Under Winter Stars - Ross x Robert Story

Spending Time - Chapter 12

Ross' POV:

"Ross, wake up! It's about to be one!"

"Get the hell up!"

I feel someone start to harshly shake me, which makes me open my eyes to look at who it was. Roy of course. He let's go when he sees my eyes open and smirks.

"Morning sleeping beauty." Roy teases.

I frown and turn to look at him but feel a sudden pain in my neck, making me wince. Robert notices and crawls closer to me. He helps me sit up and presses a bag of ice on my neck.

"I woke up in the middle of the night and saw your head positioned in a bad way so I helped you lay down. But your head was still like that for a while so I knew your neck would hurt once you woke up, so I brought some ice to try and relieve the pain!" Robert explains.

"Oh, thanks Rob." I say with a light smile, replacing Robert's hand with my hand on the bag of ice.

My thoughts went back to when Robert fell asleep on me. He woke up in the middle of the night so he probably realized what he did and knew it was a mistake. So I shouldn't dwell on it too much.

We all crawl out the fort and begin to take it apart. Robert took the chairs and pillows downstairs to put away while me and Roy folded the blankets. He was awfully quiet for some reason, usually he would've brought something up to talk about but he's just.. quiet.

Robert comes back upstairs and tells us breakfast is ready. So we head downstairs and sit at the table, plates already served and my mom sitting there with a cup of coffee.

"Hi boys, how'd you sleep?" she asks.

"Good, Ross slept really well though." Roy jokes.

Mom chuckles and gets more comfortable in her seat. "So, I have an update for you Robert." she says.

Robert, who was dogging his food, immediately stopped and looked up at her. "Really?!" he asks.

Mom hums. "Mhm, those errands I was running yesterday were for your mom. I invited her to coffee and we talked about how I could help her. Let's just say we got a plan figured out and you and your siblings are gonna get out of there safely."

Robert smiles and gets up to give her a hug. "Thank you thank you thank you!" he repeats happily.

Mom hugs him back. "Of course hon."

Robert breaks the hug and sits back down in his seat. I smile to myself, I'm glad Robert and his family are getting the help they need.

We all began eating our food and while we did Robert continued to read his astronomy book. He'd mumble to himself when he found something cool and I would try and look over at what he read. Eventually he noticed and he put the book in the middle of us so we could read together.

We ended up getting so caught up into the book Roy and my mom had already finished eating and left the table. And when we realized we still kept on reading. Spending time with Roy one on one is fun but with Robert it's just more chill. I feel more relaxed and calm. I mean, me and him do have fun as well but sometimes it's nice to just do something chill. I don't see myself sitting down in silence and reading a book with Roy.

"Hey Ross?" Robert suddenly says.

"Yeah?" I answer.

"I was thinking, since we're both kinda into this book, maybe we could find a spot in town to look at the stars? Maybe start a star-gazing notebook?" he asks. "It could just be a 'me and you' thing."

The words 'me and you' echoed through my head. It excited me, it shouldn't have but it did. A place only me and him would know about to just hang out. Just me and him. As friends.