Mr Jefferson is Coming Home (Jamilton)

Chapter 18

The following morning Alex woke up in an empty bed. It was completely dark and he tried to get up on the wrong side, slamming into the folding screen and swearing. He opened the curtains, letting the sun shine in and blinking a couple of times. It was particularly cold that morning, he noticed – but then he looked down and closed the curtains at once.

"Shit!" He started searching for his clothes, then suddenly remembered that he'd thrown them all around the room. He peeked from the bed curtains to be sure that all the doors were closed and got off the bed, entering the chilly air, to retrieve them and get dressed.

After stealing Thomas's hairbrush to comb his hair into a ponytail, he eventually went to seek Thomas, checking in the study first and then heading to the main hall. He was about to open the door of his own room to fetch something thicker to wear, when he smelled an amazing perfume coming from the dining room and immediately changed his route, peeping from the door. Thomas was sitting at the table, distractedly drinking a cup of tea and reading some letters, his reading glasses on and a frown wrinkling his beautiful face.

"Morning!" Alex joined him at the table, looking voraciously at all the dished scattered on it – there were tea, coffee, ham, eggs, butter, muffins and fresh bread.

"Good morning love." Thomas put the papers aside and smiled at him. "Did you sleep well?"

"I slept too much I think, what time is it?"

"It's about nine."

"When did you get up?"

"I always raise with the sun," he winked, "even if today it's been very difficult to leave the bed."

"What a softie," Alex mocked. "Is there any ice-cream for breakfast?"

"No, and you'd better hurry cause we've to go buy some plants to decorate the house."

Alexander quickly gulped his black coffee and stuffed a whole muffin into his mouth, right in front of a very shocked Thomas, who murmured something about savages and resumed his letters in an irritated fashion.

***

"No, you can't put it there like that!"

Thomas was standing in the backyard of Monticello, in front of the greenhouse's entrance, with his long arms crossed on his chest and a concerned stare on his face. Alexander had just climbed the nearest window and was now stretching towards the door frame to put some mistletoe above the entrance.

"Shut up and help me!" Alexander hit Thomas's head with the mistletoe, leaving some leaves and berries on his hair. "You can tie it there, you giant."

"It's you who're short as a gnome, ouch –

"It seems like I'm tall enough to punch you in the guts though."

"You are a barbarian," Thomas laughed. "I shouldn't let you stay in the house, I'll have someone make some room in the stable for you."

"And again – shut up and help me tie this mistletoe with the holly up there."

"Are you making a kissing bush?" Thomas gasped dramatically. "Oh my – Alexander Hamilton, are you seeking for more excuses to kiss me?"

"As if! You'd never kiss me outside you room anyway." Alexander tried to make it sound like a joke, but his voice came out infinitely sad.

At those words, Thomas, who was having his own bit of troubles with the twine, stopped at once and looked down at him with an unreadable face. He stood like there for a minute, watching Alexander lose his fight against the mistletoe.