Terms and Agreements (on hold indefinitely)

The Part Where Mr. Hot Stuff Stays Over. Again.

                                                                                19

"So why are you here?" I hissed at him as I shoved him into my room and closed the door quickly behind us, turning the lock with the utmost haste.

He shrugged. "I don't wanna be home."

"But what about Tilly? Doesn't she need you?" I asked, trying desperately to give him a good reason to leave, besides the already perfectly appropriate reason of me not wanting him there.

"She's with my Aunt Phoebe," he replied, sinking onto my beanbag chair as I crawled back into bed, "Tilly goes and stays with her a lot."

"Oh." So much for that plan.

I turned off my lamp and rolled over to face the wall, leaving us in darkness. "Good night, Flynn," I said. I was tired and wanted to sleep, and he could leave anytime he wanted.

"Good night," he replied, and I thought, with relief, that he was actually going to let me go to sleep. But then: "Jesus, Alison, does your house even have heat? It's as cold in here as it is outside."

"Shh! Get over it!" I whisper-yelled over my shoulder. He could go home if he got too cold. Or go sleep in his truck.

"Hold on, I need a blanket," he insisted.

I groaned. "Don't you have a coat?"

"I left it at home."

"Idiot!"

"Hey! I was planning on going home before dark but...shit happens, okay?"

"Whatever," I mumbled. "Check the closet for blankets."

I heard him leave the beanbag chair, then the closet door was opened with a faint creak. There were shuffling noises as he looked around, then: "There aren't any blankets in here."

"Then go get a towel from the bathroom and wrap up in that," I told him.

"Fine." His footsteps crossed the room. He tore open the bathroom door, and I hissed at him to be quiet. The fool.

A moment later, he said from the doorway, "you don't have any towels, either."

"Then just go sleep on the beanbag chair and be cold. It's not my problem," I grumbled at him, pulling my comforter closer around my chin.

"But-"

"Shh!"

"Fine."

~

I woke around 1:30 AM because the light in the bathroom was on. I sat up, yawning and groggily wondering when I'd turned the light on, before I remembered my unwelcome visitor.

I heard the water running at the sink, and assumed he would be finished in there soon and I'd get darkness again.

I turned over so that I was facing away from the light, toward the rest of the room, and saw his boots sitting side by side near the beanbag chair.

I was just closing my eyes when the bathroom door opened, sending a shaft of bright yellow light across my face. I groaned, rolling over onto my stomach and slamming my face deep into my pillow.

"Sorry, Alison," Flynn's voice was low and quiet, but not at all groggy. I heard him flick the switch in the bathroom, and then the door was pulled closed, so I withdrew my head from the depths of my pillow.

I could sort of see him in the dark, just his silhouette mainly, but the pale moonlight fighting its way through the sheer curtains on my window reflected off his eyes, which made him look really creepy.

"Are you still cold?" I asked as he headed back to the beanbag chair.

"Yep." He replied, sinking into the chair, stretching his legs out in front of him. "Stick your arm out from under your covers and see how ridiculously cold it is in here. I seriously think the heat in your house is broken."

With a well-sounded "humph", I brought both of my arms out into the open air of my room. "Jesus, it is cold in here!" I gasped without thinking. Great. Now that he'd heard me admit it, I'd have to assist him in figuring out a way to stay defrosted. Ugh.

"Mm-hmm. And now that you've admitted it, you have to help me find a way to get warm." Jeez, it was like he read my mind. He'd done that before. It's extremely annoying, to say the least.

"Just go home, Flynn. You'll be warm there," I told him, covering back up with my comforter as quickly as I could.

"I don't want to go home," he said, his voice stiff.

I sighed. "Then just be cold."

"You do realize that your bed is big enough for the both of us, right?"

I lurched into a sitting position at this statement. "How dare you suggest-!"

"Nothing! I'm not suggesting anything inappropriate. Jeez, get your mind out of the gutter, Alison," he interrupted.

"My mind is not in the gutter, I just tend to automatically assume the worst," I informed him, placing my hands on my hips and scowling, not that he could see.

"Here's what I am actually suggesting," he said, clearing his throat, "I saw a body pillow in your closet. We put that in between us, I sleep on top of the sheets but under the comforter, and then we wouldn't even accidentally touch feet."

I pondered this option for a long moment. This was probably the only way he was going to allow me any sleep. If I didn't allow him under my covers, he'd probably keep complaining non-stop about how cold he was.

I groaned, and at long last, I said, "Fine."

"Yes! Thank you, Alison."

"Whatever."

It only took him about ten seconds to pull the pillow out of the closet and stuff it under the covers. Then, he slid between the sheet and the comforter, rolling onto his side to face away from me, toward the closet, and I rolled over to face the wall.

~

My alarm clock started screaming viciously for us to wake up to get ready for school in the morning.

It worked in waking me up, but Flynn was still dead to the world, now laying on his stomach, his squished, sleeping face turned in my direction, and of course, he was drooling on my pillow.

Part of me thought it was hilarious. Another thought it was horrible and I should throw him out for disgracing my poor pillow in such a way. And then, the other part, the stupid weird teenage hormones part, thought it was cute.

But the most dominant part of me just wanted to turn the alarm off, because it was extremely obnoxious, and I didn't like the relentless beeping rattling my brain for too long.

But I was against the wall, and the only way to reach the clock on the nightstand would be to reach across Flynn.

He was asleep, it would be fairly easy. But if he woke up....but the beeping was so horribly torturous that I decided to risk it and just turn the damn clock off.

So there I was, kneeling on both knees, one hand desperately grasping the headboard to steady myself, the other stretching hopelessly to reach the stupid clock, when I wavered too long and fell over onto his back.

Before I could scramble off, his eyes shot open and he tried to escape the trap that was my body, and in turn sent me reeling backward only to slam my head into the wall.