Nora awoke gently on the futon, the faint morning sunlight warming her back. She stretched a bit before opening her eyes and finding herself nose to nose with a sleeping Gossard.
At first she didn’t react, she just let consciousness gradually overtake her bit by bit. As the seconds passed she became aware of how entangled they were—Stone’s arm hooked beneath her head like a pillow, his other arm draped over the dip of her waist, her arms drawn up tightly against his chest, her legs intertwined with his—they were in close contact almost down the whole length of their bodies.
Now fully awake, her first instinct was to retract in a hurry, not wanting Stone to wake up while they were in this somewhat intimate position. But then, the more her eyes passed over his face, peaceful and oblivious to the waking world, she thought better of it. They had fallen asleep together like this plenty of times when they were teenagers—what could be wrong with it now? Tranquility flooded Nora’s mind again and she reclosed her eyes, getting ready to give Stone an Eskimo kiss with her nose to see if that might wake him.
Suddenly, though, before she could execute her plan, she was startled by an incredibly loud metallic clanging that seemed to come from right over their heads. She jumped and accidentally elbowed Stone in the chest in the process.
“Jesus, fuck!” Stone yelled, his eyes shooting open in pain. He and Nora both bolted upright to find a man in a fairly ridiculous choice of headwear clanging two metal frying pans together behind the futon.
“Jeff Ament I’m gonna kill you, you son of a bitch!” Stone exclaimed, though on the verge of smiling. “God… so much for a peaceful slumber.”
“Morning to you, too. I made breakfast because I heard there might be a guest around… Are you the famous Nora?” Jeff looked at her with a disarmingly adorable smile. She was still breathing heavy from the scare.
“Guilty as charged—and you must be Jeff. Do you always provide courtesy wake up calls for your guests?” Nora came off friendly, extending her hand in greeting, but she couldn’t help throwing a little sarcasm in for good measure—her heart was still pounding in her chest. Jeff reached out and shook her hand surprisingly firmly, jerking her arm up and down with enthusiasm.
“Only for the pretty ones from Stone’s mysterious past. Pleased to meet you, Nora,” he said. Nora blushed in spite of herself.
“All right, easy Ames. Check your boyish small town charm—you’ll drown us all before we have the chance to get some coffee,” Stone said, rolling his eyes.
“Ooh, coffee? Seattle coffee?! I vote coffee!” Nora perked up at the thought of delicious caffeine and grabbed Stone’s hand, tugging at him to follow her downstairs. Jeff followed after them with his eyes subtly watching Nora the whole way back to the kitchen of the apartment.
...
“So you’re from Montana, huh? How’d you wind up over here with this bunch of freaks?” Nora asked Jeff as they all finished their last bites of pancake.
“Well, I just decided to up and move one day,” Jeff said, raising his eyebrows. “College wasn’t doing it for me…”
“Sound familiar?” Stone said quietly to Nora, elbowing her in the ribs and rising to put everyone’s dishes in the sink.
YOU ARE READING
No, You Gotta
FanfictionWhen young artist Nora Davis makes her return to Seattle after a seven year absence, the first thing she does is find her best childhood friend, Stone Carpenter Gossard. Things in their lives are a lot different than they were when they were fiftee...
