She woke up, his fingers still tangled in her hair, and everything felt right. They had been staying there for almost twelve days and it was the first time that she had opened her eyes feeling like she was meant to be laying in a Parisan bed in an apartment that they had intended to only rent for a week.
He looked flawless, drowning in the pool of sheets and pillows. His hair fell all over his face and his lips were swollen from biting them in his sleep, a habit that she had never understood.
"Good morning," she whispered and his eyelids fluttered open.
He grunted and groaned and questioned why she woke him up so early, even though it was already early afternoon, and she just smiled and wrapped her weak arms around him. He knew that she felt okay, he could feel it in the warmth of her touch, and that alone made him want to jump up and down and spin in circles.
They rolled out of bed with sleepy words spilling from their lips. She slipped out of her clothes to take a shower and he joined her in the most innocent way possible. He massaged rose shampoo into her mess of hair and she traced hearts into the soap that was on his chest.
He had always been very careful with her, never kissing her too hard or leaving marks down her neck, because she was delicate. He thought her skin felt like a bunch of flower petals and if he touched her too roughly then she'd wither right there in his hands. It was something he had to get used to, but he did it for her.
They wore their towels and ate left over croissants and listened to Elvis for what seemed like hours. She just couldn't help but admire how nice he looked, wrapped up in a little towel with his head tilted back and swaying with the music.
"You're beautiful," she accidentally whispered and her cheeks turned red.
She knew he heard her, but he didn't obviously react, something that she appreciated thoroughly. He loved it when she called him beautiful, always by accident, but he never told her about it. When her pale face turned into a color of soft pink, he pretended like her whispers weren't audible.
The only thing that interrupted their gentle paradise was a bird flying into the glass door of the balcony. She cried because it was just a poor bird and it didn't deserve a painful death and he told her that they could find a place to give it the proper burial. Of course, that would mean going outside, but after a lot of thinking she figured that it was very much worth it.
They changed into clothes that they wouldn't mind getting dirty and wrapped the dead pigeon in a soft sheet. They strolled to the first park that they saw and decided that a secluded area near a bunch of trees and mud would be the best place for a bird to be buried.
They dug through the layers of grass and mud with their hands and it took forever for the hole to be deep enough for the bird to fit inside, but they did it soon enough.
"You should say a few words," she mumbled, grabbing his dirty hand.
"Okay, um, well the circumstances in which we got to meet this bird were unfortunate, and it is a shame that he could not bring us any joy, but hopefully he brought it to someone. Rest in peace," he said, fumbling for words to use for a pigeon eulogy.
She hugged him tightly after his speech and then they got up and went back home. People stared at them when they were running back to their apartment building with mud caked onto their jeans and he noticed that she was starting to tear up because of the stares and the burial so he carried her up to their room.
She asked him to lay her down on the couch and of course he did. She looked so sad and tired that he decided to take her clothes off for her and she let him because he didn't mean anything by it, he never did.
She mumbled a thank you and was asleep within minutes because it was easier for her to sleep when she had had a good day. He watched her sleep for a while, not because he was a creep or anything. He liked seeing her look peaceful and he liked seeing her look okay and he just liked her more than he probably should've.
He threw a blanket over her and put one down in the floor for himself because he didn't want to disturb her sleep but he still wanted to be close to her. He slept on the floor, which wasn't as uncomfortable as you'd think, and she slept on the sofa and they looked like a mess, but they didn't feel like one at all.
