Hide Your Fires

25: Why Not?

When I wake up the next morning, I'm really hungry. That's a pretty normal thing for me but the problem arises when I realize that Tate is still asleep and I have no idea how to get to the kitchen. I have no idea how to get anywhere in this freaking mansion of a house considering last night, we just walked through the front door, walked through a bazillion hallways, and then to Tate's room.

I try not to wake him up as I grab my toothbrush and go into his bathroom (because he has his own bathroom inside of his bedroom) and I brush my hair and my teeth with their respective brushes before going back into the bedroom and I'm still incredibly hungry so I put my stuff back into my overnight bag and crawl back into the bed beside Tate. I'm wearing one of his t-shirts and underwear underneath of it but that's really it because although I did bring pajamas, this is much better.

I text Matt just to check in with him and Jude and then I try to keep myself busy for as long as possible but when my stomach growls again, I have to wake him up. He's lying on his back so I roll over top of him so that I'm straddling him and then I lean down and try to nudge him awake by saying his name a few times but I don't want to be too loud. The silence in the room is just so silent that I feel like I shouldn't be disturbing it at all, really.

I say his name a few times again, shaking his shoulder slightly but he still isn't waking up and my stomach is making angry whining noises. When nothing else works, I bend down farther and let my teeth sink into his skin where his neck meets his bare chest. I hear him groan a little bit when I do that so I look up to see if that worked but he is still asleep.

I wonder if it's worth the risk to go out there by myself to try and find the kitchen. But what if his dad is here and he walks in, seeing me this early in the morning and eating his food? I mean, it's not that early but it's early enough to make it obvious that I stayed the night last night and although we didn't have sex, I'm sure that's the first conclusion that his dad would come to if he saw me in his kitchen right now eating his food.

"Aren't you going to bite me again?" I hear Tate ask me teasingly as I crawl off of him to think of some other kind of plan.

I turn toward him and glare. I try to make it look joking but my stomach isn't messing around right now so I probably look really evil, "You asshole, how long have you been awake?"

He only offers me a sleepy grin and that's enough to quell my stomach's annoyances at the moment. "Not very long."

"I'm really hungry," I inform my boyfriend- I will never get used to saying that, it sounds so foreign to me. "And because you live in a mansion, I can't get to the kitchen. So upsie daisies, let's go get breakfast."

"You're very demanding this morning," He chuckles, sitting up in the bed and running his fingers through his hair a few times but it doesn't really do anything to his hair because it's still messy on top of his head.

"I'm very hungry this morning," I insist. "I'll make you pancakes."

"I can make my own pancakes," Tate says with a laugh but he still stands out of the bed and starts on his way to the bathroom. "You pour batter onto a pan and you flip it sometimes, it's not that hard, Hallie."

"Well then you can make me pancakes. Even better," I say, grinning innocently at him just before he disappears into the bathroom completely.

When he comes out five minutes later, I take a subtle moment to take in his glorious shirtless body. He's only wearing basketball shorts and he looks magnificently mouthwatering this fine morning.

"Is your dad here?" I wonder as I pull a pair of shorts out of my bag and slide them onto my legs but they're really short shorts so they're barely visible under Tate's t-shirt.