VIPER || Oscar Piastri

Chapter 77

[POV: Narrator]

Andi was the first to stir.

She came to slowly, waking up from the kind of deep, dreamless sleep that should've left her feeling rested—but it didn't. Her body felt heavy, and she resisted the light that was pressing against her eyelids. Either she'd slept too long or too hard. Whatever it was, it didn't feel natural.

Her eyes creaked open.

Ceiling. Normal.
Arm. Normal.
Other arm...

NOT MY ARM, NOT MY ARM—

She squeezed her eyes shut. She could feel him there; his arm draped over and around her.

Oh god. Oh god. Ohgodohgodohgod—

She turned her head 0.0003 inches to the right, just enough to feel the warmth beside her shift; solid and definitely human, definitely—

Oscar.

He was still asleep.

How. HOW.

Andi internally screamed, and fought with everything in her not to externally.

THIS IS DEFCON ONE.

She didn't move. Moving would make it real. Moving would mean addressing the fact that she had, at some point, used his shoulder as a pillow, his chest as a mattress, and—oh god, she realized...

My leg is on him.

LIKE.

ON. HIM.

Her calf was draped over his, and she wondered how in the world they'd ended up so tangled. What had happened? Why was he still in her bed? Why had she let him into it in the first place?!

Sleeping Andi is NOT the same as awake Andi, she deduced, justifying her predicament. Clearly, sleeping Andi has no concept of boundaries. Sleeping Andi sleeps however she wants, and—

Sleeping Andi is apparently fine with full-body cuddling.

But then, her panic wobbled for an entirely different reason.

It was suspicious; her steady pulse, her mostly functioning lungs. It couldn't be trusted. The calm was clearly just shock in disguise. A decoy feeling, planted to distract her from the full horror of the situation.

She needed to get up.

This wasn't some domestic suburbia, where people woke up with their limbs intwined and giggled over bed-head.

She needed to get up, and get out, and wash her bedsheets. But also—

Also...

She could feel him breathing, soft against her neck. His hand, warm across her back.

At some point, clearly, she'd lost all shame.

She breathed in, adjusting to the warmth that wasn't just the morning sun. Looking down slightly, she caught the slight crease of his closed eyelids. He was asleep. Deeply asleep.

He hadn't done this on purpose. She knew that. There was no premeditated danger here. It was just sleep.

So, Andi supposed, he wouldn't know...

She could... completely innocently, just—

She inched forward, slowly, until the length of his body met hers again. She let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding, and her fingers drifted up to the back of his head, brushing up lightly against his hair. It was soft. And warm — the kind of warm that mirrored the feeling of holding your hands under hot water — and smelled like something clean and green and expensive. Andi realized she had never noticed the scent before. Did he always smell that way? She didn't know. She was tired. Her eyes fluttered closed for a second.