Mess You Made

23.

Malibu.

I'm tucked against something warm. It's the first thing I feel. A comfortable layer of heat against my back and around my face. The sound of the city outside is louder so it's morning but my eyes are heavy, refusing to open for a moment. I try to lift my face out of the covers but it doesn't budge.

My brows softly furrow, attempting to lift my face again but the covers don't feel like— covers. It's when my eyes blearily open that I realise it isn't a duvet around my face. It's a forearm, slung loosely around my shoulders and neck from behind. I glance down to find the bare tanned arm running down my sternum, between my breasts and lightly pressed against me. The warmth against my back is his body. My hand's comfortably curled around the swell of his bicep.

Fuck.

The instinct is to bolt upwards but I'm rooted for a moment in a sleepy morning haze, and he's so warm. A nice warm. Like when the duvet's the perfect temperature as you wake up, cushioning your face for a moment and— we're too comfortable. I swallow, because I should maybe move, I suppose it's a bit inappropriate, but he's cocooning my whole body in the curve of him because he's so tall and sue me, but I feel slightly selfish.

His head's higher up on the pillow so I somehow feel smaller against him, the back of my head just brushing his chest. Under his chin, and he's sort of curved his head over mine. My breathing feels strange, a bit staggered within his hold. Miguel's hold.

I can see us in the mirror against the wall there. Can see how his arm looks against me. I swallow again. Too close, and too comfortable. My leg curled around the white duvet, my nails against his skin.

Morning's are awful. I hate them. They're never as quiet as this. So quiet.

I'm always rushed because Marci needs to be changed, her hair brushed and fed and Cristian's bad at making himself breakfast. I rarely get five minutes to just let my body lay in a bed when I wake up. To let myself be tired. And lazy. And in his arms, it feels like all my body wants to do is slack off here, do nothing, let myself be tired.

I let my eyes shut for a second.

He breathes deep but not loud, I can barely hear him but I can feel the rise and fall of his chest against my back. Even his arm's warm where it's pressed up to me, and then I feel him lightly tighten his hold. Miguel exhales, shifts his face just a bit against the pillow and he's more turned in towards the top of my head now.

I need to go.

I can't relish in this. To Marci. I don't know what time it is.

I try to move as best I can without waking him but just as I do, Miguel's arm tightens. He turns his face in towards the back of my head, and goosebumps arise in his wake. All over my body. He breathes roughly into my hair, "Stay."

I can barely breathe, never mind attempt to fathom a response ti that.

For just a moment, I let my hand stay curled around his arm — until I can feel him falling back to sleep. He was barely awake saying that, and once his breathing falls into the same pattern, I force myself to try again — even if something inside me wants to. Stay.

Manage to lift his arm just enough for me to shuffle out of his hold and then I make the mistake of looking back at him.

Miguel's neck's all stretched out, and his hair pressed up to the pillow in a messy way where it doesn't look messy at all. A ray of morning light runs over the bottom of his jaw like some angel. The gold chain loosely laying around his collarbones, those lips of his that look full and eyelashes dark against his olive skin. The C7 tattoo on his rib, the natural divots of his abdomen where the white covers are slung around his v-line.