Elude [H.S.]

FORTY-EIGHT

Stirring in my sleep, I realize I must've detached myself from Maeve sometime in the middle of the night. I don't feel her hand anywhere on me, and even when we're not completely cuddling, her hand is usually still somewhere on my body. I yawn as I roll over, going to spoon her, and wrap my body around her once again, but I don't feel her.

My eyes blink open, and my eyebrows quickly narrow in confusion. I prop myself up onto one of my elbows - lifting my other hand to dig the heel of my palm into one of my eyes. Looking over at the clock, I can see that it's just a little past three in the morning. I remove the covers from my body and slowly drag myself out of bed. My eyes peek into the cracked door of the ensuite, but I don't see her inside.

I look around the room and grab the t-shirt I had discarded once we were falling asleep, and I tug it over my head - that way I'm not just walking around the house in my joggers.

Maeve and I have been at the house for a while, this being our third night, and we've been having the best time. Yesterday was a bit dreary, so we just stayed in and had a movie day with my parents. We all shared wine and popcorn, and even played a round of Monopoly.

I'm sure you can imagine who won.

The day before that, I was extremely hungover from the night out at the pub with Niall. The only thing that got me through it was the girl that I get to call mine. She brought me some toast with some lemon ginger tea soon after I opened my eyes, and she rubbed my back the entire time I worked my way through them. I hadn't had a hangover like that since the morning after Maeve and I split up. This one wasn't nearly as bad as that one was, but I like to think I recovered quicker this time because I had Maeve there to comfort me.

My parents figured I'd be hungover the next day, especially after going out with Niall, so they didn't mind that we spent half of it hauled up in my old bedroom.

We had spent most of that morning just lazing around in bed, my face buried in her chest as she played with the curls at the nape of my neck - legs tangled together. Every now and then she'd press kisses to my forehead, and mumble sweet words in my ear as I drifted in and out of sleep. I almost felt guilty that her first full day in Holmes Chapel had her spending the morning trapped in the bedroom, but she didn't seem to mind.

It wasn't until a little after mid-day that I finally made my way down to the living room to greet mum and dad - Maeve having been up and down a few times that morning to get me more water, or to make us some snacks.

Piper had given us permission to sign Addie out of daycare early, so Maeve and I went and picked her up, and took her to the park as I had promised. When I looked at the weather for the rest of our time here, excluding today, the day of the soccer game, it was all going to be rainy, so the day after we arrived was the best day for me to fulfill my promise to her.

She ran around the playground for an hour or so, and then afterwards we walked to a nearby ice cream parlor. Addie was insistent on just sharing Maeve and I's ice creams instead of getting her own, so Maeve and I took turns feeding her our different scoops. I had gotten myself a scoop of mint choc chip and vanilla, where Maeve got coffee and chocolate chip cookie dough.