Starlight

"I crossed all the lines and I broke all the rules, but baby I broke them all for you."

- 'The Story' by Brandi Carlile

Pausing momentarily in your quest to get ready, you can't help but stand and watch her sleep. Her blonde hair is scattered across the pillow, leaving a solitary curl falling across her forehead. Her lips are parted slightly, the corners turned up, as if whatever she is dreaming about was making her smile. The t-shirt that she's wearing, your t-shirt, is slipping off her shoulder slightly, exposing her soft, perfect skin.

She stirs in her sleep and now the curl falls entirely across her face. Smiling, you can't help but bend down next to the bed and gently brush it away.

"Stop watching me sleep, perv."

You laugh slightly as she cracks open her eyes and blinks once or twice. "Where are you going?" she asks when she spots that you are fully dressed, despite it being before six.

"Some of us have to work," you tell her. "Just because you've got the day off." Part of you marvels at how everything feels so normal. You were expecting it to be awkward; after all, the memories of the previous night were still sharp in your mind.

"Oh," she says simply, and suddenly there is awkwardness. It's because you both know that as soon as one of you leaves this room, everything has to go back to how it was. That's just the way the pair of you do things.

You remember how you'd both gone out drinking with Leo the previous evening to celebrate his MBE. But then he had left early to be with Janet, who had flu and was stuck at home. So it had been just you and Nikki left with the responsibility of finishing the wine, and then the beer, and then the tequila shots. By the time either of you had had the sense to call a taxi, you'd both been completely inebriated.

You had stood in the car park, waiting, when you'd realised that you didn't want the evening to end. You didn't know at the time whether it was just the alcohol talking, but you'd ended up telling Nikki that you were glad that she wasn't seeing anyone. You meant to add 'because then we can spend more time together', but you didn't. You must have sounded insinuative though, for an argument ensued. She had asked whether you were implying she was someone who slept around, which you most definitely were not. She had asked why you never made more of an effort with her boyfriends, why you chose to drive most of them away - to which you had blurted out that you were jealous of them.

And then there had been kissing, lots and lots of kissing. Despite being drunk at the time, you know now that you will never forget the feeling of being able to kiss her like that. Your taxi had turned up and you'd succeeded in giving the driver your address. The pair of you had managed to refrain from even sitting very close to each other in the cab, but once you had unlocked the door to your apartment you were all over each other.

She had been impatient, you remember, but you had wanted your first time together to be special, so you'd forced her to slow down. She'd complained, but stopped when you had pinned her down on the sofa and kissed her. Somehow, she had managed to remove your shirt and her hands were roaming your stomach. You can still feel the shiver that had tickled your spine. You had wanted to get even, so you'd pulled her top over her head. She'd stopped at that point and looked right at you for the first time since you'd been in the pub. There had been fear in her eyes - fear and insecurity, besides the lust and something else that you hadn't dared name at the time.

So you had held her gaze and told her, very firmly, that she was everything. And something in you had known that that time it most definitely had not been the alcohol talking.

You had planted gentle kisses across her jaw and down her neck after that, not wanting to hear or see her rejection.

But a rejection hadn't come, and the next thing you were aware of was her getting to her feet and holding out her hand for you. You'd taken it, but had used it pull her flush against you so that you could kiss her again. You had really liked kissing her.

She had giggled and placed her hands on your bare chest to push you back. You'd been unable to prevent the grin that graced your lips when she took both your hands in her own and started walking backwards towards your bedroom.

The fact that you were both drunk, the fact that you were dreading the inevitable can of worms, the fact that this moment was seven years in the making; had stopped mattering. Everything had stopped mattering when she had pushed you down onto the bed and leant over you, her hair tickling your chest. The smile on her face wasn't alcohol-induced, and nor was yours.

You had lightly traced small circles with your fingers from her bare hip to the small of her back, and then lower until you had reached the belt loops on her jeans, which you had hooked your fingers into in an attempt to pull the offending garment off.

