fake | tratie | EDITING |

| twenty one |

The only thing better than waking up when everything was going so well was waking up on the cabin roof with Travis next to me.

The early signs of the sunrise crept into the sky, casting a warm glow on his face as if its only purpose was the illuminate him. I smiled when he subconsciously brought me closer with the arm slung around my waist, and he sighed contentedly in his sleep.

Gods, he was adorable.

"Trav?" I gingerly shook his shoulder, still reveling in the way the sun traced his features. 

He grunted, burying his head into my neck. When he spoke, his voice grumbled sleepily. "Morning, Kates."

Fluttery warmth jutted through me as I sat up. "We fell asleep."

Finally, his eyes slid open. Taking in the situation, he grinned, still half awake. "Cool."

I smiled back, but quickly regained my logic. "No, not cool! We have to get back to our cabins before someone finds us! It's a wonder the harpies didn't get us."

"You're a great cuddler."

Rolling my eyes, I extracted myself from his limbs and sat up. "Come on, we'd better go."

He groaned and pushed his back off the grass roof. "Or, we could stay here and enjoy being together?"

While I appreciated that he liked being with me - and said I was a great cuddler! - I knew we couldn't be up there when everyone else got up. I took Travis' hand and helped him get all the way up, and then we made our way to the tree to get down.

Travis went first, and made it down in a couple of bounds. I, unfortunately, wasn't blessed with the height required to do that, so I settled on taking a more careful path. 

However, on one of the last steps, I missed the knobby foothold of the trunk and slipped.  

"Ah!" I let out a cry of surprise, getting the feeling of my guts rising up my throat as I fell. But before I hit the ground, I landed in a pair of arms.

"Careful, Katie-kat," he hummed, inches from my face once again. 

I felt crimson burn my face, taking in that my arms sat around his neck from the instinct to stop myself from falling. Travis didn't set me down, and I didn't move. His eyelashes caught the rays of the sunrise. Had his eyelashes always had that slight blond in them? 

"We should really get going," I whispered breathlessly. 

"I'm not in a hurry."

My head screamed that I should've been moving to get out of his hold - the multiple insecurities of my body being so accessible to him should have made me scramble from him. There had been so many times that a guy pointed out the things he didn't like about me from touching me, from feeling me, from being near me. The fact that he could possibly feel every single part of my body that I hated should've scared me. But... it didn't. 

Not one bit.

"I'm serious, if we get caught out here before anyone else, I'm gonna kill you," I joked, and he finally set me down gingerly. 

"Fine, fine. I'll see you in the morning, Kates." With a cartoonish wink and a flashy smile, he walked with me to the door of my cabin.

"See you at breakfast," I concluded, allowing myself a last look of longing at him before I went inside.

My heart padded and I hurried to my bed before I let a quiet squeal out. I couldn't believe I just slept on the rooftop of my cabin with Travis Stoll. Months ago, I would've hated to even think about that. Now, I felt giddy and light.