Supernova Souls - Ryan Upchurch

-36-

Later that night Delilah woke up to a sunset flooding into the otherwise dark room through the now halfway pulled back curtains. She yawned and stretched her arm out, expecting to feel her arm brush against Ryan's side, but he wasn't there. She pulled her arm back and sat up in bed, still barely awake enough to function like a normal human being. Her knees were up to her chest and her arms were now around them, and the room was freezing cold. (The cold multiplies tenfold when the only thing keeping you warm disappears while you're asleep.) she blinked a few times to get rid of the blurriness in her eyes before they settled into the semi-darkness around her, and through the open bedroom door she saw the tall, dark silhouette of a man she assumed was Ryan standing in the kitchen.

She couldn't see him very well and his back was turned to her, the only light in the kitchen coming from the open windows and the orange light from the bulb above the island. It flickered every so often, just enough to be annoying, and the gentle glow of the natural light in front of him made the sight just a little more beautiful to her tired eyes.

At the foot of his bed was a wrinkled short sleeve shirt that was multiple sizes way too big for her. It was black, and on top of it was what looked like her baby blue ponytail holder from earlier that day. It only took her a second to decide that getting up was a better option than lounging around in his bed all day, so she peeled the sheets away from her and the Antarctic temperatures he kept his house at almost made her debate on snuggling back underneath the covers and never leave the warm embrace again, but alas, she grabbed the shirt from the edge of the bed and pulled it over her head and down over her torso. The shirt went down to barely above her knee and it fit loosely on her, obviously way too big for her, and the fabric was soft against her skin.

She grabbed the blue ponytail holder and put it onto her wrist like a bracelet, inside her head she knew full well it would leave an indent on her wrist that would be sore once she took it off, but that's better than losing it somewhere in Ryan's bed.

The floor creaked beneath her weight when she walked through the threshold of his bedroom into the hallway. Ryan turned to see what the noise was, but he could barely see past the corner so he ruled it out as nothing and turned back to the counter next to the sink.

Floors inside old houses never were quiet.

Not like she was trying to be sneaky, anyway, she just didn't want to disturb whatever he was doing. Manners, right? Like those existed to either of them right now. She'd just fallen asleep curled up in the man's arms after she'd slept with him, so why did being quiet and nice matter now? It didn't a few hours earlier.

She rested her hand against the corner of the kitchen island once she came to it and watched him mess with something inside the refrigerator. "Hey." She said quietly.

He quickly dropped whatever crinkly-sounding thing he was holding back into the fridge and whipped his head towards her.

"Sorry." She took her hand off the edge of the island and held it in her other hand instead, rubbing her thumb over the back of her hand in front of her. "I thought you heard me comin', I didn't mean to scare you."

"It's alright, baby." He said as he closed the fridge, and above the two the light flickered but didn't go out. He was supposed to change that bulb days ago but he never did. "You hungry?"

"A little bit, yeah."

"What do you want?"

"Well.. what were you about to make?"

"Chicken, but I don't really want a visit from the fire department tonight, so that's sort of off the menu. At least until I learn how to cook without setting off the smoke alarm."