Make This Feel Like Home

Chapter 8

Mal's POV:

It was 6:30am by the time we finished talking. Whilst talking, we also finished a bottle of wine and the mint chip ice cream. We talked about everything. We talked about how he hated trains because they scare him, and how my dad owned a pub that is now run by his best friend. I learned that he is an amazing listener and that he has green eyes, I never really noticed that before.

He ended up going home around 6:30am and I had apologized for keeping him up so late.. or early I guess. He told me not to worry about it, and to call him if I needed anything. I thanked him but I knew I would just spend the day sleeping and keeping to myself, so I didn't think I would need anything.

And that brings me to now. Laying in my bed.. about to fall asleep until I here the blaring noise of my phone. "Ughhhh" I groan, rolling over to pick it up. "Hello"? I say, still sounding tired "hey girl you never called me after work?" I hear Ree's voice on the other end of the phone. "Oh sorry, I forgot, a lot happened yesterday and I'm gonna go to sleep now" I say ready to hang up and dream of anything that wasn't yesterday. "Mal it's 6:45am you should be at at work" she says. "I'm taking the day off cause shit happened. It's ok, I'm ok I promise" I say hoping she'll drop it and I can tell her later. "Well babe we should talk about it if you want to." She says obviously not letting it go. It's not a bad thing though, I know she just cares about me. 

"We can talk about it later Ree I'm so tired." She sighs on the other end of the phone. "Ok ok we can talk about it later but I don't think you should be alone. I'm coming over and we can sleep". She says and I smile. "Ok deal. But I need you to replace my wine." I say sleepily. "I don't drink it your wine silly?" She says.  "I know I did. Well, me and Harry did." I say. "Whoa whoa whoa... who is this Harry person?" She says. I groan, "what happened to the deal?" I say "ok ok but we will talk about it later. And I'll bring the wine." "Ok thank you babe. I love you. You know that?" I say "I know, I know... I'm the best" she says, We both laugh.

About 20 minutes later I hear Ree yell "hello" when she gets into my apartment. "I'm in here" I say back. "Shhhh you're supposed to be sleeping" she says "then why did you yell?" I say laughing lightly. "Oh. I don't know, force of habit, anyway. Go to sleep.." she says patting my head. It's quiet for about a Minuit until.. "I'm stealing PJ's" she says, whispering quite loudly. "Shhh I'm sleeping" I say in a joking sleepy tone. "Jack ass" Ree muttered to herself, jokingly of course. She gets into the bed, under the covers and cuddled's me. This was just the kind of relationship Ree and I have.

I wake up to the smell of coffee, a smile on my face, briefly forgetting about the events of yesterday.

I pull myself out of bed and make my way to the kitchen, there I see Ree making coffee for us. I'm certain I still look like shit. She turns around when she heard my foot steps. "Hey come sit and we can talk" she says to me, making her way towards the couch. I nod and follow her.

She hands me my cup of coffee, I take a minute and smell it, letting the beautiful aroma of vanilla and coffee fill my nose. I take a sip and let the warm liquid travel down my throat. As I take me next sip, I realize all I've consumed in the last day and a half now concidering it's 9:00am now, was Mint Chip ice cream and a bottle of red wine. Shared of course.. but still.

So, to fix that, I get up and pour myself a bowl of Cheerios. I come sit back down and I feel like it's been enough stalling, so I should probably say something. "So.. yesterday was a shit show." I begin. "so when we woke up in the bar, I rushed out and went to work. When I got there, this guy came in, he worked for the hospital and he told me that.... that Mr. Neal died, so I went with him to the hospital. The same hospital.. that...." I take a deep breath, "and the same room that..." I try really hard not to cry. I hold my breath, trying to contain it. " you get it.. um but they pulled the plug and everything is shitty. But when I got home, I decided to call Harry.  So, he come over and we stayed up all night talking, eating Mint Chip ice cream that he brought and we drank wine. And then I went to bed and you called, we slept and now we're here." I rush out, in only a few breaths, because I really don't want to relive it. I spoke so fast, I don't think it even made sense. All I hope is that she won't ask any follow up questions.

