Her Home, His Heart | ✓

☆*✿THIRTY-FIVE (35)❀*★

♪♪Oh, I used to think,

What wouldn't I give,

For a moment like this,

This moment is gift. ♪♪

ᴺᴼᵂ ᴾᴸᴬᵞᴵᴺᴳ [Opportunity] - [Sia]

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 Esmé stared with heavy eyelids at the piece of paper on the table in front of her. The night mocked her with its silence, waiting for the moment she'd put down anything on the paper.

'Any minute now,' it whispered, but no matter how tightly she held her pen, no ink-stained the paper.

The click of the front door snagged the stillness away from the house, and Esmé's pulse quickened at the sudden interference. She turned to the clock as the shuffling of footsteps got closer to her.

11:00 PM

She groaned, tipping her head back and briefly closing her eyes. Though she'd wanted to catch Kian come in since he began the make-up double shift Hudgens put him on, in the past two days, but at that moment all she felt was numb.

The footsteps ceased just before they reached her. "Esmé?"

Esmé turned slightly to him with a half-opened eye and grunted in reply.

The glazed look in Kian's eyes turned focused as his forehead creased. He moved further in closer to her with his eyes squinted. "Are you okay?"

"What do you think?" Esmé replied, her voice sharper than she intended.

Kian's brows arched upward. He blinked repeatedly, not expecting the lukewarm response.

Murmuring a string of curses, she tilted her head backwards again, groaning. Esmé took in deep breaths before she turned back to Kian, who patiently stood there waiting for her to get herself together.

"I'm sorry. I'm knackered, but that was improper," she said, fully focusing on him. Despite the strong, concerned gaze he fixed on her, the circles that lay beneath his eyes let her know he was just as tired as she was. Though a part of her was dying to ask for help, she didn't have the heart to do that. "You can just go to bed. I'll be fine. Don't let me take up the little time you have time you have to sleep. Thanks."

His eyes flickered from her to the clock and then back at her. The wheels in his head turned, knowing the damage drawing out a chair by Esmé's side would cause the following day, but his hands drew it out, anyway.

The scraping sound against the floor snapped Esmé's attention back to Kian. "What are you doing?"

"Sitting?"

She gave him a blank expression and said, "I can see that, but why? I told you I'll be fine, really."

Kian shook his head and settled better into his chair. "No, you won't. If you would be fine, I'm sure you wouldn't still be here by this time. Honestly, do you think I can actually go to bed when you're having a hard time here, knowing I didn't help?"

Hurt flashed briefly in his eyes at the sudden hesitation in hers. But it didn't last long; his expression softened aware that he hadn't given her any reason to think otherwise.

Esmé retraced her steps, noticing the fleeting emotion that surfaced. "It's not that I think you'd willingly want to let me be, but you still have an early shift tomorrow, right? I know you need to sleep so I don't feel comfortable with you staying behind either."