4am

three

"Did you get that internet code thing you wanted?" Saffron's father pokes his head around her door, peering in at his daughter sitting cross legged in the centre of the room, surrounded by art supplies. He rolls his eyes, but he's smiling softly.

"Oh, the wifi password from next door?" asks Saffron, remembering Noah's unique way of passing it on to her last night. "Um, yeah."

Her Dad nods and leaves her alone. A smile twitching onto her lips, she gets up and slips on a pair of flip-flops.

She quickly goes round the side of her house into the small alley type space between their two houses. Sure enough, the slightly battered paper aeroplane is still on the ground where it had crash landed last night. Saffron picks it up and carries it into her room, before unfolding it to read what's been written across the wings.

Noah's handwriting is a messy scrawl in blue ink that's bled into the paper in the humid air overnight. It's just about legible to Saffron, who has already grabbed her phone to type in the code. Then, she notices another number below the wifi password, written in smaller script, but equally as messy.

Wifi password: B7834KL2S
Another number you might want: 07945 284 770 :)

Saffron laughs, the way she did last night when he'd revealed the paper plane. Firstly, she enters the password and is filled with relief when her phone connects to her neighbour's internet. Six days with out it was long enough.

Then, she gingerly goes to her contacts and types in the second number. Feeling a strange mix of awkward and excited, Saffron selects 'send message'.

Saffron [12:49]: that was either the cutest or the dorkiest way of giving a girl your number

Stupidly, she sits and watches the screen for a couple of minutes, until she realises just how pathetic that actually is and sets it down on the floor beside her. Now feeling a whole lot more distracted than before, Saffron continues with the sketch she was working on previously: a tediously boring fake flower that she always refers to when she has nothing better to draw.

✰

"Noah seriously get your lazy ass out of bed right now." A familiar voice shakes Noah awake, making him pull his duvet up and over his head.

"Nooo," he grumbles, dragging it out until it sounds less like a word and more like a moan of pain.

"Noah," she says sharply.

"Leila," he replies in a matching tone, mocking her.

She's silent for a moment and he feels smug, even settling further down into his bed, until suddenly the covers are being whipped off of him. Noah practically yelps as the cool air of his air conditioned bedroom assaults his skin.

Technically, it does the trick though, because he drags himself into a half-hearted sitting position. Then he opens his eyes, trying as hard as he can to glare at Leila whilst his eyes adjust to the brightness.

"A simple 'hi Noah, darling brother whom I adore, I'm home from uni and ready to give you my undivided attention and services whenever you want' would have sufficed," Noah says, snatching his duvet out of his sister's grasp but not sliding back underneath it.

Leila chuckles, then adds, "Just because I've been away at uni, doesn't mean I'm no longer the Queen Bee of this household."

"Yeah right," Noah snorts. "Tell that to Mum... or your old bedroom that I've taken over."

She scowls at him then turns on her heel and marches out, probably to go enquire with their parents why her annoying little brother got her downstairs bedroom when she moved out.