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Waking up is a fairly slow process.
She stretches out and sighs, the sheets moving against her bare legs, and buries herself back under the blanket, sleep still tugging on her soul and her more than willing to follow. A soft murmur escapes her mouth, her filter not yet up and running this early, and she presses her face further into the pillow in an attempt to block out whatever light is shining in her room. Or maybe she imagined it instead because it fades away a second later.
Sleep doesn’t seem to be on the agenda for much longer however, her eyes fluttering open despite her best efforts. After a few minutes of trying, she finally gives in and opens them, and it’s that moment she remembers she isn’t alone. Her boyfriend is half sitting up next to her, his hair half-mussed from sleep (and from her tangling her fingers in it last night) and his bent legs supporting a book, his face creased in that thoughtful expression he often gets while reading. She can’t see, but she can guess he has a pen somewhere and that the margins of that book are covered in his messy scrawl. It’s the book that’s the reason he doesn’t notice her until she reaches out and pokes her finger into his side, the corner of his mouth turning upwards into a soft smile. The one saves for her and her only.
“Good morning,” he teases, his voice low and slightly husky at this early hour. She should probably say something similar, but her words tangle in her throat and so he gets a small hum as a greeting. It’s hardly anything, and so to make up for it she wriggles closer to him, their legs tangling together, and presses a kiss to his shoulder. With her arm thrown across his middle, she feels him laughing silently as a kiss is pressed to the top of her head. “Too early?”
“Mm-hm,” she replies. She raises her arm, gesturing to something beside them, the word slowly coming together in her foggy brain. “Light.”
“Apologies, darling,” he whispers, running his hand through her matted hair. “I didn’t mean to wake you. I turned it off.” She grins at that and kisses him again to let him know he’s forgiven.
She lays there, abandoning her pillow in favour of JD’s shoulder, as awareness slowly but surely builds. Wordlessly, JD flicks the lamp back on and, despite her surprised blinking, she’s grateful for it. The book is one she recommended him and one she now wishes she read more often. Especially if she could always read like this, on top of JD, him turning the page for her, watching him silently react to it.
“You should come to Brown with me,” she tells him softly. It’s not lost on her that it’s her first full sentence of the day, and that JD is silently chuckling at her. “Pretty sure I’d get through all my textbooks twice as fast with you there.”
“Oh please,” he scoffs. “I’m the world’s biggest distraction and you know it.” As if to prove his point, he starts running his fingers gently through her hair before his hand moves gently down her neck and traces her spine, goosebumps prickling in his wake. God, he has a point. “Besides, you’re not much better yourself.”
“Hey!” she squeaks indignantly, suddenly sitting up. She ignores the chill as the blanket falls off her, her attention far more focussed on JD’s comment. Her, a distraction? Never. “And what is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” The word leaves his mouth slowly as he pushes himself up, leaning forwards on his elbows and a crooked grin on his face. “Just that on more than one occasion, you have called me all the way from college, to ‘have a talk’ when I know you have something due the next day.”
“And how would you know that?”
“Because you told me so,” he goes on. Her mouth hangs open, heat flushing up her cheeks.
“Jerk,” she tells him, crossing her arms over her chest. The audacity this boy has amazes her. Even now, he’s poking her sides over and over again, fingers scurrying over her skin as she fights the urge to squirm, even when they get closer and closer to one particular spot-
“No, JD, if you even try to do that I swear to God-” It’s too late; she lets out a pitched shriek before she can stop herself and she’s pulled onto the mattress against her will, cackling helplessly as JD tickles her, getting into all the places he knows she’s most vulnerable. She supposes that’s the downside of having someone know you inside and out; there’s nothing-and nowhere-to hide in these situations. She reaches back, grabbing at air in a futile attempt to grab him, all the while the bed shakes as she laughs, full and loud and as awkward and obnoxious as ever. “J-JD stop!” she gasps, tears running down her red face. “Oh my gosh I hate you!”
“Not what you were saying last night,” he whispers in her ear.
