Having Your Jelly Baby

23: Goodbye

A/N: So guys, I can't believe it, but this is it. This is the end, and I can literally hardly believe it, it feels so surreal right now. Thank you so much for all of your support with this story, to all of you who have read, voted and commented since the very beginning all the way to those of you who started reading just yesterday. There probably won't be an epilogue, but to quote JBiebs, NEVER SAY NEVER ;) There's scope for a sequel (although I've always absolutely refused to go near writing them :P), so I suppose only time will tell us what the future holds in store for Having Your Jelly Baby, but I've got no plans to write one for now. Nova WILL RETURNNNN though in my new story called The Gay Delusion :) Perfect song for this chapter to the side :) For the last time with this story, I hope you enjoy it! Love, River. xoxo

23: Goodbye

We cried as I kissed him, my hands clutching onto him tightly. We cried as I fell back onto the pillows, Drew’s body pinned on top of mine, my legs hooking tightly around his waist. We cried as I tugged off his clothes and he gently pulled mine over my head until we were skin to skin, our hands firmly grasped together, but we still weren’t close enough.

Tears streamed from my eyes as he whispered “I love you” to me over and over, crying – in pleasure, from the unceasing heartache - into the crook of his neck as he finally thrust into me after minutes spent touching each other and kissing, my hips rising and falling almost violently to meet his in a desperate haze until we eventually fell beside each other, the two of us spent.

And then we slept.

Unsurprisingly, I hadn’t been sleeping well lately. Sleep was fitful, and it was hard to drift off in the first place with how much coffee was in my system, but I couldn’t stop.

I woke up, startled by the sound of sirens somewhere in the distance. I wondered for a moment who out there was being saved, who was being arrested, or whose fire was being put out, holding my breath as I listened to the sounds of the dawn, which mingled with the sound of Drew’s breathing in a harmonious melody that belonged to the city.

I realized how securely Drew’s arms were wound around me, and just how tightly I was still holding onto him, my arms tucked beneath his in a sleeping embrace, the way we had grown accustomed to sleeping before I had left. It was warm enough to make me feel as if I never wanted to let go.

He looked weary even in sleep, a restless furrow in between his eyebrows making me shuffle back a little so that I could look at his face properly, wondering what it was that he was dreaming about. I brushed my fingers over it gently to make the little crease disappear just for a moment.

I loved him. I knew that.

I had known it for months. It was hard to pinpoint exactly when I had fallen for him, but at some point amidst all of those stupid Fifty Shades of Grey remarks, in between all of the times we had kissed and almost had sex, all of the cooking and lazy evenings spent wasting time together in the best way, I had fallen in love with Drew Turner.

I loved him because he made me laugh, and because somehow I managed to make him laugh too. Every time he touched me my skin felt like it was having warm water poured over it, making my insides melt. Every time he would smile, it would do something to my chest so that it felt like it was swelling, filled with so much love I was certain it was going to bleed out of me or explode.

I loved him because he was, as Laina had put it so crudely all those months which felt like millennia ago, my “sex bomb extraordinaire baby daddy”, too, and I couldn’t distinguish between whether I loved Drew for himself, or because of the tug I felt towards him because he was the father of my child.

But none of it was enough, anyway. Sometimes love of any kind just wasn’t enough to get you through the day.

Untangling myself from him, I slowly slipped out of the bed, tiptoeing carefully so as not to wake him. Our clothes were strewn on the floor either side of the bed like a scene out of a film, a few garments placed messily on top of it, too. I found my underwear and pulled it on, hunting around for my clothes which I eventually found in the dim light of dawn, sliding my leggings up my bare legs and slipping on my light-knit summer sweater.