slow burn; sapnap

twenty three

hadden woke up and immediately looked around her room to collect her surroundings. she tried to connect every dot of what happened the night before.

after picking up nick from the airport and their spontaneous kiss, they began driving back to hadden's apartment. hadden revealed that her dad was back at her apartment already asleep and nick worried he would come off as a rude guest of not being able to introduce himself until the next morning, so he insisted that it wasn't a problem for him to get a hotel down the street for his first night.

but hadden didn't just drop him off at the hotel. he had her come up with him. the two got to his room and sat crisscrossed on the bed together, catching up on their singular week they had been apart. somehow it simultaneously felt like it had been months since they had seen each other but also like they had never separated.

after half an hour of catching up, nick noticed hadden beginning to yawn. he suggested she head back home and that he would come over first thing in the morning.

now hadden was back in her bed. she checked her phone and saw that it was nearly 9am and saw a text from nick letting her know he would be over by 10am.

she slowly made her way out of bed and towards her bathroom. as she stood in front of her mirror, she stared, trying to understand herself better.

hadden's t shirt that was close to 3 sizes too big hung over her body, covering her torso and down to her thighs, but exposing her collarbones. her hair was tangled but kept out of her face. she grabbed a pair of looser fitting jeans that had been left unworn on her counter and pulled them over her legs. as she brushed her teeth she went and search in her closet for a shirt to wear.

her mind wandered as she thought about what today would look like. she thought about if her dad would like nick. she thought about if they would discuss their airport kiss, or if that would become taboo in their dialogue. she wondered which of her shirt options nick would like best.

she found a simple gray t shirt that said 'grand canyon' which was originally owned by her dad when he was in college and traveling the country. she let the t shirt hang past her waist and put on some white converse to finish her outfit. 

"good morning sweetpea." hadden's dad greeted as she enter the kitchen to find something to eat.

"hi dad. how did you sleep?" autopilot kicked in as she began making her coffee as she normally did.

"i slept alright. i didn't hear you and your friend come in last night. where is he?"

"oh, he's going to be over soon. he stayed at a hotel last night." hadden grabbed a cereal bowl and passed one to her dad as well as he grabbed the milk and she grabbed the cheerios.

"now, i don't want to be awkward, but do i need to know anything about this boy? is he someone you're interested in?" her dad asked, causing her to nearly choke on her coffee.

"dad, of course not. nick is just a friend." she wasn't convincing anyone, including herself.

"alright. you know your old man is just looking out for you." he gave a quick wink before going to take a seat at hadden's two seat dining table.

hadden stayed standing at her counter as she refreshed twitter. it was full of people asking where she had been and if she would be at twitchcon now that she had face revealed. she hadn't put much thought into, assuming it would be something she'd never be able to do.

"someone's at the door." her dad said, bringing her out of her daze.

hadden quickly jumped up to open the door before her dad had the chance. she opened it to reveal a smiley nick showing his lopsided grin that always melted her heart.

"morning haddy."

"good morning nicky. come on in."

nick stepped in and welcomed in the familiarity of hadden's apartment. it smelled like she did. hadden always smelled like vanilla sugar cookies and clean laundry.

"nick, this is my dad, eric. dad, this is my friend nick." hadden said as the two approached her father who was still sat at the table.

"hey, its so nice to meet you." nick instantly stuck his hand out to be shook.

"nice to meet you too. you do the same video stuff that hadden does?" nick couldn't help but grin when he recognized the same southern accent that hadden possessed, just stronger.

"yes sir. that's how we both met actually."

"well, we're probably gonna go hang out for a bit." hadden said ending the conversation before it had time to start becoming awkward.

nick abruptly followed as hadden grabbed his wrist and brought him to her room like a teenage girl with her first boyfriend.

"you didn't even let me get to the point that i could start hearing embarrassing stories about you." nick teased.

hadden sat herself down on the end of her bed and nick rolled her gaming chair over so he could be sat in front of her.

"i stopped it before my dad could ask anything weird," she leaned back on her elbows, relishing on the fact that she was with her best friend. "i was wondering if you would maybe help me with something."

"whats that?"

she stood and spun the chair around to face her setup. she quickly went and opened her email and opened a link for the creator registration for twitchcon.

"what do you think? its next weekend and the creator registration was already closed but i reached out last night and they said they would make an exception as long as i agreed to do a meet and greet and some panel."

"you're really thinking about coming? of course i think you should!" his eager response was nothing short of what she expected. he had been asking her to register for months now. and even though it was what she expected, it was just what she needed to hear.

she clicked submit on the form that had been sitting filled out since last night. nick instantly jumped up and grabbed her from behind while she was looking. she squealed and told him to put her down between laughing.

"august is gonna take over twitchcon! you're gonna meet all of our friends, and you're gonna get to see fans, and you're gonna get to come to the parties with me, and you're gonna-"

"i think you're more excited than i am." hadden giggled.

"of course i'm excited! my favorite girl is doing something so exciting and i get to be part of it."