“Oh you little!” He lets her go at that, sinking onto the pillow next to her. When she turns around, she finds him just as flushed as she is, his eyes glittering, laugh lines around his mouth and those dimples in his cheeks. She presses her into one of them and he kisses the inside of her wrist, batting his eyes at her. It’s almost enough to get him out of trouble. “You’re still a jerk,” she tells him.
“And you love me?” he asks, a pout forming on his face. One that chases any annoyance she could have had away.
“Yes,” she says, moving closer to him. She runs her hand up his arm, a faint warmth creeping up her chest. “I love you.”
The kiss starts off as a sweet, gentle peck, the two grinning against each other. Then where she may have pulled back, she pulls him closer, digging her hand into his waist and tilting her head to deepen it. She hears him moan, his chest rumbling as he does so, and pushes herself up, one leg on other side of him and his hands flat against her bare back, travelling ever closer to her hips. Unfortunately, she can’t have the fun of pulling his shirt off him, not when it’s crumpled under her bed, but she can make up for it, trailing her lips along his neck and down to his chest before claiming his mouth again, the bed rocking ever so slightly as her hips roll-
The phone springs to life, its shrill ringing echoing throughout the house, and cuts them short. Veronica’s head snaps up, her back yelping with the sudden change, and she only has a second to be confused before she rolls her eyes and lets out a long groan. She pushes herself off JD and throws the blankets off, thankful that the curtains are still closed at least.
“I better go see who that is.” She slips her shirt on over her underwear for her own sake and pulls a pair of socks on. Then she looks back up at JD firmly points a finger at him. “Wait there.”
“Yes ma’am,” he replies, rolling himself back up in the blanket, somewhat resembling a burrito. Veronica can’t help herself from pressing a kiss to his forehead before she goes, lingering for a few seconds as the phone keeps alerting her to its presence.
“Be right back,” she whispers.
She takes the stairs three at a time, eager to get back to what she was doing as quickly as humanly possible. Thankfully the phone is right next to the stairs so she can grab it, picking it up probably too roughly, but it did interrupt something really important.
“Hello?” she sighs.
“Veronica? Oh thank God, when you didn’t pick up I thought you weren’t home. You know I was just about to hang up before you answered.”
Might be the fact that she’s literally only just got up or maybe it’s the rapid fire pace the other voice is talking at, but it takes her a moment to place it. Even though it makes sense, there could only be one person phoning her house this early.
“Mom?” she asks. She looks over at the clock on the wall. “Mom I didn’t pick up because it’s 8:30 in the morning. Where would I go at 8:30 in the morning?”
“Well there’s no need for attitude, missy.” Veronica only rolls her eyes and takes in a deep breath, crossing her arms over her chest. A little nugget of guilt pokes at her chest, just enough to make her uncomfortable.
“Anyway, what’s up Mom?”
“Well, we had to leave the hotel early,” she sighs. Veronica leans up against the wall, casting a glance up to the stairs as she listens.
“Oh, well that sucks,” she says. “What happened?”
“Would you believe a rat infestation?” she sighs. “So the whole trip’s off. They had us all up at the crack of dawn and kicked out with a voucher as compensation.” She sighs heavily on the other end of the line, the sound crackling through the phone. “Anyway, we’re coming home now.”
“Oh. Okay. Um, when are you getting here?”
“Oh, about five minutes.”
“Five minutes?” she yelps, her voice at least three octaves higher than humanly possible. Once again, her eyes are fixed on the landing, unsure what she’s expecting.
“Yes… five minutes,” her mom answers, clearly a bit confused and more annoyed by Veronica’s over-reaction. “Your father and I were just at the store there to pick up some bits for dinner. I’d have called at the hotel but we were out and on the road so fast I didn’t get a chance and would you believe that this was the first payphone I could get to? Should have brought the cell phone I know but when do I ever remember to bring anything. Anyway, you want anything?”
Yes, this conversation over, she thinks.
“Um, no, no I’m fine,” she babbles instead, the phone resting between her shoulder and her cheek as she clumsily buttons up her shirt as quickly as she can. She even pulls it down, hoping against hope it can cover something should five minutes turn into five seconds. “So I- I’ll see you in five?”
