Eucalyptus & Honey |H.S.|

Chapter 21 - I Guess He Just Found Out

I was too hot.

My face felt swollen with the heat, and there was a burning glow behind my eyelids that were still plastered shut with sleep. The small of my back felt sticky with the beginnings of beading sweat, and I groaned at the feeling.

My mouth felt dry—as if I hadn't experienced the bliss of cool water coating my tongue in years. The heat was suffocating—smothering. My face was buried against the pillows as I laid flat on my stomach, and there seemed to be a heavy weight against my back.

It was incredibly disorienting.

I shifted, eyes still closed, and the heavy weight against my back didn't budge. I groaned again, trying to move so that the weight wasn't so heavily pushing against my stomach—and more importantly, by bladder—but the attempt was unsuccessful.

Finally, I pried my eyes open, and was instantly blinded. The morning sun was streaming through the crack in the large floor to ceiling curtains, and it was glaring directly on my eyes. I squeezed them shut again, and that was when I remembered where I was—and what the cause of the weight on my back was.

I groaned again, louder this time, and shifted enough to make Margot let out a groan of her own. Now that my thoughts were coherent enough to recognize the weight as Margot's body, I realized that she was using my entire lower back as her own personal body pillow—which would also explain the way my body was overheating, mixed with the feeling of the sun on my face. Margot was a cuddler.

"Margot," I grumbled, and my voice was rough with sleep.

"Shhh, I'm sleeping."

"Go Go," I tried again.

"Steves, please, it's way too fucking early."

"Unless you want my bladder to explode, please get the fuck up. Plus, we both need to get the fuck up for work."

She sighed dramatically, and flopped over onto her back on her side of the bed, splaying her arms out like a starfish. She arched her back to stretch, yawning loudly, before she pulled herself out of the bed entirely and stood up. None of the tiredness that was there only seconds before appeared in her eyes, and her voice was chipper as she said, "Alright, I'm gonna hop in the shower."

Before I could give more of a response than a simple nod, she was already shutting herself into her bathroom. I never fucking understood how people were immediately energetic in the morning.

I rolled myself onto my back, stretching in a much less dramatic way than Margot had, and patted my hands around the messy sheets until I found my abandoned phone. And that was when I remembered I had never hung up last night.

But, when I checked the screen, there was no ongoing call. My heart sank to my stomach for a moment at the thought of Harry hanging up. Which I knew was ridiculous because obviously he would have to hang up eventually. But my heart immediately sped back up when I noticed a text.

H: Sorry I had to end the call before you woke up this morning. Had an early meeting. See you later, angel baby xx

I shoved down the fluttering feeling in my stomach as I typed out a quick response telling him I'd see him later, before hopping out of bed. I raced to my own bathroom, having to pee more than I realized, and began getting ready for work.

I showered quickly, knowing without looking that I was running late. I was pretty much always late. I decided not to wash my hair, having washed it only a couple of days ago, so I was in and out of the shower within ten minutes.

I stood in front of my mirror in just a towel. Peter Gabriel's album So played quietly from my phone's speaker as I did my morning skincare routine. I was quietly singing the words to "Don't Give Up" featuring Kate Bush, finishing the final step of applying sunscreen and chapstick.