Reliving Yesterday ✔

Chapter 38.

Saturday brought a sense of peace to the house. There was no morning bustle of getting to school, no rush to get out the door. There was just tranquility in the form of lazily rolling over in bed with the glorious realization that I needed to be nowhere.

When I finally managed to convince myself to open my eyes, I realized that the world had been awake for quite some time and my bedside clock told me that it was just past ten in the morning. I had just ambled out of my bathroom, still in my pajamas, when Parker climbed in through the window – the concept of a door to get to me being completely foreign to him now – clad in track pants and school branded tank top with gym bag slung over his shoulder.

"Up and at 'em, my girl," be said to me, "Breakfast time."

I followed him into my kitchen, which he had pretty much made his own at this point; his own kitchen was immaculate from disuse.

He opened cupboards and seemed to be concocting some sort of protein shake for himself. He looked up at me watching him throw various greens and powders into the blender and gave me the toothiest grin I had ever seen.

"Want some?" he asked, switching on the blender.

I walked over to him and waited for him to finish. When he was done, he opened the lid and let me smell it.

I made a disgusted face because of the terrible smell and shook my head.

He shrugged, "More for me."

He pulled me close and planted a kiss on my temple before drinking his shake straight out of the blender. When he was done, he put the blender jug down and shuddered.

"I don't know why you do that to yourself," I told him.

"To build all this muscle to protect my girlfriend," he said, playfully, waggling his eyebrows and flexing his arms.

I shoved him with a smile and he laughed musically.

We stood there, in close proximity for a few moments and I let my eyes roam from his hair to his face to his broad shoulders. They stopped on the gauze I had put over the wound on his shoulder. Gently, I ran my fingers over it. Slowly, I opened my mouth ask about it, as I lifted my eyes to meet his. The look on his face told me that he didn't want to hear it, so I relented. Instead of questioning him, I moved my fingers up his shoulder, up his neck, on to his cheek and kissed him on the cheek softly. He let out a breath and smiled at me.

"I have to leave soon for practice," he said, looking at the clock.

I nodded. "I'll just be here working and lounging."

"Have an ice pack ready for me when I get back."

"I will," I promised.

"Can I make you some breakfast?" he asked.

"It's a cereal kind of day," I told him and he smiled at me.

Then he leaned against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. "What do we do for your birthday?" he questioned.

I shrugged, getting myself a bowl and a spoon. "Nothing fancy."

"How about a nice dinner, just you and me?" he asked, taking a step towards me and putting an arm around my waist.

"Sounds perfect," I turned to him with a placid smile and I could see his shoulders relax as he inhaled deeply.

"Perfect," he breathed, before kissing me.

We lingered there for a moment, our eyes closed, the ease of everything setting in. There was something peaceful about this morning in particular that made me want to tell Parker to stay; not to go for practice so that we could have this moment for the whole day, but I knew that he had to go. So, when he finally opened his eyes to look into mine and smiled, I smiled back, knowing he'd be back by the end of the day, and we could have our moment then.