Resist

22

When I woke, I could tell it was late morning by the amount of sunshine trying to penetrate the musty curtains. I was still curled up beside Jack in the armchair, the two of us barely fitting. He was slouched down, his torso at a forty five degree angle to the cushion and I was sprawled across his chest. I was surprised by our positioning, we were in a room with all the people he seemed determined to hide us from, but I also vaguely remembered him acting different last night. Trying to think about the events after my second glass of ale was like trying to look through the curtains hanging on the window beside me; all you got were blurry shapes. I had a sense that something had changed between Jack and I but no recall of what exactly it was, like the ache from an old wound.

I needed to relieve myself however, so I got up, moving slowly, trying not to wake him. But when I fully stood and began to move faster, a headache split my temple. "Ugh," I groaned automatically, stopping midstep to cease the pain. And of course that simple noise woke Jack, his laden form suddenly coming to life, his eyes blinking open. He ran a hand through his hair automatically as he sat up, squinting for a moment at the room before he seemed to remember where he was.

"Morning Essie," he rumbled, his voice thick and muffled from sleep. He rubbed his eyes then, long fingers clumsily relieving the tiredness. I found it endearing.

"Good morning." I wasn't sure what terms we were on, if any at all. We did like to pretend the other didn't exist from time to time.

"Were you the first up?" he asked. I listened for a tone of apprehension in his voice (was he checking to see if anyone, sober, had seen us entangled?) but then I realized that I had gotten up before he stirred; he had no clue that we had been asleep like that together. And it seemed like his memories of the night prior were even more unreachable than mine.

"I think so," I responded, turning to do a headcount of the room. Was anyone else missing? Sicily and James were spooning on one bed, his arm curled protectively around her waist. Will and Tucker were crashed on the other, mouthes open as they both slept deeply. Nessa was on the floor between the beds, the blanket beneath the two boys half pulled off for her to rumple beneath her head and use as a pillow. Brenton was on the floor, slumped from where he had been leaning back against one of the footboards, and Brody was at his feet, taking up the center of the carpet as he slept on his stomach.

But wait, where was Bower? I looked again, but how could I miss that head of red hair in this dreary room. Bower was already up.

“Bower is gone," Jack said just as I noticed. "Maybe he's already at breakfast."

"I think we already missed breakfast," I teased. "What is Gavin going to think when we're all missing?"

"Well, we have slept in after a raid before just due to exhaustion so we can pull that card. And we'll just say Nessa and Sicily overslept. We are the only people in rooms on this floor so it's not like there's anyone to wake us."

"But we do need to make sure no one comes looking and finds them all here," I noted, already planning how to cover up the fact that we all got drunk together last night.

"Or maybe we should just wake them," Jack thought aloud. "It is getting a little too late to pass off as just tired."

I nodded my understanding, moving to wake Nessa so I could get to the others in the beds as Jack rudely bumped Brody with his foot until he woke. Together, we got everyone's eyes open and demanded that we all go to breakfast. Well, me really since Jack didn't seem to want to appear as a team. We were back to square one once eyes had opened, him hiding whatever it was we had from everyone, seemingly even himself.

We paraded down to the dining hall as a big group, coming to the consensus that our story was that I had woken up first and then awakened the others because it was so late. We spent a lot of time making sure the story was cohesive, trying to not get into any trouble. The boys knew Gavin best but they said they really couldn't predict how he would react to us having stolen the ale from the supplies.