Finally getting rid of Clay's clinginess, I sent him to shower alone. Just as I thought he quit the thought of showering together, he actually had another episode of trying to convince me to join. But I stood strong on my feet.

And I couldn't believe that Nick was still in the house, yet he announced that he was leaving almost an hour ago.

"Aren't you going?" Clay was in the shower so I had to interact with Nick to cure my boredom.

"Yeah." Despite his words, Nick was still looking comfortable on the couch.

I nodded in confusion, slowly making my way to the kitchen to at least cook something. But Nick's words stopped me.

"Is Clay showering?" His question was rhetorical I think.

"He is. Wanna join him? Maybe he needs help again." I remembered the first ever interaction between them when Nick came a few days ago.

"I wanted to talk to you in private actually. If you don't mind of course." The way he completely ignored my reference told me that things were about to get serious.

I couldn't say no to him. But that didn't mean I wanted to have this talk. The things he said to me previously when we talked in private were still fresh in my memories.

"Go ahead." I took a seat, trying to look as relaxed as possible to at least relieve some of the tension.

And Nick did the opposite. He straightened up in his position, putting the phone aside.

"I didn't want to address this infront of Clay cause you told me to try and keep him away from conversations like this. And I know it's been only two days since the last event, but I actually feel like we need to have this conversation."

I listened to his words carefully and nodded as a sign for him to continue.

"I just want to be completely honest with you so that you can maybe understand what happened..? How I acted is not acceptable, but I want to at least explain how I was feeling."

I shifted in my seat from his words, trying to clear something up, "How you were feeling? Or how you are still feeling."

One of my favorite traits was straight-forwardness. But in a conversation like this I had to be as careful as I could, try my best to not sound disrespectful or aggressive.

"I'm feeling so much better today," Nick sounded genuine, "yesterday when I left, I was feeling horrible. But like the reason was because I was still under the effect of what I did, and not because of something else - like the previous two days."

I got a bit relieved from his words and waited for the continuation. I kind of felt bad for not talking and letting him have a monolog, but I it felt like I had nothing to say and he had too much to say.

"When George called me a few days ago and told me to get a ticket as soon as possible and fly here, I spent like the whole day fucking terrified running place to place to get here as soon as possible."

This was one of the few times I heard Nick's speech so structured and fast.

"So I ended up in a horrible mental and physical state when I got here. I was tired, overwhelmed and had the worst headache which I couldn't even get rid of with the pills you and Clay were taking."

"You could've told us.. maybe you needed stronger pills." I frowned from the thought of him being in pain and keeping it a secret from us.

"You were already in a bad state.. both of you," Nick shrugged, "it's not the pain that bothered me. I just couldn't sleep for more than an hour for like 4 nights. And the time I spent sleeping... fuck, you know how that went."

"Why didn't you tell me earlier? We'd work something out. You know that you go crazy when you don't get enough sleep."

I couldn't help but chuckle when I remembered the time Nick got so sleep deprived he called me Lindsey.

"I don't know. I didn't know a few hours of good sleep would fix this, I thought I was going crazy." He shook his head, groaning from how annoyed he was with himself.

"I see.. do you think the problem is solved now?" I raised a brow. Not a lot of time has passed from the last time he caused a scene, and I honestly didn't know if I could trust his words.

"Liz, look. I do find you really attractive and I don't think that's a secret. I've always admitted that, joked about that, even said that on purpose to annoy Clay," I looked away from his words, "and I don't know if the dreams will come back or not, I literally can't control them. But I am one hundred percent sure that I value our friendship and your and Clay's relationship more than anything."

His words were actually really sweet. I smiled and stood up, realizing that Clay was done with his shower and would come out of the bathroom any second. And seeing Nick's face expression, I knew that he was waiting for a reaction. Well, something more than a smile.

"I'm still kind of uncomfortable when it comes to us, and really fucking mad about what you did to Clay," I started from the negative part of the sentence, but that was not the point of what I wanted to say, "but it's a matter of time I think. I hope you'll be feeling better soon. I hope Clay will get better soon and everything will be back to normal."

Nick was so tensed up while I was speaking that when I finished the sentence on a positive note, he exhaled sharply. And I finally saw him smile.

He stood up as well, still smiling.

"I'd love to get a hug but you're probably thinking I'm a weirdo so we won't do that now I guess." I could tell from his voice tone that he was feeling a lot like himself finally.

"I would hug you but I'm still scared that you'll pop a boner." I laughed, seeing him return the emotion.

And Clay finally came out of the shower with a towel hanging low on his hips. I rolled my eyes knowing that he probably thought that Nick had left already and was doing this on purpose to annoy me.

Yet Nick was actually naive enough to not understand what was going on.

"Drop your workout routine, damn."