Third Shred of Love

Chapter 9.1

"Where's my other sock?!" You ran around the room.
"I can't find my jacket that I wore last week." Steven devoured his closet.

"Hah I found it!" You fell out of the laundry room with the sock in your hand.
"Oh look I found your jacket too."
"Wicked." Steven slid over picking it up and you as well, before the both of you headed to your rooms to continue packing.

"Shit." You sighed after realizing that your pajamas were all in the washing. Too late now. But before you began panicking you got a great idea.

Steven.

As you rushed over to his room, you bumped into something forehead first and almost fell.

"Got ya." Steven breathed pulling you up. "Are you alright?" He scanned your forehead.
"I-I, yes. I was gonna ask if I can borrow a shirt." You smiled innocently.
"Bu I already-" He paused. "Yeah sure, and I was going to ask if I can borrow a hair tie."
"Of course."

You both headed opposite ways and came back to hold the trade.
"Thank you." He took the scrunchie.
"Pleasure doing business with you, Mr.Grant." You said in a British accent.
"Ha ha very nice." He laughed sarcastically.
You giggled folding the shirt and making your way back to your room.

An hour passed and there were two more to go until your uber was going to arrive.

It was 3am.

You and Steven were both half asleep on your living room couch.

He had his head on your shoulder and your hand lazily stroking his arm. The two of you knew that if either of you were to fall asleep you probably wouldn't wake up.

An accidental sigh escaped your lips, Steven ,of course, noticed.

"You alright, dear?" He said quietly.
You hummed in response.
"How are you dealing with," he paused. He had to chose his words extremely delicately for your sake.
Or at least that's what he thought.

"I don't want to talk or even think about it. I'm going to deal with it after the trip and after the trip only. I only want you ok? No Jake and definitely no Marc."

Steven swallowed "I got it."

The truth was that you were using this trip as an excuse to not talk about what had happened the day before. Marc was clearly going to be mad and Jake was just scaring you at this point.

You needed to talk to them separately to get the full story and make sure that there were no lies.

Somehow you and Steven managed to stay awake and the cab that you ordered finally came.

The trip from home to the Heathrow Airport was quite pleasant.

The driver didn't say a word while you and Steven listened to your own music from one pair of earphones.

This reminded you of the time before you knew about the existence of Jake and Marc, or rather of Marc's whole disorder thing.

You'd take the same bus from work as Steven and during about half way he'd get on, and the both of you would listen to your favorite tunes at the back of the bus, while staring into the window, where the lights ran by you in all types of smudged colors and shades of bright yellow.

"Oh what's this?" Stevens interested voice pulled you out of your memories.
"What?"
"The song. It's quite nice." He smiled.

You looked down at your phone and chuckled. "You a girl in red fan?"
"I dunno." He shrugged.
"My girl, my girl, my girl, my girl." You sang quietly so the taxi driver wouldn't hear.
"Boy." Steven corrected.
"My boy." You laughed.

For the rest of the way to the airport you listened to the same song on repeat because Steven really liked it.

"Thank you." Steven said after the driver took the last suitcase out of the trunk.

"Do we need one of those weird trolleys?" You asked looking over to the line of baggage carts.

"I think we'll manage." Steven said pulling out the handle of his suitcase. "I can carry yours if you want."
"No it's ok, we're checking them out anyway."

After leaving your checked luggage you passed through the airport security gates and spent your time in the departure halls.

"Alrighty," Steven breathed out "We've got an hour to kill. Fancy a cuppa?"
"I'd say yes."

You both got a cup of tea from an airport cafe and got to your boarding gate.

"Not bad for the airport." Steven stated after finishing his drink.
"Yours is a lot better."
"Evidently."
"Why cause it's been 10 minutes and I'm still not done?" You guessed.
"Exactly."
"Nice work Sherlock, cause I'm actually about to throw up." You stared.

"Oh it's not that bad." He took it from you and finished it.
"Thank you." You beamed. "I'll throw these away." You took the cardboard cups out of his hand and left to go find the rubbish bin that you had passed earlier.