20. Lie in
He lay there in silence, white sheets pooled around his waist as he propped himself up on his elbow. Lying on his side, chin leaning on his fist, he looked down with a sleepy satisfied smile at the body curled up next to him.
Long Blonde hair was splayed across the pillow in frenzied, silky locks. It was rare for her to have her hair down; but it suited her. If anything it brought out her natural beauty. This was one of those occasions that Brit finally saw her without her radical eye make-up or rainbow colours in her hair. Today she was not the crazy, loud and opinionated Scot that most of the Heartbreak knew and loved, or got irritated by. Today she was Meat, the sensitive, young and slightly vulnerable girl that he had fallen in love with all those years ago, the girl who relied on him and supported him. Today she was his. If anything, seeing her hair down and laid out on the pillow made her seem younger, and made him remember the youthfulness that her eyes held on the day they met. Somewhere her eyes still held that, it may have been masked by their hard life at the Heartbreak and the maturity she had to grow into. But it was still there somewhere, like a musty volume sitting at the back of a bookshelf.
Travelling down her body with his gaze he saw her hands fisted and clutching his free hand to her chest in a bundle of bed-linen. He smiled as he thought about what she would say to him if he raised the issue of her holding onto his hand like a child. He was sure her answer would be something along the lines of 'complete bollocks' and that she didn't need him to be able to do anything. Brit knew that publicly, with one flutter of her eyelashes she could do anything she wanted. He also knew that she hated it. She hated her reputation as a flirt, someone that held everyone under her thumb, someone manipulative. She hated how her subtle playfulness was sometimes mistaken for lust or power within calculated movements. But Brit knew she would do nothing to shake that reputation, as it was the one thing that made her untouchable, for if you removed the layers of legend and falseness that were built up around Meat like the wall of a fortress, you would see someone who just wanted to be loved and admired and to have the family life that she should have had in the first place. Only Brit saw the other side of her. The side that sometimes cried into the pillow in their room until he came in to see her in such a state, then she would cry into his chest instead. Or the side that sometimes yelled out in her sleep because she'd had a nightmare about her past. The side that she wanted to forget, the side that made her feel human, her emotional side.
It was after one of those really long, sleepless nights of just talking about the things that really mattered to them that Brit realised he had to do something special, to try and erase some of the pain that had been rearing up out of the deep depths of her memory. Last night he'd decided to take her to a cheap hotel, away from the Heartbreak and the bohemians and the week of sleepless nights. They checked in under a false name, in long black coats to hide their clothes, it wasn't much good, but a flash of a thick leather wallet silenced the hotel staff who gathered around them like vultures with fixed smiles with little meaning; hoping they would be heavily tipped. Of course, they had no intention of paying for anything.
It had been years since they'd slept in a bed, Brit mused. At the Heartbreak they relied purely in what they could steal; and mattresses were never put above food and music on the priority list, they were normally too heavy to carry if they found one anyway. So for eight years they slept on a bundle of flat cushions and moth-eaten blankets on the floor of their room; the only warmth and comfort available they took from each other.
A peaceful smile crept onto Meat's face as the uncurtained windows allowed the early morning sun to creep into the room, bathing her skin in dim sunlight. Her eyes fluttered slightly and she rolled onto her back to gaze sleepily up at him. He smiled, moving his head so he could run his thumb in small circles on her bare skin.
"Morning Gorgeous." He whispered, grinning widely at her. Meat looked around, taking in the small, walled room before laughing softly, eyes shining and pulling him down for a kiss.
They were both content for now. Even in the knowledge that it wouldn't be long before they would have to slip out of the back entrance of the hotel without a trace; and back into the Heartbreak before the bohemians noticed they were missing. Brit smiled to himself as he ran his fingers through his girlfriend's loose hair, that it had all been worth it. It was the best lie-in they had both had in a very long time.