Sugar Dancing

5. I loaf you

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Blankets stacked high and pooled between the cracks of her arms while Madeline peered over them. She tilted her chin up and adjusted the weight to look at Ollie -clothed (thank god)- who had already been sitting up and watching her curiously.

"I'm sleeping on the couch." She filled him in. "You can take the bed, alright?"

"Wha-" His brows deepened and he pushed off of the bed with his palms. "We -we can both fit."

She sighed, suddenly feeling the weight of her sheets lessen and her arms heat with the contact with Ollie's. He tucked her pillow under his arm and swatted the blankets down so they flooded onto the floor. Madeline watched him shuffle across the hardwood, kicking at the balled up sheet at his feet until stopping at her designated side and propping the pillow against the headboard. After several hits to the cushion, he bent down and swung his arms to grip her blanket. He jolted up and parachuted the sheet so it fully covered her side of the bed.

Madeline didn't know what to do -one option being satisfying Ollie and wordlessly joining him on the bed but that also means she would be sleeping on the same mattress with the drunken fiend that flashed her. So she tried for number two.

"Ollie, we're both tired and considering what happened, I think we'd be more comfortable with some space." She spoke very softly, and calm and watched his face unravel across the room.

"Mad, lay down." He dropped his head and ran over the surface of her blanket with his fingers. "'m gonna take the couch."

"No, don't -"

His head lifted, and she felt her insides deflate seeing his eyes gloss and reflect off of the dim lamp light. Her shoulders physically sagged and she went quiet. Madeline knew his emotions and boundaries when he was drunk, but considering he drank more than half his body weight in alcohol, tonight was a completely different story.  

"I won't take anythin. . .g off, promise." He pouted his lips out after taking slow and stumbling. Even though Ollie's lower half was covered by the bed, she remembers him emerging from the bathroom with her pajama pant legs seven inches up his ankles. The shirt was a bit small too, but only tightening around his shoulders and rising up his torso to expose a strip of his belly skin.

"I. . ." He begun to whine and that may have been the reason she caved, for him to be quite. "Fine."

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"I feel like -like really, warm?"

"You've got a few blankets on you." Madeline groaned and peaked her eyes open, looking at Ollie staring up at the ceiling. "Push 'em off."

"But, 'm not. . ." He paused and his chest rose. "Not hot on the out...side -wait, no. I am, right Mad?"

"Get to the point, you're losing me." Her eyes dried, suddenly falling closed with his mumbling and the swoon of exhaustion. The majority of the time they laid in bed was filled with Ollie humming Elvis or going off on self directed conversations, or conversations that Madeline would just grunt for him to know she was still listing. He talked about his mom, sisters, his nephew, and she caught the tail end of a rant about his winter training for football.

But she didn't mind, if anything his story telling was helping her relax even with the stuttering a abrupt pauses. It took her mind elsewhere.

"My insides are warm." He eventually began again. "Like. . .my, my chest."

She opened one eye again to see Ollie was already turned on the pillow and watching. "You mean, you feel happy?"

"Maybe," He whispered. "'m happy, but why?"

"Well, you were talking about your family. Usually when a person talks about something  they love, it puts them in a good mood."

His mouth once slightly parted closed upon hearing her words. His brows drew and she swore to have seen his pupils dilate in the dim light, seemingly shrinking their blue into almost complete black.

"You love your mom, and your sisters." She continued through his silence. "Or talking about your winter workouts."

She watched his darkened eyes crinkle in amusement, wrinkling at the corners and his lips turn up to grin. His cheeks were rosy and bulbed when pushed up against the pillow. His face then relaxed  from grinning and he pulled his blanket up a bit more to stop at his chin.

"Or maybe. . ." Ollie begun, "maybe 'm in love with you."

Then she stopped breathing. Even if she had felt the urge the breathe, it was so tight and strained that she couldn't possibly take in a breath. Madeline's face went hot and her eyes burned watching him remain some how calm -like he didn't just confess his love for her or flaunted his naked body a while before.

She tried to tell herself that Ollie was still drunk, that he wouldn't remember anything in the morning but -really? Her friend just said I'm in love with you, and maybe pushing it aside wasn't the best idea.

"You-" Her voice came out cracked and horse, "You should go to sleep."

"But I'm not tired."

"Ollie, please." She was desperate for him to stop talking and screw with the last bit of sanity she had left. "Can you please try? Just close your eyes. You'll be out before you know it."

"I. . ." He scanned once more over her and she watched his Adam's apple bob when he swallowed. She something new feeling swarm as his eyes glided across her face. "Okay."

It took a minute, two, maybe three and Ollie's eyes finally closed and his head relaxed against the pillow. Madeline pushed her covers so they bunched at her feet, and then lifted herself out of the bed.

She walked over to the lamp to switch it off, encasing the room in complete darkness. The light from the hall leaked slightly into the room, and she watched it highlight soft features onto Ollie's relaxed face.

Her hand lifted to push further open the bedroom and she at last slipped out. She was so tired, barely walking to the living room with open eyes. So when she finally made it, Madeline flopped onto the couch and didn't even have time to think about what the night had held before falling asleep.

a/n woah that took forever (but the night is done yay!) next part (part 2) will be the rest of the story!!!