Helena couldn't remember the last time she'd felt this hungover. She opened her eyes slowly and glared at the stained wine glasses and three empty bottles on the table.
"Oh, God, why did you let me drink all that?" Helena grumbled to no one in particular, assuming Hunnigan was still asleep.
"I was about to ask you the same thing. Christ, what were we thinking?" Hunnigan asked and Helena almost jumped out of her skin at her voice. She realized they were both lying on the couch, Hunnigan on her back and Helena resting ontop of her, her head still on Hunnigan's chest. Helena scampered up way too quickly and lost her balance when a wave of dizzyness washed over her.
"Whoa," she groaned, unable to stop herself from falling off the couch.
"You okay?" Hunnigan chuckled weakly.
"Yeah, I like the floor, it's nice and cold..."
"You drool in your sleep," Hunnigan then said after glancing at the front of her shirt and noticing the wet patch where Helena's mouth had rested on earlier.
"Sorry."
"I am going to take a shower, there's another bathroom upstairs if you need it... I'll be back in a bit," Hunnigan then said and began to get up. Helena nodded, moving her arm over her eyes as she lied on the floor and blew out a breath.
Oh, boy, she thought and pushed herself up slowly. She leaned her back against the couch and brought her hands up to rub her forehead with her fingers and massage her temples with her thumbs in a poor attempt at getting rid of the feeling of having a metal band tightening around her head. It wasn't really working.
Did I say or do something stupid? she pondered silently then as she tried to remember. She'd talked about her parents and Deborah and admitted to missing them... She'd gotten Hunnigan to open up a little bit more about Alexis and how complicated their relationship had actually been... She'd drunkely texted Leon something stupid which had seemed funny at the time... And then...
We watched The Simpsons-marathon that was on, but did we cuddle before passing out or did we just pass out on each other? Helena frowned. The latter, it had to be. Her phone made a noise and she grabbed it.
I take it someone had fun last night, Leon responded to the message Helena had sent to him at two in the morning. The message, which read "i bet you did't know that the sipoer bowl jad nothng to owith botlwing".
I did and in my drunken state, when I could barely even function, I thought of you so much I had to send that message. You should be flattered, she typed back and chuckled a little before putting the phone away and exhaling deeply.
Frankly, she would've wanted to ask Leon why he hadn't told her that Hunnigan's ex was woman... but, realistically, why would he have said anything if he'd even known? He couldn't have had any idea that Helena could've used that information.
Few things compared to the desperation and sadness that came with developing feelings for someone you knew you could never have. For a while it could be fun and exciting to have a little crush on someone, get a little giddy and tingly when thinking of them, but not letting it disturb too much even if it wouldn't have a chance of developing into more. Crushes were one thing, and a crush it had been for half a year or so since she'd... seen Hunnigan for the first time. Not literally, of course, they'd met many times before, but that day things had changed.
It had been one of those cliché movie-moments in which the nerdy girl takes her glasses off and lets her hair down, runs her hand through it in slow motion, revealing the sexy woman hidden underneath the geeky shell. Helena was the first to admit it was rather shallow thinking that way, but in her defense, that had been just the beginning. Little by little she'd begun noticing details she hadn't before, finding even the mundane tiny things suddenly oddly attractive (but only on Hunnigan, someone else using the same mannerisms or having similar details about their looks didn't faze Helena at all).
Helena had worked really hard to keep the crush from growing beyond being just that, a crush. She had no desire to willingly put her heart through the grinder it would have to go through if she did something as stupid as actually fall in love with the woman who obviously was way out of her reach. But now the fire was beginning to light with the spark of hope she'd gotten the moment she'd heard that Alexis was a woman.
Of course, there were no guarantees that Hunnigan would ever consider Helena her type even if she did prefer women, but knowing that she actually had a chance to even try and that it could work was enough for Helena, she allowed herself to think about it, deciding the risk was finally worth taking because knowing what she knew now, she might actually not get burned... too badly anyway.
Now I just gotta try and figure out how she'd feel about it... and how badly she's still reeling from the divorce, because I don't fully believe her when she said she's not pining over Alexis...
"Phew, that helped a little," Hunnigan commented when she returned to the living room, dressed in a white T-shirt and dark blue jeans, the hem of the shirt tucked into the jeans, tightening the fabric over Hunnigan's chest and even though the shirt wasn't the see-through kind of white, Helena became all too aware of the fact that the other woman wasn't wearing a bra.
"Do you want something to eat?" Hunnigan then inquired, completely oblivious to Helena's musings.
"Uh, yeah. But I wanna make it, so you just... sit back and relax, and let me take care of you," Helena offered then and stood up, deciding to grab the empty bottles and take them into the trash while she was at it.
"You don't have to..."
"Yes, I do, because you seriously suck at taking care of yourself... and because you've never had pancakes á la Helena Harper, and until you have, you haven't lived," she smirked and Hunnigan chuckled.
"Well, since you insist," she muttered with a smile, went to grab her laptop and sat at the kitchen table then. Helena quirked an eyebrow at the other woman who was already lost in thought, her fingers fox trotting over the keys as she became more and more oblivious to her surroundings, immersing herself in her work. A while later, once Helena had finished making the food, she poured them coffee, grabbed the milk from the fridge and finally knocked on the laptop's lid to get Hunnigan's attention once everything was set on the table.
"Thanks," Hunnigan said and put the computer away.
"You're welcome," Helena nodded and sat down.
"You weren't joking, these really are better than the usual pancakes, what do you put in these?" Hunnigan then asked after tasting her breakfast.
"Cinnamon and vanilla sugar... and a pinch of ginger and cardamom. I also took the liberty of spiking the coffee with cardamom too. Great for chilly September mornings like this, yes?" Helena smiled and sipped the spiced hot beverage.
"Yes, totally. It's never even occurred to me to try that, I'll have to remember this in the future," Hunnigan nodded as she ate.
"I'll happily remind you if need be," Helena promised and Hunnigan chuckled.
"God, I can't even remember the last time I just sat down to have breakfast like this. Usually I just grab my coffee and go," she then said.
"I can't believe you, neglecting yourself like that, skipping the most important meal of the day," Helena scolded.
"Actually, the importance of breakfast has been greatly exaggerated, it's just a meal like any other meal and skipping it won't affect your life in any way... and that is a studied fact," Hunnigan said, wrapping both her hands around the mug and raising her eyebrows, managing to look rather smug, confident and credible... until the steam rising from the mug fogged her glasses.
