nevertheless~

part 57

TESSA'S POV 

"And she lives another day", I hear as soon I swipe my card against the lock on the hotel door, and swing it open to step in. Fuck. He's here. Before me. When I promised him that we'd come back together.

"Yeah, she does. Victory is mine", I plaster a tiny smile on my face and get inside, turning to shut the door, I say a solemn and quiet prayer to the gods listening that what I'm about to tell him, doesn't rip his heart out.

"Welcome back honey", he comes out of nowhere, in the middle of my prayer and hugs me, tight and warm arms take me into this body and goodness do I just not want to melt like a puddle right here, right now.

"What took you so long?", he says, kissing a line from my ear to my shoulder, making pit stops at my collarbone, the joint of my neck, the curvature of my jaw and then back to my ears, sending thousand shivers down.

"I was just wrapping up with Nora, and Jonathan called me to talk to him.", I say and feel both my and his betrayal coming our way in a truckload.

"Jonathan called you?", I undo the grip of his arms on me, and spin into his chest.

"Yeah", I look up to find an emotion which is unclear to me.

"I hope, it wasn't anything bad? Should I be worried?", he asks, me, his hands despite the barbwires we are in, wrapping around me, to tell me that I'll be fine as long as he has me around him.

"It's not all, rainbows and sunshine for the most part, but it's still something good.", I say to lighten the blow of what's about to come his way.

"Right. Do we want to take this inside? Or are we gonna do this right here? Is that my punishment?", he jokes and I am glad that at least one of us is having jokes about this conversation.

"Right. Be right there. Lemme just, freshen up too?", I ask, so that I can get some heads up on how to even begin talking. I can't just break the news to him.

"Sure", he says, giving my forehead a small peck before he turns back to his spot on the bed and dear god does the gesture not break my heart into uncountable pieces.

I take the mess of myself to the bathroom and lock the door, splashing some water onto my face, removing whatever even was left of my makeup that I did in the morning, washing with that my anxiety that has been loaded by Jonathan.

"Come on, Tessa. It's not all that.", I give myself a small pep, shaking my shoulders and wriggling the tension away.

After blowing some steam off and getting some courage I step out and go to change my clothes that are still in my damn suitcase for some reason. I think I should put them in the closet in the room. Funnily enough, This room is mine, but the closet has Hardin's clothes in them.

"Are we gonna go out for dinner, or we'll get it up here?", I ask, him, digging through my things for a simple pj's set. The last thing on my mind, is to dress up for going out or dress sexily for Hardin. Sexy, is not on my mind tonight, and if it's on Hardin's, it's not gonna be after what I tell him.

"No. I don't think the either of us want to go out for dinner, and I don't have anything planned either.", he says, not moving away from the bed. Instead he makes a little nest for us to fall back into.

"Ok. Good. I am really tired too. I just want the bed to swallow me whole.", I say, all of that sentence being true.

I change into a simple set of lavender pajamas and a matching top with it, that has little flowers of some sort on it. I change into them and go back to the bed to Hardin, who welcomes me into the nest he's made.