Missing [ST]

Forty

Fifth of April:

Leah was asleep until a very loud, very rude knock at her door said otherwise. She proceeded to ignore it and roll over, but when the rapid rap of knuckles returned with a lot more force, she kicked the warm sheets from her body in one aggressive motion.

"Alright, alright!" she shouted, pinch of her thumb and index finger over the bridge of her nose rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"Leah, it's eleven minutes before midday and we gotta go before we get kicked out by an angry lady."

Not quite believing Brad's muffled voice, because she was still in the process of waking up, she squinted at the analogue clock that ticked obliviously on the bedside.

When she realised he was right and that she had slept in, she was jumping out of bed and scrambling to her door.

"The lady was really nice yesterday," Leah said, face to face with an agitatedly poised Brad.

"Maybe because we gave her money for her rooms," he replied, which made her blatant statement sound really dumb. "But that was only for one night."

Slouching her shoulder into the frame, Leah pushed her messy hair to the opposite side of her off-centred parting, slowly letting it flop back to its natural state to mimic her realisation.

"Oh."

"Mhm, so let's go."

"Bloody hell, Brad," she laughed. "Could you at least give me five minutes to make myself look a bit more presentable?"

Brad looked her over like he was just noticing the fact she had rolled out of bed. Admittedly, it was quite funny.

"Uh, we'll be outside...then," he said, and then disappeared down the hall.

Leah was left amused to the weird end to their conversation, kicking the door closed with her heel.

<>

Five minutes, which was more like ten, and Leah felt a little less like she had just woken up.

She was still in the same clothes as yesterday, but she wasn't exactly alone there. Her hair was de-tangled from running her fingers through it and thrown into a messy updo with the hairband on her wrist, but the boys didn't really look their best either. Because being under the clock had made her less interested in her appearance, and increasingly worried about the situation.

"Has something happened?" Leah asked, clutching her hat by her side. "And does it mean I can't eat?"

"You missed breakfast," Joey mumbled, not looking her way. He pushed himself from the building, head down, hands in his pockets.

"Then why didn't you wake me up sooner?"

Tom pulled out a crumpled bag from his jacket.

"Don't worry, I got you some pain au chocolat to eat on the way because you're French and you must like them."

Leah gave him a double take, and the matter of Joey's hatred for her was pushed aside.

"Okay, one, I'm really not that French and two, why do I feel like there's a rush that no one's telling me about?"

"Your surname begs to differ," Tom continued, grating the unhelpful side of her line of questioning. "Madame Dev-er-reaux."

She ignored the interesting pronunciation, and set him straight.

"My dad's surname which I had no choice over, and he's not even that French either!"

"Was he born in France?"