♡ One Day. - Cove Holden

One Day

'Ugh, it shouldn't be this hard. You've known each other for years now. Just say it already.' Your erased your current message and stared down at your phone screen, harshly illuminating your face in the extremely dim room. The phone's cursor stared just as intensely back at you, waiting for you find a message that would be the perfect balance between a slight forcefulness and playful teasing. You didn't want to scare Cove away.

Not that he'd be scared off by your advances anyway. Sure, he was timid and shy when it came to his true - romantic, or as he called it, "friends but better" - feelings. You've come to enjoy seeing his face light ablaze whenever you would do something as simple as graze your hand down his back or domestic as call him "honey." You'd never dream of making him uncomfortable or rushing him, but boy did you want him to do something other than just holding your hand.

You've known each other for a decade now. A painfully short and blissful 10 years. And in all of those years the most you've done is kiss him when you were 13. The memory crawls its way back to the front of your mind sometimes and you can't help but let out a snicker at his reaction each time.

Man. He truly was the sweetest person you've known throughout your life but he was also the most annoying sometimes.

You chewed on your bottom lip and watched the time on your phone's notification bar tick away. You had to say something soon, otherwise it would become too "socially unacceptable" to send a message. Who even decided that messages needed to be replied to in a set amount of time anyway?

Yet another message was typed out and then quickly deleted. It shouldn't be this hard. Maybe you should just type out what you mean, send it, and then prepare plans to move away to the Appalachian mountains if he reacted too badly? You could learn to live with the cold, it wouldn't be anywhere near as bad as potentially sending one of the few people you really knew away.

You closed your eyes and typed out an approximate of your message, hoping autocorrect wouldn't turn its back against you. You scanned over his previous message a multitude of times - four? maybe five times, keeping track is tough - to ensure you said everything you needed to in one message. Who thought that double texting could be considered a social death sentence?

'Cove 🦈: haha, you put chapstick on so much i swear it's rubbed off onto me. not that i mind though, youve got a lot of good smelling ones

hey, wait!

you should let me borrow one sometime! i'll always carry it on me as well in case you ever forget yours.'

To Cove, this was probably didn't register as anything other than a friendly gesture. You had the half the mind to climb into his room instead, say something along the lines of "if you wanted to kiss that much, you could just ask" and watch him as he sputters trying to recover.

You'd spare the boy the embarrassment.

This time.

"Next time, Holden." One thumb hovered over the send button and the other was latched between your teeth, the nail far too short to bite down on now anyway.

"Fuck it." You don't know what happened first. Your finger finally pressing send or your hand covering your eyes as if you were the unwilling victim of a flash photo.

Was it too late to unsend it? Maybe you could sneak into his room and delete it if he were asleep. You could learn to knit warm sweaters from alpaca wool and scavenge the Appalachian forests if you needed to.

Can you say you lost your phone? Would he even believe that? Maybe say you left it at the beach and-

A quiet chime and quick buzzing brought all of your thoughts to a halt. Your hand flew away from your face and you struggled to input your passcode. There was only one reason your phone would go off this late. Your message stared back at you.

'i swear you are going to kill me that's literally just complicated kissing

it might not be today. it might not be tomorrow. but one day, cove james holden. one day im gonna kiss you and you wont be able to do anything about it >:-('

He had seen it. The double check marks were enough indication of that, yet there wasn't a reply. Your eyes darted around your screen looking for the source of the buzzing before you saw a small email symbol staring back at you, calling the notification bar its home.

You closed your eyes tightly and pulled your blanket to your chest. What else do you need to live in such harsh climates? You could become a local legend, a myth that's used to teach kids to behave and mind their manners. At least you wouldn't be left on read in fairytales.

You almost didn't hear the tapping at your window or the creak of someone inviting themself in. The feeling of someone sitting on the edge of your bed didn't register until their hand reached out towards yours and removed your phone from your grasp.

"Taking a vacation without me?"

Cove's all too familiar laugh filled your room and for a split second yout were going to tell him to keep it down, that you were too busy sulking, before the realization hit you.

Was your message really that bad that he'd come to laugh at you in person? He was going to help you pack your bags for sure. There was no other logical reason why he'd be here.

Maybe it was a stroke of luck that the moon broke through a cloud or maybe Cove just lit up the room that much, but you could make out the faint traces of a blush forming on his fsce. It slowly spread from the bridge of his nose to the tips of his ears.

"Uh." He cleared his thought and gave you a small smile thst signaled that he was trying. "Aha..." One of his hands tangled itself in his overly messy hair and the other crept ever close towards you. He was avoiding your gaze and you couldn't decipher if it was between him finding a way to end all contact with you or if he wanted something else with your sleep deprived mind.

As you were about to say something, anything to break the tension, Cove's hands pulled away from their current mindless task and he balled them into a small fist. To anyone else, this was sure of been terrifying, especially with the suddenly determined look etched onto his features.

Oh the duality of man. The duality of Cove Holden actually.

"I always like how the cherry chaptsticks smell when you use them. I'd like to use one. My lips are," His hands began to flex as if he were playing with a stress ball.

Opening. Stretching out. Closing. Repeat.

Maybe Cove wasn't gonna be the reason you became a local cryptid afterall. "Chapped. And it looks so much more useful when you're the one wearing it so..."

This man was going to be the death of you though.

Your hands found their ways towards Cove in the dim room and you pulled him close. Maybe it was the fact you two were in an actual realtionship that made it much more tense, two adults alone in a dark room, or the chance to finally kiss Cove but you were sure anyone passing by would mistake your heartbeats for a something as loud as plane rutters.

"It's a good thing I'm always stocked up then." You closed the gap between you two and let your hands rest in Cove's disaster of bedhead.

Maybe not today, but one day.

One day, you're going to kiss Cove Holden as much as you want and he'd have to enjoy your affection.