Spy School: We Meet Again

Chapter 22: Waking up

Ben's POV

I opened my eyes only to see that both of us have fallen asleep in the middle of the movie marathon me and Erica were having yesterday. The TV in front of my bed has already turned off by itself and all of the uneaten snacks were on the tray table at the end of the bed.

Erica was still asleep and was resting her head on my shoulder. I guess my lack of sleep finally caught up to me last night, because I wasn't planning on sleeping in this room, definitely not next to Erica. But I would be lying if I said that it wasn't enjoyable.

She looked so peaceful and I wanted to stay here and continue to lay like this, but I knew I shouldn't, so as carefully as I could, I slowly lifted her head from my shoulder and set it down on the pillow, trying not to wake her up.

As I walked out of the room, I took the tray table with me and went into the kitchen. I'm not going to lie, the kitchen is an absolute mess. Yesterday I didn't bother to clean anything up, I just left it as it was. There were a lot of dirty dished lying around and some food scraps left on the counters.

"I really need to try not to turn my kitchen upside down the next time I decide to make something." I told myself.

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I was almost done with cleaning up the kitchen when I heard Erica slowly walking in the living room behind me.

"Good morning." I told her.

"Morning." She walked to the sofa and sat down. "What time is it?"

"Half past seven in the morning." As soon as I finished washing up the last plate, I walked up to her and sat down. "How are you feeling?"

"Better, I guess." Erica wasn't in a chatty mood today. Her eyes were closed and already she was laying down.

"Didn't sleep well?" As I asked that, she opened one of her eyes and looked at me.

"No. I slept like a baby. That's the reason why it's hard for me to wake up." She closed her eyes again. "I can't remember the last time I had this good of a nights sleep. I didn't want it to end."

"Then why did you come here?"

"I woke up because you moved. So basically you woke me up." She yawned and slowly sat up.

"Oh, sorry." I feel a bit bad now, but still stated: "You could have just continued to sleep."

"No, it wasn't as comfortable anymore" Wait, what?!  What did she just say?

A second later I could see that Erica realized what she said and her eyes went wide: "No that's not what I meant. What I was trying to say was..."

"Did you basically just call me a comfortable pillow?" In my shock, I interrupted her.

"No, that's not what I wanted to say." She was trying to find the right words. "I meant... to say that...  it was already time for me to wake up."

"What?"

"Oh, just drop it." She put one of her hands over her eyes and took a deep breath. When Erica removed her hand from her face, she had a pink blush on her cheeks. "Oh, get that smug look off your face."

I stopped daydreaming and realized that I have been looking at her for a while now, not even fully understanding that I was doing it. Now I was trying my hardest not to show the emotions I was feeling, but it didn't quite work. I was struggling not to smile.

"Ben, stop it." She gave me an intimidating look, but it didn't really give the warning she wanted because her blushing cheeks produced an opposite effect.