My Pen Pal: Jack Barakat

Chapter Fourteen - Keep Your Eyes On Me

Jack's POV

We had watched the sun set and had moved to a bench instead of standing up. Danni's head was resting on my shoulder, my arm around her, and I'm pretty sure she had drifted off to sleep. I let out a soft sigh as I looked into the sky at the stars that were lining the darkness. Moments like this with her are ones that I never wanted to forget. My phone buzzed. It was Alex.

'Dude, when are you coming back?'

'She's fell asleep on my shoulder so I don't know. I'll wake her in a little while. It's really nice out tonight.'

'Okay man. Stay safe.'

I looked down at Danni, eyes firmly shut and mouth slightly parted taking in slow breaths, releasing them softly. I smiled. I should probably wake her as much as I'm going to hate doing it. "Hey you." I rubbed her arm a little and her eyes fluttered open. "Hm?"
"You fell asleep on me." She sat up and looked around. "Shit it's dark." I laughed. "Well yeah we've been here for an hour."

"I'm sorry if I hurt your arm or anything."
"Honestly, it was nice. It felt like I was protecting you." Her cheeks turned red and she looked away, obviously flustered from what I'd just said. "What?"

"For once I have somebody protecting me and I don't know, it's just cute."
"You're cute." Shit, I didn't mean to say that out loud. "I didn't mean to say that I-"
"Jack it's okay."
"It totally isn't." She went to say something but a yawn interrupted her speech. "You're tired still?" She nodded, her eyes drifting in and out of consciousness. "Here, I'll give you a piggyback to the venue. We should be getting back and you should let your dad know you need picking up."

"Jack I don't want to go."

"We have tomorrow still."

"I know but I mean, I don't want to go home tonight. Can't I stay on the bus?" I rolled my eyes at her as I stood up and went to walk away. I felt her grab my hand and I turned round to look down at her. "Wow you're even cuter when you're grumpy."

"I want a sleepover in the tour bus."

"I'll have to ring Alex and ask first."
"Go ahead, I bet he'll say yes!" I rolled my eyes again, dialing Alex's number. "Hello?"

"Danni wants to sleep on the bus tonight."

"Well I'd agree to something like this normally but there's nowhere she can sleep dude. Sofas are off limits and there's no spare bunks." I looked at Danni who was looking up at me, waiting eagerly. "She can uh sleep in mine with me right?"

"As long as there's no funny business or anything." He laughed. "Alex there's not going to be any of that you know."
"Okay, I was just joking. She can stay tonight then. You'll have to buy her dinner though." I hung up. "What did you mean by sleep with me?"

"You're going to have to be in my bunk with me."

"But that's a bit weird?"

"You seemed eager to stay tonight didn't you?"

"Yeah but-"
"So you can sleep in my bunk with me. Alex said the sofas are off bounds." She sighed, before yawning again. "Okay."
"Come on, get on my back." She climbed on from the bench and wrapped her arms around me tightly, resting her head on my shoulder and drifting off to sleep again.

I walked down the dimly lit streets with her like this and every step I took I felt a little more connected to her. She kept entwining her fingers more into my shirt when they slipped out, sending butterflies whirling around my stomach. We got back to the tour bus and the rest of the band were standing outside and talking. They all looked over and uttered a soft aw. "Sh, she's sleeping."