You had rolled the pair of you over so that you were in control. You had felt her own fingers fumbling with the button on your jeans and they were soon on the floor as well. And suddenly it had been just you and her, just Harry and Nikki, in nothing but your underwear on your bed.

If you had been drunk earlier in the evening, you certainly weren't then. So you had stopped kissing her. Not because you had wanted to, but because you had needed to.

She had looked confused as you had rolled off of her so that you were both lying side-by-side.

"Harry?" she had asked nervously.

"We can't do this," you had explained. "We're drunk, and you know neither of us makes very good decisions when we're drunk."

"But-" she had began, before you had interrupted.

"I don't want us making a mistake, Nikki. We'd pretend like it was all okay in the morning, but it wouldn't be. The awkwardness would drive us apart, and I do not want that."

You had been staring at the ceiling, determined not to look at her, when she had propped herself up on one elbow right next to your head, making looking at her unavoidable.

She had placed a gentle hand on your chest and said, "If we both want it then it's not a mistake, is it?"

"Nikki, this is you and me," you had explained, turning your head slightly to look at her. "You're not just a one-night stand. When this happens, when you and I happen, I don't want it to be because alcohol made us do it, or because our anger at one another turned into passion."

Her eyes were sparkling by that point, and you had known you'd made the right decision.

"You're too much of a gentleman for your own good, sometimes," she had half-laughed.

"I know I am," you had replied with a smile. And so you had given her one of your t-shirts and the pair of you had climbed under the covers and, wrapped in each other's arms, had gone to sleep.

And now here you were. You can feel her eyes on you as you continue getting ready. The awkward silence presses against your skull. But then it strikes you that you don't know why you're getting ready to leave, when leave is the last thing you want to do. You stop and press your palms onto the top of your chest of drawers. You've got your back to her, yet that doesn't stop you hearing her say, "Harry?" in the exact nervous tone as the night before.

Slowly, you turn around to face her. She's gazing at you imploringly.

"I just can't believe we actually did it," you tell her, leaning against the drawers in a casual way that you hoped wouldn't convey just how apprehensive you felt.

"But we didn't though, did we?" she smirked. It strikes you just how beautiful she is, sitting there in your t-shirt with her bed-hair and slightly flushed cheeks.

You shake your head. "That's not what I meant."

"So what did you mean?" she asks quietly, now deadly serious.

"We went there. We did it. We acknowledged what we've been denying for years; that there's something between us that's very non-platonic."

"There is?" she asks, but you both know the answer to that question.

You simply scoff at her, before pushing yourself off of the drawers and walking over to the edge of the bed.

She started fiddling with the corner of the duvet. "When you didn't ... do anything, last night, I thought perhaps you didn't want, well, me..."

"What?" you exclaim, sitting on top of the covers beside her. Gently, you tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. "Of course I wanted you! How could I not, you're ... you're Nikki."

A faint smile graces her lips. "'Wanted'? Past tense?"

You grin. "Want."

"We're both sober now," she points out. "No more alcohol-induced bad decisions."

Leaning over, you press your lips firmly against hers. You've never been particularly eloquent when it came to talking about your emotions, so you figure that a kiss will have to do.

You break apart after only a couple of seconds, and the bashful smile on her face is enough to convince you that it really was better than any words.

"I suggest we pick up where we left off last night," she mutters, placing her hands on your shoulders.

"Hang on," you grin, climbing off the bed.

"Where are you going?" she frowns.

You take your mobile phone from the bedside table. "I need to ring Leo. I can't possibly go to work today, I'm pretty sure I'm coming down with something."

She giggles as you make the call, occasionally laughing at your strategically-placed coughing. When you finished, her grin turned into a gentle smile. She outstretched her hands to you just as she had done the night before. You took them and allowed her to tug you down onto the bed.

"I love kissing you," you whisper against her lips.

"Good," she says, her hands tangled in your hair. "Because it's not going to stop anytime soon."

I literally wrote this in an hour on my commute to college this morning, so I do apologise for the slight crappiness of it. ;)

xxx