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23ᴿᴰ CHAPTER

                                                   23ᴿᴰ CHAPTER               

                                   “Deals are made to be broken”

 

Mondays are the absolute worst.

This time Elisha doesn’t wake up to the sound of her own alarm, but Patrick’s instead. It goes off far earlier than what she’s used to be out of bed, and so she tugs fiercely at the pillow above her head to keep it there, possibly muffle the sound. Still half lost in her sleep, she vaguely hears the sound of socked feet walking through the room and closing silently the bathroom door behind him.

The following noises are daily basis’ ones; the water rushing out the tap and teeth being brushed. She hears the moment he flushes down the toilet and also when he comes back, starts going through his clothes on the wardrobe indecisively. Elisha might want to kill him right now.

She lets out some sort of growl, followed by a “can’t you be fucking silent” that gets as an answer a mere chuckle.

Patrick comes closer to bother her with his foot, nudging her ribcage with his toe. From her place on the floor, Leesh turns to his opposite side and curls in on herself, trying to block the prick she’s chosen to keep as a friend. So, okay. Maybe not the best decision.

“C’mon, Leesh. Get up, I need to be out of here in fifteen minutes.” His voice despite amused, is also tender, but it’s not half enough to get her out of the improvised mattress. Instead, she presses the pillow harder against her ears and waits until she can stop feeling the air of his presence around her.

It doesn’t happen.

“Get off,” she mumbles, eyes stubbornly closed. “I’m not going to set your house on fire, leave without me.”

He nudges her again, and receiving no response, he bends down and starts blowing next to her ear, moving his hands to tickle her sides where she’s the most sensitive. At the simple tingle she feels when his fingers are close enough to her skin, not quite touching yet, she rolls to the side in a rush and snaps her eyes open.

It takes every ounce of self control she still owns not to jump at his neck and strangle him right then and there. “I am going to murder you, Patrick James.”

He dares an open grin as he stands back up and goes back to fumbling with his clothes, not bothering to walk back into the bathroom as he slips off his pyjamas and into what he supposes is appropriate for work. Leesha doesn’t even spare a glance at him, too busy digging the heels of her palms into her eyes until she can see colourful marks printed behind her lids.

“We need to stop quickly at yours so I can get that notebook I forgot there yesterday,” he says nonchalantly, zipping up his trousers and fixing his shirt at his pulse.

Elisha yawns and falls back down on the mattress, staring up at the ceiling and pulling the blankets over her body. “I could’ve given you the key, y’know.”

As if ready for the words, Patrick says quickly: “I won’t get into your room without you, Elisha.”

She shrugs at his statement, doesn’t look at him when she replies next. “There’s nothing much there for you to steal, anyway.”

Patrick kicks her with his left foot just before slipping it into his shoe, then offers her a hand she stares at for a few seconds, deciding whether leaving bed this early is going to be any useful through the whole day. Probably won’t, but he won’t leave her alone either way.