Moral of the Story

Chapter Twelve

The next morning came sooner than either was ready for.

For the most part, yesterday was actually quite civil. They had a small argument but eventually had a good conversation, caught up some, and in a domestic manner, they set up a time to have 'the talk.'

But now the talk was here, and both of their nerves were shot.

Y/N scheduled the talk later so she could sleep in and prepare herself for it, but who was she kidding? She wasn't getting any sleep.

She got up at seven in the morning and decided to go for a jog in hopes it would clear her mind some. That of course didn't happen. 

When she got back to the house, Sherri was already gone on shift, and her father was out in the garage working on whatever project he had going at the time.

So she went to the garden and decided she would snip some roses for a rose tea later. She was going to need the stress relief. Lucky for her, a bouquet of roses and other miscellaneous flowers were already wilting from a vase in the living room, so she plucked and chopped those for the tea and replaced them with the new ones she had cut.

By then, it was only 8:30. She still had an hour and a half before she needed to be there, and it was a 15-minute drive at most.

She let out a groan as she grabbed her computer and decided to check her emails. Lo and behold, that kept her distracted as some of the people from the farmers market had reached out with questions. By the time she looked at the clock again, it was 9:30.

"Better early than late," she sighed, grabbing her things and saying a quick bye to her dad before she took his spare car out.

Sure enough, she got there with 10 minutes to spare and sat in her car. Eventually, she made her way upstairs and knocked on the door.

Bucky opened it as if he had been standing by it the entire time.

"Hey," he smiled softly.

"Hey," she replied.

"Um, come on in. I have some coffee brewing," he moved out of the way and motioned in.

Though she had been there once already, thanks to the mishap Saturday, she hadn't actually been inside the apartment. She had said her goodbyes to Steve outside the door.

But inside, was not what she expected. Bucky was a pretty messy guy back in high school. His room was always cluttered, and nothing was ever organized. That was Y/N's area. She would come over and organize his clothes and cluttered chaos voluntarily because she liked doing it, and it was a stress relief for her.

But this. This was closer to Y/N's kind of living than high school Bucky's. There was a blanket ladder to the side where blankets were folded on it and cascading down in a neat manner. The coffee table had a small stack of books on it with a candle and a small plant for decor. The furniture was mainly navy blue with accents of grey and brown leather around the room.

It was nice and clean. Oddly, it was perfectly organized, too. The remotes were in a calculated line next to each other, and the coasters were stacked precisely.

"Doesn't look like I live here, does it?" Bucky laughed from the kitchen that opened up to the living room. "Teenage Bucky and 30-year-old Buck are a little different. The military does that to a person."

"I can see that," she chuckled, moving into the room more and taking note of the full bookshelves framing the TV on both sides. "You have a whole library here." She ran her fingers over the spines of the books and saw the beat-up and overused spine of The Hobbit. "Not that I'm surprised," she grinned at the specific book.