Beer, Spaghetti, and Pharmaceuticals ||COMPLETED||

Forty

HI!!!! 

***

Coffee seemed to taste infinitely better when sipped on a wrap-around balcony thirty stories into the air.

Alice relaxed into the seat of Isaac's new patio chair and smiled, setting her coffee on the table. Saturday morning's cool, breezy air whispered through her hair as she peered over the ledge. A jolt pulled in her stomach from the extreme height, but she still enjoyed watching the people who resembled ants bustle around the city.

She pulled her knees up to her chest, resting them against the thin, white material of one of Isaac's dress shirts which she lazily pulled on that morning.

What a lovely way to spend a Saturday.

She craned her neck to look through the glass balcony doors. Slumped over his kitchen counter with his cellphone pressed to his ear, Isaac tiredly yapped on the phone. She tried to read his lips through the glass door, but all she could gain was the impression that it wasn't the happiest of conversations. All morning he had been on the phone on and off. After their late night, there was no way he was rested enough to deal with that.

Sighing at her coffee and relaxing environment, a pang of guilt surged through her. Even though she was sure that her company helped ease some of the stress, she occasionally felt a little useless in aiding him. If anything, she sometimes worried that their secret affair only made matters worse.

Especially now that Blaise was growing increasingly suspicious each day that passed.

But then she saw something that she had never seen before. Something that sent a fluttering, warming sensation through her abdomen.

With one set of fingers pressed to his temples, his phone wedged between his shoulder and his ear, Isaac jammed his other hand into his pocket and grabbed his pill bottle. Except for this time, he didn't immediately rip off the cap and pop them into his mouth, as he normally would.

He paused mid-sentence and stared at the label.

Then his eyes flickered towards Alice through the glass door, their eyes meeting, and a small brief smile pulled at the corner of his lips.

Then he continued the phone conversation, his eyes still glued to the pill bottle for at least another sixty seconds, until he eventually gently placed them back in his pocket.

Pride filled her body as she remembered all the other times there wouldn't have been a second thought between him feeling anxiety and popping whatever pills he had in his pocket.

Alice stared at the clouds, a giddy grin plastered on her lips. Whether she was actually a good influence on him, whether their late night conversations were actually therapeutic for him, or if he was simply developing better coping mechanisms on his own, she wasn't sure. Maybe this was simply a one-off occasion and later that day he would revert back to it. She had no idea.

But regardless, the small baby step made her happy.

The glass door slid open and Isaac stepped onto the balcony, holding a pot of coffee in one hand and sipping from his own coffee mug. "More coffee?"

Alice's face brightened and her whole body perked up, grabbing her mug in both her hands and extending her arms to Isaac. "Yes, please! How did you know?"

He let out a small chuckle and grabbed the mug, filling it to the brim. "Educated guess. You've basically tripled your coffee intake since you quit smoking."

"Pssht," she scoffed. "I barely 'quit' seeing as I barely started."

"Ha, okay," Isaac said, an amused look on his eyes as he tried to smirk, but instead a genuine smile took overtook him, "well whatever you did, I much prefer Coffee-Drinking-Alice to Cigarette-Smoking-Alice."