Missing [ST]

Eighty Four

Seventeenth of February: Saturday

Bright light, and the loud noise of curtains being pulled to their respective sides, was the trigger for Leah's headache.

"Too bright," she murmured, squeezing her eyes shut. "Too early."

"Oh dear, is someone hungover?"

Ordinarily, Steven's voice would tempt her to wake up, but hearing the blatantly sympathetic tone made her bury her head under the duvet, and snuggle down into her bed as far as she could to escape it.

"No," she muffled into her pillow, but it was basically a yes. She sucked at lying, and her body language was more obvious than obvious.

The mattress dipped not long after, and Leah's sleepy limbs were carefully avoided by hands and knees.

"I'll make you breakfast?" Steven offered, peeling the covers back to expose her head. "Anything you fancy."

A couple of knuckles managed to locate her cheek, brushing gently, but Leah disapproved of the touch with a groan, desperately wanting to go back to sleep.

"I fancy staying in bed and sleeping."

"Hmm," Steven pondered, gratefully sitting to the side. "That's not an option I'm afraid. We're going to see your parents after lunch."

A headache. An annoying, unconfirmed boyfriend not letting her sleep. And now he had hit her with a brick wall of realisation to make her mood plummet to rock bottom.

Groggily, Leah lifted her head, hands sliding under her pillow. She attempted to look at the smirk that she imagined waiting for her, but her senses were too hazy from last night's alcohol consumption.

"Oh, bollocks."

The supportive rub on her back appeared around Steven's soft chuckling once she had fallen back on the bed in utter despair, but it only encouraged Leah to curl up into a ball of misery.

"Bollocks. Man, I love that word."

<>

"Coffee and aspirin."

Leah made a pathetic attempt to grunt in response, head remaining on the breakfast bar.

She had managed to crawl her sorry arse out of bed, added a fluffy dressing gown to her pyjama attire, and flicked up the hood in a vague hope that hiding might make her problems disappear.

"That bad?"

"No," Leah sighed, mustering the courage to lift her head. "Well, yes, but you're meeting my parents in a few hours, and then I'm leaving the country tomorrow morning."

Steven glanced over his shoulder, continuing to jostle a pan.

"I'm pretty good at small talk, so if you're worried about it being awkward, I got it covered. Loads of questions lined up to embarrass you."

"No," Leah complained, ignoring the cheeky wink. Her fingers spread on the surface, tapping a nervous rhythm. "No, it's not that. They don't-"

"Did you see that!?" Steven enthused, taking the pan off the heat. "That was the perfect pancake flip to top off the batch. Where's your sauce? You got maple syrup or something like that?"

The proud little smile alone completely threw Leah's confession that she had yet to tell her parents anything about him. It was a lie she had been living with for months, and it was preventing her relationship with them from returning to full strength. She accepted it would never be the same after the family crisis and loss of close loved ones, but keeping a secret like this away from them, was not doing herself any favours.