On the run

Thirty

Hitting send on the picture I'd just taken, I sunk back into the bed. I really didn't feel like moving out of bed today. I'd been downstairs this morning, eaten worked out with Dean and Cam which had ended in me giving Cam a bloody nose and Ella nearly weeing with laughter at her auntie boxing her dad for telling me I was a pain in his ass. If I only got a few weeks with this girl, I sure as hell was showing her women can fight just as well as men and giving her that mental image to push back against whoever tries her.

But nothing I'd done this morning had eased missing him. Pathetic as it may be, I was an emotional mess today. Curling up in one of his shirts on his side of the bed was the only thing stopping me from breaking down. I was trying to be strong. Like Dean said, us holding it together was probably the only thing keeping them straight headed so every time he called, every flicker of a face time, I fought with everything in me to keep level-headed. I'd lay down with the lights out and listen to his sweet voice, no matter what time of day it was, he'd put me off to sleep and I'd feel at ease for just a few precious moments.

I stared at the book again, trying to read the words but I couldn't take them in. It's like I was seeing them but I wasn't processing a single thing. I sighed, started the page again, forcing my eyes onto the paper harder. Nothing. A groan escaped my mouth as I hit the book on my head and sat up.

"Come on! For fuck's sake." I closed my eyes tightly taking a deep breath before I tried again, really doing my best to focus. Reading a sentence very very slowly and nodding when I got it in my head. "Well fucking done dipshit. You CAN read. Aren't you clever?"

"Why are you calling yourself names?" I launched the book across the room at the intruder, absolutely jumping out of my skin as they laughed, bending down and picking my book up. "I'd be more scared if this was a dictionary darling." I blinked a few times and scowled. I was making shit up again. He flipped the book open in the doorway, eyes scanning over the page before looking up at me a chuckling. "You know I'm right here right? No need for the porn book." I scrambled to my feet, hitting them against the floor and throwing myself into his arms. "That's better. Brain a little broken today?"

"Try since you left." I clung around Alex's neck as he walked into the room, closing the door behind him. "I didn't know you were coming home."

"I was waiting for you downstairs but then you sent that picture and I reckoned you were gonna camp out up here in your underwear and my shirt."

"You have that 100% right."

"My side of the bed too."

"Mhm." I nodded, breathing in his classic aftershave. "Ass."

"What?"

"You're an ass. How long have you been home?"

"About 20 minutes." I lifted my head as he sat down on the bed. "I'm exhausted Pops."

"So why didn't you come get me straight away? We could have-"

"Poppy." He smiled, my stomach twisting until I shifted in his lap. "There's a million things we could have done in 20 minutes but I wanted to surprise you and right now, as fucking hot as you look in my shirt, I need to hold you and nap baby." I wasted not even a second, hands unbuckling his belt for him, fingers starting from the bottom of his perfectly white shirt and meeting his in the middle. "I missed you."

"I'm 100% sure I missed you more."

"Not even possible."

"Oh, it definitely is." I climbed off him so he could stand up, kick his clothes to the floor and crawl into our bed, immediately wrapping me up in his strong arms and covering my face in soft little kisses. "I haven't slept since you left."