Undercover Love - Jay Halstead

Shirt.

I jolt up from the loud sound reverberating through the space I'm sleeping in and it takes me a moment to figure out where I am and what is going on.

I lift my head off the pillow it's rested on to scowl at the culprit ruining my sleep.

"Sorry," Jay winces, standing in the kitchen just opposite from where I'm lying on the couch. "I didn't mean to wake you up."

I stare at him for a moment, trying to fully wake up from my deep slumber so that I can process my surroundings.

The first thing I realized though, is Jay standing in the kitchen near the coffee machine, being shirtless.

Shirtless.

As in, having no shirt on.

How rude.

I blink incessantly, before eyeing him, "Sure you didn't."

He raises a brow, "What is that supposed to mean?"

I flop my head back onto the pillow and pull the blanket- no duvet cover over my head. I blink through the darkness that I'm succumbed to questioningly.

I lift the cover back and squint through the sudden light, before looking over at Jay, "Where does this duvet come from?"

Last night, after a very long banter, I finally agreed to stay the night over at Jay's apartment, but only so that I can silence his conscience and apparent worry for my health.

I only asked him to call Kim, since my phone is stolen, and ask her to send a message to my father, pretending that I'm at her place and forgot to bring my phone charger with me.

Weirdly enough, she didn't ask too many questions and did exactly as I asked.

All hell would've broke loose once he heard what happened to me, and I didn't want that to happen so soon. Questions would also start to rise as to why I went straight to Jay, instead of borrowing someone else's phone to call for help.

I managed to convince Jay to let me sleep on his couch, since I don't like sleeping in other people's beds. But the last I remembered, I was perfectly fine sleeping with a throw blanket and a couch pillow.

Now, I woke up with a whole duvet thrown over me and an appropriate sleeping pillow under my head.

He shrugs in response, "You looked cold and that pillow looked uncomfortable. Just wanted to help. You want some coffee?"

I narrow my eyes at his not so subtle change of topic, but let the topic drop anyways, "That sounds great."

As he goes about the kitchen, I take this opportunity to fully inspect his apartment.

I guess, in my head, I always thought he'd be living in a plain boring cave like apartment, small and dusty with barely any furniture in it. Maybe even messy too.

Don't get me wrong, his apartment is definitely not in it's best shape, because of all of his shirts lying around here and there, but it's definitely not like I imagined.

In some way, it actually looks very...nice. Personal even.

To put it this way: It looks exactly Jay, yet not Jay at all.

Modern textures, like dark wood and dark colours are used through out as the main theme of the apartment. It's very modern like, very interesting in some way.

Yet, it's the personal artifacts that give life to the living space.

Pictures are framed and lined all across one wall, right above and around the flat screen TV. A top the dark wood cabinet, just below he TV, two consoles are placed right in the middle.