She sits there... her mouth a little hung open, she looks like she is in shock kind of. She doesn't say anything once she shakes herself from her state of unbelief. "Ok.. if I know you as well as I think I do then I know that you don't want to talk about all of the Mr. Neil stuff and that's ok, I just want to say that you can come and talk to me anytime about it. We can drop it we don't have to talk about that." She says calmly and I let out a breath I had unknowingly been holding. "But.... we do have to talk about this "Harry guy. Who is he?" She says jokingly and giving me the flirty eyebrows. I laugh a little not really knowing what to say.

"He.. he's a guy".  I say sighing and dropping my hands like I have nothing else to say. She gives me a look that says "bullshit". "Ok, ok. He just moved here from England, he just moved into the building like two weeks or so ago. He came into the Waffle House and we would have little conversations. There was this one awkward time he tried to ask me out I guess but I didn't really say anything so I thought he kind of dropped it. And he would come into the Waffle House every day, same table, same order, coffee black." The whole time she had been listening intently but her eyebrows shot up at the end of my sentence. "You remembered how he takes his coffee" she says with a cocky grin on her face. "Yeah? And?" I ask, not understanding what she's getting at. "You remember how he takes his coffee... the only people you let take up your brain space are the people you care about. And you remembered a little non-important fact about him." She says and I role my eyes. " please that is not true i am not that narrow minded." I say. "Oh really.... the people you think about consist of your dad, me, Mitch, Mr. Neil and your Cheerios." She says. And I don't really know what to say. Surly she isn't right? Right?

.......

After we finished our small debate on if I care about Harry or not, she dropped it, we never really reached a satisfying conclusion to the conversation but that's fine. I'll let it slide. I don't even know the guy! I mean sure we talked last night and we agreed to try and be friends but other than that. That's all. Anyway that brings us to now.

" wait wait wait.. he's afraid of trains?" She asks, laughing now while she holds her now cold coffee in her hands, too caught up in what we are talking about. "Yeah, he's afraid of trains, he says it's  unnatural for something that can be described so simply as ' tin boxes full of people on a track, moving at an ungodly speed should be terminated' and that he likes cars." I laugh at the fact I tried to impersonate his accent while quoting him. "He is so full of shit he just doesn't like them" she says in an out right belly laugh and I join her. "Ok ok what else" she asks. "Well we talked about his home town in Cheshire, he's a small town boy, and he loves music. His favourite song is Yellow by Cold play and he has a bunch of rings on his fingers, not sure what that was about though". As I finish my sentence, my door rings.

I get up and answer the door surprised to see Harry there, this time dressed and with less frozen treats in his hand. None to be specific. He wears a black t-shirt and black skinny jeans, sunglasses on his head, so I can see his eyes.

"Hey." He says with a smile on his face. "Oh hey" I say with a smile on my face. I may not look put together, but I'm definitely feeling better. "I just wanted to make sure you were ok, you didn't call and of course you don't have to but.." he's rambling. He's.. nervous?? I catch on that he's finished speaking so I go to speak. "Yeah, no I didn't call but I'm ok, thanks for checking in. I have my friend here so I'm ok." I turn around to point to Ree on the couch who is already staring at him from the couch. He peaks into see her. "Oh this is Ree I'm assuming?" He asks, and I laugh. "Yeah, yeah, this is Ree. Ree come say hi" I say waving her over. I can't tell if this is awkward or not. Maybe I should just wait it out to see. "Hi, you're Harry?" Ree asks. His eye brows shoot up and gives me a cocky grin, while leaning against the door frame, "You talk about me?" He says jokingly. Ree and I laugh "whoa whoa buddy you're not that important yet.. you gotta get through me first". Ree says defensively while laughing. He chuckles "oh so you're the one I have to kiss up to now eh? Good to know, I'll keep that in mind." We all laugh and let the joke go. I'm glad to see that their senses of humour match up. I feel like we could all become friends.

A/N//

Hi! I'm sorry I know this chapter was a little late, I was having trouble trying to navigate how I wanted it to end. Thank you for sticking around!! Things are starting to pick up! Anyway, let me know what you guys think! Are you liking it so far? I promise if you stick around things are about to get interesting. If I were you, I'd enjoy the calm before the storm. 😉 anyway, thank youu!! Hope you guys have a great night Xx