Her mom barely has a chance to get her ‘yes’ out before Veronica slams the phone down, her hands shaking as the time ticks away. Her mom is coming home early. Her mom couldn’t have given her more warning time. And her boyfriend is upstairs, in her bed, mostly naked. And her mom is coming home in five minutes.
“Oh my God.”
If possible, she’s even faster going up the stairs than she was coming down, her long legs stretching as far as possible and her early tripping over her feet as she half runs, half stumbles to her room, bursting through the door looking like she’d just run a marathon. JD notices, sitting up to attention and casting his book side, the beginnings of a question coming out of his mouth when-
“Put your damn clothes on!” Veronica orders.
He blinks quietly, trying to work out what game she’s playing.
“Excuse me?” he asks.
“My parents,” she pants, the sprint she did up the stairs catching up with her. “Are five minutes away. So put your damn clothes and get out of my house.”
There’s confusion, then realisation, and then panic crossing his face all under a second and Veronica has to admit, she’s never seen a journey like it.
He throws the covers off and dives for his jeans, hidden under the radiator, doing some form of bounce/dance combination as he pulls them on. As he gets dressed, Veronica falls onto her belly and pulls her skirt out from where it ended up; beneath her bed, so far in that she has to crawl halfway in to get at it.
“How the hell did you get my skirt under here?” she asks as she emerges the other side, JD half-in his shirt.
“I was being passionate,” he yells, muffled through the fabric. “Excuse me for wanting to show you a good time.”
“you showed me good time,” she assures him. “So good in fact that I’d like you to not be caught and murdered by my dad so we can have more good times.” She doesn’t bother hunting for anything else, instead pulling a sweater and her slippers on so she can deal with the more important things. She smooths out the sheets as much as she can. Thankfully, they weren’t too rough last night and nothing got torn. She arranges the pillows as neatly as she can, probably looking far too much into it. No, not probably. Definitely, since she’s sitting here debating if it actually looks like only one person slept there.
Satisfied, she grabs a hairbrush next. JD really listened when she told him to pull her hair, not to mention the way his fingers tangled in it and tugged gently, and when he balled his fists in it or ran his hand through it. Bottom line; evidence of their amazing night last night is in her messy, wild hair, and she’s leaving nothing to chance here.
Once her hair looks semi-presentable and secured in a ponytail, she turns back to JD, who sits on the windowsill with his jacket draped over him hurriedly lacing up one boot, listening out for her parents. The sight of him slows her down, takes her racing mind and calms it, as he’s done so many times before. He doesn’t deserve this, being rushed out of her house like that. And they did have an amazing night last night. Not just the obvious, but the small moments that came before and after it. The ones that mean just as much, maybe more.
She crosses over to him, an easy smile on her lips, and sits down next to him. She takes his chin in her hand and tilts it so that his eyes meet hers. When she kisses him, it’s careful and delicate, like the morning sunlight. And just as beautiful too.
“Mm,” he whispers as she pulls away. “What was that for, can I ask?”
“Being you,” she replies softly, pressing her forehead against his. He’s given her so much, most of which he’ll never know. “Now get the heck out of my house.”
His breath tickles her cheeks as he laughs, and he steals one last kiss from her before climbing out her window, all the grace and poise of an untrained housecat, and sprinting out her driveway, back down to his own house. A faint blush creeps across Veronica’s face as she closes the window.
“Hey guys,” she greets just three minutes later, standing on the bottom of the stairs with a fresh bowl of cereal in her lap. Picture of innocence. “Bummer about your trip.”
“Oh, don’t get me started,” her dad sighs, lugging his suitcase in. “Up before six this morning, driving since then. I need coffee. Sorry we couldn’t get you a snowglobe, Ronnie.”
“Maybe on the next trip,” she shrugs.
“So, sweetie,” her mom says. “How was last night. Did you do anything?”
“Oh, you know,” she says. “Watched movies. Did some reading.” Unbeknownst to her parents, who are more concerned with their coffee than they are with her, she crosses two fingers behind her back and bites back a giggle. “It was completely uneventful.”