Louis POV
“NO PLEASE DON’T HURT HER!” Liam shouted, waking us all up. He shot awake, panting.
“Holy shit, Liam.” Bella sat up, looking down at him. “You scared the hell out of me.”
“You okay?” Kayleigh asked him
“Yeah, I just…” he trailed off, getting a really worried look in his eye and looked to Kayleigh in a strange way. “Uh, bad dream.”
“Well it’s over now, mate. And speaking of over, there’s no way I can get back to sleep now.” I said, standing up and helping Liam to his feet. Zayn, the only one of us who had managed to sleep through the drama of the morning, finally rolled over, crushing Sadie to the cushion.
“Zay-” Sadie managed to blurt out. She was trying to roll him off of her, but he was heavy.
“I’ve got it.” I said I went up to Zayn and rested my hand on his hair, stroking it. “aww….ZAYNNNN!!!!” I screamed very loudly, inches from his ear. He swung his arm around and smacked my head. It hurt a little, but I ignored it until I turned around and heard Lucy gasp.
“Oh, Lou, you’re-” Kayleigh started
“Ewwww.” Lucy groaned and buried her head into Niall’s chest
“Oh, Louis I’m so sorry, man” Zayn apologized
I walked quickly into the bathroom to discover I was bleeding from a spot right above my left eyebrow. I heard a little knock on the door and Bella appeared in the doorway.
“Pretty gross.” She said coming up to me and propping her bum on the sink counter.
“Yeah, but I was brave.”
“Very.”
“Hey! I was.” I defended myself. I tried to put a wash cloth on it and wipe the blood off, but it was just smearing it around. I saw Bella do her signature eye-roll and grab the wash cloth from me.
“Here.” She said. She ran the cloth under warm water and began dabbing the cut. “It’s not even that bad. The button on Zayn’s jacket must have nicked you.” She was concentrating on cleaning my cut and since we were so close, I was just noticing the freckle above her collar bone. Without thinking, I ran my finger over it.
“Never noticed this before.” I said, searching her neck for more.
“Well, you’ve never been interested in my neck exactly, have you?” she smiled. I smiled back.
“I guess not.” My smile faded. Something about the way her mouth went into a slight pout made me feel guilty about never noticing her like that. The little things. “I like it.”
“My freckle?” she asked confused. She opened the medicine cabinet behind her and pulled out Neosporin and a Band-Aid.
“Yeah. I like your freckle. And…” I began sweeping my eyes all over her face and neck for something else I liked about her. “and I like the way your ear lobe is perfectly round. Oh! And I really like the tiny bump on the bridge of your nose.” I tapped it.
“You are so random.” She giggled at me. “You know, I thought about getting a nose job over that cute bump.” She put air quotes around ‘cute’. That really bothered me for some reason. I knew two girls who had gotten nose jobs and it never really phased me, but, I didn’t want Bella to think like that. “I mean it’s not like I could afford it or anything, just a thought, ya know?” she used a Q tip to spread the Neosporin on the small cut.
“No. Don’t” I said simply. She stopped with the cut.
“Don’t what?” she asked confused, looking at the Q tip of medicine. “I’m almost done, I just have to-”. Bam. I grabbed her face with both of my hands and smashed my lips to hers. I wasn’t thinking. At all. I was so tired of thinking and being careful around her because of how our friends would act or how either one of us would feel at the time. I was just tired of caring about how others would think. I pulled back and looked at her face. At first she had a blank, a little surprised look on her face and it slowly turned into a tiny smile.
“Well.” She began and swallowed hard. “If only I had known it would take a freckle to win you over, I would have shown you a while ago.” I smiled back. She continued to smear the rest of the cream on my forehead and placed a Scooby Doo Band-Aid over the small cut. “There you go.” She said, hopping off the counter and throwing away the Q tip and Band-Aid wrappers.
“Bella?” I began
“Louis, wait. I know what you’re going to say, but I don’t want to come out with it yet. I know you do, but. I just-…. Can we just keep it between us for a while, see if it works?” something about the way she grabbed both of my hands and leaned into me made me give in.
“As you wish.” I said and kissed the freckle on her collarbone, drawing up a quiet moan from her lips.
