You And I: On Tour

Troye XII

I wake to the smell of something good cooking in the kitchen. I smiled as I reached for a t-shirt and sweatpants. In the week since we'd moved in, Connor had made breakfast for us every day. He had a range of strange-sounding recipes that tasted amazing.

Slowly walking to the kitchen, I heard him humming quietly to himself as he stirred something on the stove. His back was to me so I crept up behind him, wrapping my arms around him when I was close enough and pressing a gentle kiss just below his ear.

"Good morning. That smells good." I whispered.

"Morning babe." He replied, spinning around in my arms to kiss me properly. 

"You're good at taking care of me."

"I like taking care of you." Suddenly, he pulled out of my embrace, turning back to the stove.

"What can I do to help?"

"You can set the table and pour some coffee." He replied, his attention completely focused on what he was doing. Smiling to myself, I did as asked and ten minutes later we were sat at our dining room table, eating whatever this concoction was that Connor had made. Connor was intently scrolling through his phone as he ate while I watched him. We were about halfway done when he tossed the phone aside and looked at me.

"So, what's the plan for today?" I asked.

"Hm...we could finish that wall in the living room."

"Sounds good. We didn't really get far yesterday."

"Well whose fault was that? I seem to remember you not being able to keep your eyes off me." He teased.

"I'm not the one who was walking around with no shirt on." I gestured to the fact that he still didn't have a shirt on. He smirked at me and leaned over to kiss me.

"You love it."

"I love you." I kissed him back. "But finishing the living room sounds like a good plan."

We finished eating and quickly cleaned up the mess in the kitchen. Connor got dressed before joining me in the living room where I was sorting out photos. In honour of tour and my old bedroom, we had decided to cover one of the living room walls in photos. Last night, we'd started sorting photos until we'd become, let's just say, distracted.

Today we planned to finish the job, since it was the last thing left to do. I was slightly taller than Connor so I was in charge of actually sticking the photos to the wall while Connor stuck tape on them and passed them to me.

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By the time we'd finished, it was nearly lunch time and I stood back to admire my handiwork. Staring down at me were the smiling faces of all our friends, a mixture of school photos and tour photos scattered together.

"It looks amazing, babe." Connor complimented it, standing beside me.

"It does." I agreed. "Let's go get some lunch and then we can Skype call our parents to show them."

"Sounds like a plan." He took my hand, leading us to the front door, grabbing the keys on the way. "Your car or mine?"

"You drive. I'm still cross-eyed from staring at all those pictures from so long." 

"Okay. Let's go." Locking the front door behind us, we took our time going down to the parking lot. We had barely been outside since we moved, only going to get food when we needed to so it was nice to be out in the fresh air again and feel the sun on our faces.

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We ended up staying out for a fair while, deciding to got to the grocery store to stock up on everything we needed to function our home properly. But we finally made it home and while Connor got to work putting things away in the kitchen, I sent a text to both our parents, asking them if they were free to have a Skype call.

"Troye, come help me." Connor called and I hurried into the kitchen where I found him reaching up on his tip-toes, balancing a tin can on the edge of one of the shelves.

"I got it." I reached up and pushed the can onto the shelf, laughing a little as I did.

"What's so funny?" He asked.

"Nothing. Just how we're being so homely together." My phone buzzed on the counter and I glanced at it.

From: Mom (3.32pm)

Your dad and I will be home in about half an hour. You can call then.

I hadn't even put the phone down before it buzzed again.

From: Mrs Franta (3.34pm)

We are home. Call when you can.

"My parent's will be home soon and yours are home now. Do you want to call them or wait for mine?"

"Can we call them?" He asked, giving me puppy-dog eyes.

"Sure. You finish up here and I'll set up the tablet in the living room." He nodded and I gave him a quick kiss before going into the bedroom to grab my tablet. In the living room, I placed it on the coffee table and turned on Skype. It wasn't long before Connor's parents answered and I turned on the video.

"Hi Troye, where's Connor?" Cheryl asked. I looked over my shoulder towards the kitchen.

"He's coming. He's just finishing in the kitchen." I said to them before raising my voice a little. "Con, your parents are online."

"Coming. Do you want coffee?" He called back.

"I'm good."

"You two sound like you're settling in well." Peter commented.

"We are. It's taken a few days to get everything sorted but I feel like we're getting there."

"I like the wall behind you." Cheryl leaned forward as if to see more of it. I smiled.

"We just finished it this morning. I think it's my favourite part of the apartment."

"Mine too." Connor came and sat beside me, coffee mug in hand. "Hi mom, hi dad."

"Hi honey. How are you?" Cheryl asked with a smile.

"I'm great mom. What's it like with just Brandon at home?"

"Actually, Nicola is still here for another few days but it is definitely strange not having the two of you hanging around every other day."

"It'll be even more quiet once Nicola leaves." I said with a laugh.

"Definitely." Peter agreed. "Now do we get a tour of the finished apartment, or what?"

"We're actually just waiting for my parents to join us. We figured it would be easier to do it once."

"Fair enough."

"Hey, Con, I'm going to let you catch up with your parents for a bit, okay?" I kissed his cheek and got up from the sofa.

"Okay." I made my way into the kitchen, listening to him talk quietly with his parents. In the kitchen, I finished putting away what Connor hadn't.

"Troye? You coming back? Your parents should be home now." I hadn't even realised that I'd been gone so long when he called out to me.

"Yeah. I'm coming."

Our parents loved the tour we gave them, commenting on how quickly we'd made the place into a home. It was more than an hour before we hung up from the call, falling back onto the sofa together. I curled up into Connor's chest as he wrapped an arm around me.

"We're home." He whispered.

"We are. We're home."