"Of course but you have to listen to what your mom and Aunt tells you or no more hugs." I say sternly.

He actually looks so devastated by this that I have to hold myself back from breaking out of character and telling him that I'll hug him forever if that is what he wants.

"Okay." He nods seriously, then scrambles off my legs to run to his mother who gently leads him out with Mrs. Colt in her wake.

"Aww, he's so cute." I sigh, watching them leave.

"Um Hayden?" Dale calls to me and I turn to see him rubbing his cheek nervously.

"Hmm? What is it?" I ask distractedly, still on the waves of the cuteness I had come in contact with just then.

"Do you have perfume on?"

I blink at this random question and then I remember Nicolai's remarks again. "No? I don't even if I did, I don't see me going for vanilla and flowers." I reply, finding it cute and funny.

No one replies my smiles though and I clear my throat. "Um… i-is so-something wrong?"

"What? No! Not at all. Why would you ask that?" Shana says quickly, while Virgil and Dale quietly watch me and I unconsciously frown at this - they were acting...weird.

"Uh, sure?"

Shana quickly brings up a new topic to dissipate the tension still lingering in the too bright room and I stay on the fringes of the conversation, it's not hard to do this as I have no idea what event they were discussing so my silence didn't stand out at all.

I try to think back to what happened after Nicolai said I smelled like vanilla and flowers - I mean of all alluring scents I could have had, it had to be that of a sweetshop on a spring morning.

Everyone sort of acted weird even though they had tried really hard to hide it - I think - maybe they were just shocked at his words too, I mean I was.

My friends quickly forget about it though as we fall from topic to topic, Shana even offers to bring out a board game.

If it were so important, they wouldn't have forgotten about it so soon, right? So I too forgot about it and just enjoyed their company.