"You know, worrying isn't going to make anything better." His thin arms snaked around her slender frame. "If they want to come back to you, they'll come back. If they don't, well..." He paused, leaning over slightly so that he could look into her eyes. "You'll always have me."
The bottle blonde took a deep breath, not completely sure how to respond to Caleb's words. She didn't want her friends to avoid her forever; she knew that her most recent change of attitude was something that would take quite a bit of getting used to, but it wasn't anything to ruin a friendship over.
"What if they never come back?" she asked, biting her lip tentatively. "It's not like I can just move on, Caleb. The girls and I... We've been through so much together. Too much together."
The male cupped her cheek with his smooth palms. "Han, I'm here for you. You don't need them."
A soft smile spread across Hanna's cheeks, just wide enough to expose her dimples. "I love you." She leaned up and pressed her lips against his. A few moments passed before he pulled away. "I like you, but just a little bit," the male responded, burying his head in the crook of her neck and peppering her skin with kisses, much to her pleasure.
"Ouch!" She exclaimed, sarcasm in her voice. Caleb's kisses seized. "Okay, so I have a huge crush on you, but you're not supposed to know." A throating chuckle emerged from the male's diaphragm. Hanna raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?"
The male's kisses resumed as his lips found their ways from her neck to the spot between her jawline and her ear; one of the most sensitive spots on the female's body. He knew that. He knew all of her weaknesses.
His affectionate gesture was interrupted when Hanna's ringtone began to play. The sound startled him, and it didn't help that she had the volume turned up to the maximum setting. Hanna, on the other hand, found herself on the floor. The female scrambled to get up and reached for her phone, quickly glancing at the the caller ID before answering the call.
"Mom?"
"Hanna, where are you?"
Hanna looked up at Caleb, who had found the remote and was now flipping through the TV channels. She waited for the boy to make eye contact with her again, and mouthed the words, I'll be right back, when he did.
The female rose from the hardwood floor and walked into the kitchen, pulling the divider slightly to give her self at least a semblance of privacy. Caleb's place was small; a single-bedroom apartment in the heart of Rosewood. Hanna helped him pick it out, but in hindsight, she knew she could've helped him find something better.
"Young lady, do you know what time it is?" her mother continued. The older woman was livid. Hanna could tell that much. The teen glanced at the clock on the wall; eight thirty. She was supposed to be home for dinner at eight.
"No, what time is it?"
There was an exasperated sigh on the other end. Hanna didn't know why her mother was so upset. It was just a dinner. They ate dinner every night. The only difference between tonight and any other night was that she wasn't there and Tom and Ali were. With all her heart, Hanna wished the pastor would ask about her, so that her mother would have to explain the faults in her parenting. The way she threw her own daughter under the bus to save a troubled teen whose disrespectful attitude had caused several problems for the woman and her daughter, and the way her daughter grew a pair and decided she wasn't going to sit down and subject herself to that negativity. She had been through too much in the past four years to take something like that sitting down.
"Eight thirty... One. Hanna, you know how important tonight is."
Hanna rolled her eyes, knowing her mother couldn't see her to chide her for her disrespect. "It's just a dinner. You can eat without me. Just give Ali the food you'd give me. You've never seemed to have a problem taking from your child to give to someone else."
The female paced on the cold linoleum floor, waiting for her mother to come up with a decent response. She knew the woman wasn't used to getting backtalk from her daughter (frankly, she didn't care), so she could understand why it took her so long to muster up a decent comeback.
"Just come home, alright? I'm sharing some food out for you right now."
The blonde ran the slender fingers on her free hand through her blonde locks. She didn't want to go home. Not when she could easily stay with her boyfriend instead.
"Yeah, whatever."
She hung up before her mother could protest and silenced her phone. It's not like anyone else was going to call her anyway. Aria was too wrapped up in her mother's wedding plans to pay attention to her, Spencer had overachiever things to do, and Emily... Emily was just as bad as Allison.
"That was brutal," she sighed, settling down on the couch again and snuggling up to her boyfriend.
"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked, pulling him close and turning the TV down; a sign that she now had his undivided attention.
She shook her head. "No," she said simply. "But I think a sleepover might be in order. You don't mind me staying here over night, do you?"
He shook his head, pressing a soft kiss to her cheek. "Hanna Marin, I would be honoured." There was a sarcastic undertone in his voice, but he meant well.
"Thank you!" She returned the kiss, but directed her lips towards his mouth instead.
Ten o'clock. If Hanna checked her phone, she would've seen thirty missed calls from her mother and a text from Aria, who was unsure of the history assignment. But she wasn't checking her phone. Instead, she was busy changing into one of Caleb's night shirts.
She had a preference. There was one shirt of Caleb's that she liked the most; the souvenir shirt that his mother had sent him from her home in California. It was the softest of all the shirts he possessed, and possibly one of the warmest. Caleb knew she loved it, which is why he always set it aside for her. Just in case she decided she wanted to sleep over like she did tonight.
The male exited the bathroom, his day clothes gone. In their place were a pair of plaid pajama pants and not much else. He was never one to sleep with a shirt on. Hanna didn't mind. She would rather cuddle up to her boyfriend's shirtless torso than she would to a teeshirt. A layer of covering that prevented her from getting close to his heart.
She approached him, embracing him tightly and standing on her tip toes to press her lips against his. He, in turn, wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her even closer to him. One way or another, they ended up falling backwards onto the floor. She pulled away and laughed, her cheeks turning red and her eyes watering. He laughed too, however his laugh was more out of embarrassment than amusement.
She got up and dusted herself off, and then reached down to help him up. "Sorry," she said, still giggling.
He bit his lip before doing something she wasn't quite expecting. He bent down, grabbing the girl by her legs and hoisting her over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.
"Hey, what are you doing?!" she shrieked, throwing weak punches at his bare back from her upside down position.
"Having fun," he replied, parading around the room with her still over his shoulder. He knew he was going to have to let her down soon, but now wasn't the time. For now, he was going to have some fun.
"Ca-leb!" she whined, her punches not yet ceasing.
"Alright, alright," he said, walking over to her bed and throwing her onto it. "You're no fun."
She pouted playfully. "I'm loads of fun."
He grinned, shaking his head. "Nope, I don't think so."
The female crawled up to the top of the bed and found an opening in the lazily spread covers, almost immediately burying herself in the warmth of the blankets. He crawled up to meet her, but paused once he was directly above her.
"You're going to sleep already?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
"It's been a long day," she replied, shrugging her shoulders. It didn't help that she spent most of the day trying to get her friends to hear her out.
"Okay," he replied, slightly annoyed with her for wanting to end their fun so early. However he chose not to convey that feeling to her. He didn't want to come off as a jerk.
"Come on, I want to cuddle with you," she told him, extending the opening in the blanket for him to come join her.
He nodded and laid under the blankets with her, allowing her to cuddle up to him as he wrapped his arm around his torso. Within twenty minutes, she was fast asleep and drooling on his chest, and his eyes found themselves close to closing as well. He pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead, so as not to awaken her from her slumber, and closed his eyes, almost immediately drifting off.