Aleksei & Liam

26. Charcuterie board

(Aleksei's PoV)

I paced around my room, what was I doing? Why had I asked him over when everything was going on just fine? Why do I put myself in such situations.

I looked over at the little alarm clock that stood on my desk, he'll be here any minute now.

A few painful minutes later I heard the doorbell ring, i practically jumped down the stairs making sure I got to the door before my mother could.

I swung the door open to reveal a frowning Liam, it was so out of character for him to not have a smile on.

"You don't look very well." He stated with his brows furrowed, "Are you ill?"

I looked into one of my mum's unnecessarily fancy mirrors in the hallway and wasn't surprised, my hair was all over the place and my eyes were bloodshot. Not to mention the saliva trail that decorated the corners of my mouth.

It was the aftermath of a good 3 hour long nap, not an illness. On seeing me chuckle at my reflection like a deranged idiot, Liam smiled softly.

"You could have at least combed your hair." My mother chided from behind me as she ran her fingers through my hair in attempts to tame it.

"MUM!" I swotted her hand away as I whined.

"We're leaving." I grabbed Liam's hand, dragged him up the stairs and into my room.

As soon as I shut the door and looked at him memories of the last time he was here flooded in, my sleep deprived vision felt the room morph around Liam. It was like smoking weed for the first time all over again.

I walked up to one of my drawers and rummaged through it until I found the small joint Richie had rolled up for me a couple days ago.

"Inside?!" Liam whisper yelled to which I just shrugged in response, making myself comfortable on the carpeted floor by my bed.

Once I made myself fully comfortable, I realised I had left the lighter in the drawer.

I wasn't getting up. Too comfy for that.

I looked at Liam with puppy dog eyes, "what?" He asked as he narrowed his eyes into slits.

I pointed towards the drawer, "lighter." I whispered as I cupped the other to my mouth.

He wordlessly nodded and started to rummage through the drawer until he stopped rummaging. Strange?

"Is this for...me?" He asked as he flipped a CD case over in his grasp.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

"No."

"It literally has my name on it."

Shit. Shit. Shit.

"Pfft. Yeah, no tha-"

"Y-you've dotted the 'I' in 'Liam' with a heart."

Okay, so I thought it was funny and reminiscent of that one time I teased him about dotting I's with hearts.

But of course it looked like I was coming onto him.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Might as well come clean.

"It's just," I rose up to my feet and walked over to where he was stood, "I just added some of my favourite songs for you to listen to." I shrugged like I hadn't spent the whole of Wednesday night making that for him.

"You burnt a CD for me?"

I'd burn an orphanage for you.

"Well, you did mention that you had a CD player."