Leave the Lights On

Chapter 14

You're not really concerned with what you wear to bed so you just shimmy out of your jeans, fold them up, and place them on Brittany's dresser. She does the same and you both crawl into bed together. You love her bed. It's so big and soft. It's warm and it smells great.

You meet in the middle of the bed and your arms wrap around each other. You're usually the one with your head on Brittany's shoulder, but somehow, this time her head is on your chest. You like it like this. You can hold her and stroke her hair and kiss her whenever you want.

"Santana," she says quietly. You thought she was asleep so you are a little surprised by her voice.

"Hmm?" you ask as you run your fingers through her hair as you have been for the past twenty minutes.

"Were you ever scared of being with me?" her voice is barely audible.

You keep your fingers moving through her hair and kiss the top of her head. "No. I never even thought about being scared. I was appalled that anyone would be scared of being with you." That's the truth. You never blinked thinking about what other people would think.

Brittany grips your shirt tighter, constricting her arms around you. She doesn't say anything so you think you said something right.

She falls asleep before you do, but you're close behind her. You're surprised when you wake up first, but your bladder is screaming at you. You slip out of bed and walk to the bathroom. When you step out of the bathroom, Brittany has rolled over and is taking up most of the bed.

You smile and watch her for a moment before going to the kitchen. You start some coffee and walk to the door that leads to the backyard. You tiptoe back into the bedroom to borrow some pants from Brittany. You find some grey yoga pants first so you put them on, pull your boots on, and walk back to the backyard.

It's a decent sized yard for the house. There are some toys around the yard and it looks as if some branches have fallen from the trees, but you think you have a good place to go camping.

You start picking up the yard toys and putting them in a box by the back door. Then you start throwing the twigs in the yard into a pile next to the biggest tree. You don't know how Brittany or her neighbors feel about campfires in the backyard, but if you can have one, you want to. Not that you're a camping expert, but s'mores seem important.

You hear a door close and look up at the house. You don't see Brittany so you look around. On the other side of the wooden fence you see a man standing on his back porch next door. He spots you looking so he hitches his chin.

You nod back to him and look around the yard. You wonder if you can fit an air mattress into a tent.

"Are you friends with Brittany?" the man asks.

You look over and see that he's leaning over the top of the fence, his forearms resting on top of it. His porch must be right up against the fence because the fence is at least seven feet tall. You walk over to it. "We're dating."

"Oh yeah?" he smiles. "Good for her." He extends his hand to you, "I'm Dave."

"Santana," you shake his hand. You notice a logo on his shirt: LFD. "Are you a firefighter?"

He chuckles, "I used to be. Now I'm the fire marshal."

"Oh cool," you look around the yard. "How do you feel about campfires in the backyard?"

"In your backyard?" he says. He starts looking over your backyard.

"This backyard," you clarify. "Summer wants to go camping and because of some family issue I'm having we're going to be camping back here this weekend."