Small Town Hero

Chapter 31

The pair remained quiet, deep in their own thoughts. Her eyes began fluttering close as she fought to stay awake. Being so relaxed coupled with having sex for the first time since she was emancipated coupled with being cuddled up with Happy's warm body finally did her in. When he heard her shallow breathing, he knew she'd finally drifted off to sleep. He gave her a light squeeze before allowing sleep to over take him as well.

When she woke up, she was on her side, Happy's strong arm tugging her to him by her waist and holding her there tightly. She thought he was still asleep when she woke until she heard his rough, gravelly morning voice tell her good morning. She turned around in his arms with a smile and buried her face in his bare chest. He grunted at feeling her warm breath dance across his skin. He hugged her tighter to him as they laid there in silence, neither wanting to leave the dorm room.

After a while, a loud knock came at the door. One of the prospects shouted that church was being called and he was needed. Happy grunted something incoherent making her giggle. He tipped her face upwards so he could claim her mouth as his. The way he kissed her left her wanting more as she snaked her arms around him. He pulled away making her pout. "Club business. I gotta go." he told her before kissing her one last time. She watched him as he slid out of bed and began dressing. It sucked but club business was club business. Besides, she needed to go home and study. She slid out of bed and quickly got dressed.

On her way through the clubhouse, she grabbed her bag that Chibs had given her and slowly made her way to her car. Happy would most likely be busy the rest of the day but she had studying she had to get to. Besides, she had some new accessories for her camera she wanted to try out. When she arrived home, she found a box sitting on her stoop. It made her curious until she bent down to see who it was from. Seeing it was from Janie and her family made Noelle giddy. She grabbed it, unlocked her door, and walked into her house. She set the bag and box on the coffee table after dropping the keys on the table by the door.

She opened up the box to see some of her favorite candy, a card, a hand-written note, and two separate plastic containers. She pulled them both out of the box and opened them. One held brownies and the other chocolate chip cookies. She smiled knowing that Trisha remembered her favorites and baked them just for her. The hand-written note was from Janie wishing her a happy birthday and telling her a little about what all was going on in her life. The card was from Trisha and Josh wishing her a happy birthday and hoping she enjoyed the sweets.

'How sweet are they?' she smiled as she took one brownie out to eat. She sighed with happiness after taking the first bite. So soft and chewy and just perfect. It was so nice that they hadn't forgotten her birthday, to! She got up to get her camera so she could start playing with her new accessories. Heading out into the yard to photograph the tree that was out there, she tried using different settings as she had been taught in class for different effects. Some of her photos were coming out pretty artsy she thought. She played with her camera accessories until it was time to start on dinner.

After heading into the house, she looked through the cabinets and freezer to try and decide what to make them for dinner. Lasagna sounded good so she took out the ingredients to make it. She turned on the radio and just got into making dinner not paying attention to anything but the song playing. She was bopping around and dancing in her kitchen not caring what she looked like. Happy hadn't come home by the time dinner was done. Being hungry, she went ahead and ate. When he still wasn't home by ten, she put up dinner and locked the door.

She got ready for bed wondering where he was. Watching TV she lost track of time. The last time she looked at the clock it was a little past midnight. She was very worried about him. Sighing, she tried to go to sleep but all she did was toss and turn. Sometime she finally drifted off into a fitful sleep. Feeling the bed dip aroused her from her sleep and she rolled over. She called out his name making him sigh.