All The Colors Of You || Bang Chan

Chapter Thirty One - Chan

When I wake up, Perrie sits next to me on our bed in the hotel. She's wearing my shirt and her hair is falling like a waterfall around her shoulders.
She's holding a sketch pad on her lap and traces lines across the paper with an ink pen.

When she notices me looking at her, her eyes flit towards my face. 
"Don't move," she commands, "I'm almost done."
"You're drawing me?"
"Yeah." She turns her  sketchbook towards me to show me the page. "I do it a lot, you have a pretty face."

"You draw me while I sleep?"
At that her cheeks turn a lovely shade of red.
"When you say it like that, it sounds creepy", she says and I can't help but chuckle at her pouty face.
I stretch and sit up until I can press a kiss to  her cheek, then one to her throat, then one to her lips. She giggles happily and I can feel my heart skip.
I roll to sit on the edge of the bed and rub my face.

I can hear her shift in the sheets behind me and then the mattress dips down to either side of my hips.
She kneels behind me, placing her hands on my shoulder.
"Do you wanna get some breakfast downstairs?" I place my hands on her thighs and look over her shoulder. She clings to me like a koala to a tree with her chest pressed against my back.

"What, with all the people there?" Her hands slip down my shoulders and over my arms and my chest.
I shrug. "This is a five star hotel. I'm sure they have a policy about the privacy of their guests."
She hesitates a moment to think.
"Okay," she says then, softly presses a kiss to my temple, and unwinds herself from me.

We shower and get dressed.
The hotel serves breakfast in their restaurant, down at the bottom level of the building. When we enter, Perrie holds my hand like it's the most natural thing in the world.
I can't believe how soft her hands are between my fingers as she pulls me towards a table in the back.

Surprisingly, there are only a few other people at breakfast and after the waiter takes our orders, we get our food pretty quickly.
The pancakes are good, but not sweet enough for Perrie. The yoghurt parfait is perfect and I watch closely as Perrie slips a spoonful between her lips.
When she meets my eyes, I lean over and whisper, "You make me crazy."
She sucks in a breath of air and then presses her lips against mine.
She tastes like the raspberries the parfait had been topped with.

"I've been thinking," Perrie says later as we share a small platter of fruit, "I think I'll need a few days alone to finish your painting."
"What do you mean, alone?" 
"I just need a few days away from distraction so I can finish the painting on time."
I pout and Perrie laughs, surprised, placing a hand on my cheek.
"Oh, don't look at me like that," she says, "It'll only be a week or maybe ten days!"

And so it happened.
Except ten days very quickly turned into sixteen - which then turned into twenty.
In those twenty days, Perrie facetimed or called me every single day for a few minutes. But we didn't really see each other.

A few times, I sent her flowers to her workshop.
She sent me food to the studio.
But we couldn't physically be around each other.

It might be the hardest thing I had ever done. Every single cell of my entire body was craving this woman. I was yearning for her every waking second, and I dreamed of her most nights.
I poured all my emotions into my work. Not hard to admit: most songs I write these days are about her anyway.

She sent me updates on the painting, sent me pictures of little sketches and doodles.
I missed her so much it was a physical sensation. It was as if I had pulled a muscle in my chest, and the constant pressure of it made everything just a tiny bit more uncomfortable.

Of course I understood.
The painting had to be done soon and with her upcoming art show she had to set priorities. I understood because I would have done it the same way.
The gallery show means so much to her. Her own exhibition, people seeing her talent, appreciating her work. It's what she deserves.
It's what I had wanted for her since the beginning.

By day twenty-one, I can almost not handle it anymore. I'm constantly thinking about her. Everything reminds me of her.
So when she calls me that day and asks me if I'm free, there's really only one answer.

"Good," she says with her voice clear over the phone, "Because I'm done. The painting is finished. Do you want to see it?"