Love At First Text ✔️

Her

I accidentally uploaded today thinking it was Saturday. Bonus for you guys, you get an early upload. Maybe I'll treat you tomorrow too.

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Eden woke perhaps more tired than she was when she fell asleep. It was likely to do with the terrible rest she had gotten. Her body ached, her face hurt, and she'd spent the night curled up on her sofa.

It wasn't that she'd chosen to fall asleep there. When home, she'd showered and changed into an oversized hoodie that drooped to her thighs and gone to sit on the sofa with Sebastian. He'd not shown any indication that he wanted to leave, so she had laid herself down, put on a movie, and clearly, passed out.

She stretched out her neck as she pushed herself to sitting. A woollen throw fell from over her shoulders. She recognised it immediately – it was usually thrown over her ottoman, intended to be decorative. Really, it just hid the nail polish stain all down one side. Sebastian must have covered her after she had fallen asleep.

Eden yawned, wincing at the pain it ignited in her face. Her lip felt five times bigger that it should when she ran her tongue over it. Her eye and cheekbone still hummed with the remnants of pain, tender, without even having to touch it. She already imagined what it would look like. Eden bruised easily anyway, so by now, there would be a stretch of red swelling, and in a short few days, her face would be black and blue. Attractive.

She ran her fingers beneath her eye. It was terribly swollen. Sore. The slight cut she hadn't realised she had there had already scabbed over. Her ever-optimistic attitude tried to see the silver lining. At least it was just a bruise – a black eye and small wound. From how close Caleb was when he threw her keys, she was lucky she hadn't taken any damage to her actual eyeball.

Swallowing back the dryness in her mouth, She pushed her resisting body up further. Looked to her left. Sebastian was sat upright, fast asleep, his head supported by his hand that he held up with an elbow on the arm of the sofa. His other hand reached out – he'd fallen asleep holding her foot. That hand. was a mess. Bruised and scabbed. Eden hadn't needed to ask to know what Sebastian had done. For her.

It took some stretching, but eventually, Eden was stood, wandering into the kitchen to fill a bowl with soapy water and a clean cloth. She'd be there for him now, as he had done the same for her.

Kneeling before him, she took his hand and gently began to wipe it with the damp cloth. The blood came away slowly, and she tried not to irritate the scabbing and reopen the cuts across all his knuckles. His hand flexed, and then he shuffled. Eden's eyes flicked up, he was watching her sleepily, but didn't say anything. He just let her clean his hand. She liked that. She didn't feel like talking for a moment.

Only when she had cleaned his hand completely, placing the cloth and water on the coffee table behind her, did Sebastian talk. "We need to get some ice on your eye." His voice was deep and gravelly. It stirred something in Eden. She chose to ignore the sensation, and looked up at him, stilling when his hand came up to brush her injury.

"We do?" He nodded.

"Yeah, for the first couple of days. Lessen the bruising. Then a warm cloth. It'll help."

Eden quirked a brow, lips twitching with a buried smile. "Know a lot about healing bruises, do you?"

He smiled back. "Yeah. Do I not look like the type who's had to deal with it often?"

She managed a sharp sort of scoff. "No."

"I've been friends with Charlotte for almost two decades. I've taken a fair share of black eyes for her when she didn't know how to shut her trap." Eden let her lips lift then, hanging her head to hide her amusement. The course of conversation changed. "What's hurting?" He asked her. She didn't like the soft empathy in his tone, so in turn, managed a dry, weak laugh.