Avenlea knocks on the door at 12:30, and it takes me a few seconds to wake up enough to focus on her words.
"Rosaline? Dear?"
I grunt quietly and when she doesn't respond to it, I roll over and sit up a little. "Hmm." My eyes are barely open. "What time is it?" I mumble.
"Its 12:30. Zion and I are going to pick up Tyler around 4:30. If you would like to come, you can. That's not why I came in here though."
I rub my eyes and blink and then focus on her face. I yawn and say, "okay. Sorry I slept so late. What's up?"
"There's a very good looking young man at the front door asking for you. He says his name is Christian?"
"Oh! Crap! I was supposed to go with him to the bookstore for a little bit today. Thank you. Could you please tell him I'll be right down?"
She smiles, nods and shuts the door.
I hop up out of bed, run around the room looking for the jeans I threw last night. I find them on top of the dresser. I put them on hastily, run into Ty's bathroom to rinse my face and then put on my high-top converse, not bothering to tie them up. I grab my bag and run downstairs where Avenlea is waiting by the front door with the very good looking young man known as Christian.
"Hi! Sorry!" I'm slightly out of breath as I give Avenlea a hug and head out the door, following Christian.
As I'm walking away she calls out to me and I look at her. "Have fun," she says with a wink. I laugh and my jaw drops and I get in Christian's car.
"Hey random question. How old are you?"
"17. Why?"
"You just seem a little older than every other Junior I know of."
"Yeah. That's one of the things Tyler and I bonded over. We were both held back in elementary school. But I'm in all advanced classes. If I play it right, I can graduate this year like I was originally supposed to."
He nods and we're quiet for a second.
"You planning on tying your shoes or...?"
"Huh?" I realize he's looking at my feet. "Oh! Yeah...haha..." I pull my foot up onto the seat and tie them.
"When did you wake up?"
"Oh yanno about 4 minutes ago," I say glancing at the clock on the dash. "I didn't know I was so exhausted. I slept for..." I do the math in my head. "About 13 and a half hours."
"Geez! You look like you could use a cup of coffee. Where to, Sleeping Beauty?"
We make a quick stop at Starbucks, then over to Barnes and Noble. I head straight for the fiction section and he goes to the comics. We end up meeting over by the café 20 minutes later. We sit next to each other and start reading. I glance over at him and see that he's reading a Batman comic with Harley Quinn and the Joker on the front. I laugh quietly to myself and continue reading and sipping my coffee.
I finish my whole book in the 3 hours we're sitting there. I get completely caught up in the plot; a crime, a romance, a secret love affair, lies and truths, and a dead body and the next thing I know, Christian is tapping on my shoulder telling me it's time to go if I want to go with Avenlea and Zion to pick up Tyler. We put our books back and he drops me off at home at 4.
We leave again only 10 minutes later. The ride is filled with chattering and laughing between the three of us, excited and anxious to finally have Ty home.
He seems just as excited to come home when we get there. I take his duffel bag so he doesn't have to carry it and we talk to the doctor and sign him out. He needs to come back in 2 weeks and get his stitches taken out. Until then, he is not aloud to get water on them or his cast which should be taken off in about a month. He's not allowed to play football for the next couple of months which means he'll be having lots of free time.
He's practically bouncing off the seat the whole way home and when we get there, Avenlea starts dinner and Zion goes to his office for a little bit, leaving Tyler and me to go upstairs and get situated.
We go up to his room and I sit on the bed and watch him clean the floor a little bit and put his stuff away. Avenlea calls out for us to have dinner about 20 minutes later. As soon as its over, we go right back upstairs. I make his bed for him and take all my stuff back to my room. When I come back, he's lying on the bed on his back. I sit with my legs crossed next to him. We're quiet enough and I can hear the couch squeak as Avenlea and Zion sit down and the tv flips on. Ty sits up and faces me.
He gets really close for a minute. The room suddenly gets a little warmer and I scoot close to him, my legs automatically overlap his and I'm close enough to hear his breathing pick up, my hand right where his heart his. I can feel the stitches and beneath that, his heart beat, getting faster with each passing second. I turn my face up a little bit and he leans in and kisses me gently. We split for just a second then he leans back in and I move my hands around the back of his neck, pulling him closer.
This. This is what its supposed to feel like. Kissing the one you love. When both of your hearts are racing from the simple gesture and nothing else seems to matter. All your problems fade away and suddenly the only thing grounding you to this planet is the other person. That's how it is with us. It comes easily. When we break apart, we're both breathing unsteadily and I can hear my blood racing in my ears. Whatever happened with Christian doesn't seem to matter at the moment because it was a butterfly kiss compared to what I just felt.
He laughs breathily. "Nice sweater by the way."
I look down and realize I'm still wearing his white sweatshirt. I close my eyes and laugh. "Thanks. Look familiar?"
"Indeed it does. Out of curiousity, how much of my clothes have you been wearing lately?"
I blush deeply. "I've been wearing your sweaters to bed since you left."
"My sweaters, my bed, my bathroom. Anything else you've invaded that you'd like to tell me about?" He laughs.
I scoot back a little back and pretend to think. "Oh! I think your parents like me more than you now so there's that..." I grin.
"Oh whatever!" He pulls my waist toward him again and kisses me.
I pull back. "I'm gonna go grab my laptop and get changed into pajamas. I'll be back." I stand up, go to his closet and he laughs as I walk out with a gray rugby sweater of his. I let my hair go everywhere in its natural light, fluffy curls, put on a pair of black short shorts and my slippers then I wash my face and brush my teeth and grab my laptop and go sit down on Ty's bed again. He comes out of the bathroom with his tooth brush hanging out of his mouth and a towel wrapped around his waist as I'm logging on to the computer. He walks around me brushing his teeth, grabbing clothes and running his hands through his hair as if I'm not even there and I'm not complaining about the view. His muscles and v-lines are covered in water and he seriously does not even seem to notice I'm on the bed until he suddenly turns around before closing the bathroom door and winks at me, causing us both to burst out laughing.
I log into Facebook, tumblr, pinterest, wattpad and my email and have them all open at once. I'm talking to Christian on Facebook and scrolling through my tumblr feed when Ty walks out and lays next to me. He lays his head on my thigh and his wet hair against my bare leg is cold but I don't mind. He watches me scroll through the pages while I play with his hair. Christian messages me asking to hang out tomorow and I glance at Tyler before responding.
Ty's out like a light and I feel bad but I shake his shoulder gently. He doesn't wake up so I lean down and kiss him. When I lean back again, he blinks his eyes open and looks confused for just a second before focusing on me. "What's up?" He says with a groggy voice.
"Sorry, I didn't want to wake you up but Christian wants to hang out and I want to know what we are before I respond."
He thinks for a second then yawns and rubs his eyes. "Uhm. I don't know. Do you want to be my girlfriend again?"
"Yes."
"Then we're together." He smiles at me and I can tell he can barely keep his eyes open.
"Okay." I smile back. "You can go back to sleep now. I'm sorry."
"Its okay." He mumbles sleepily.
I tell Christian that we should wait until after school on Monday to hang out. I suggest meeting up at the bookstore again and he agrees. I log off everything and close my laptop. I try to figure out how to work around Tyler laying on me and I just decide I don't care. I put the laptop between us and move his head gently back onto a pillow and cuddle up against him, being cautious of his arm. He automatically moves so he's as close to me as he can be and I fall asleep with him there next to me.
