Try Knocking
Sooooooo... yes, I been away from the keyboard for too long, but to be honest, I've been having the worst few weeks ever. Turns out my EX was a cheat and so my anxiety and everything else has been through the roof. Yep. So, it's been really hard, trying to motivate myself, to write a love story about two people who care deeply about each other. Thankfully, my best friend has been helping me through it and my anxiety meds are helping too.
However, my whole writing hand has swollen up, my wrist keeps swelling and its gone right into my fingers, and now it won't bend. Like I said, not exactly having the best time in my life.
Anyway, I hope you all enjoy this and I'm sorry to keep you all waiting!
"Ugh where the fuck am I?" I groaned, rubbing my eyes. I didn't have a clue where I was when I woke up that morning, but I had what felt like the worst hangover in the history of hangovers. I knew when I opened my eyes that I wasn't in my room, so God knows where I was. My mouth felt like Ghandi's flip flop and for the life of me I couldn't figure out if I'd been hit by a train 3 or 4 times or if I'd just had some really good drunk sex.
After a few minutes of laying in whomever's bed that I was in, trying to get my scrambled brain in gear and, hearing movement in the bathroom, I lifted my aching body up and leaned to the side, attempting to see around the door.
"You're awake?" Smiled Malark, as he popped his head around the bathroom door, shaving cream all over his cheeks and mouth. My lavender eyes widened, my mouth hung open in surprise, and I quickly down at my body and the hotel room floor.
Don walked into the room, wearing only his trousers, braces which are hanging by his legs, socks and his undershirt, rubbing the remainder of the shaving cream from his face and grinned at the anxious look on my face.
"Your clothes are on the chair in the corner, you slept in your shirt, yes we slept in the same bed and no nothing happened between us."
I stopped panicking and sighed with relief, as my ginger friend threw his towel into the bathroom, filling me in on the events of the nights before.
"Well, I do love my cuddles." I shrugged sheepishly, when Don had finished explaining what had happened and how I'd gotten there in the first place. He joined me, in reclining on the be, half sitting half laying, in the space next to me. He lifted his arm, so I could curl up into his side, squeezing me tight as soon as I got comfy.
"Oh well, I don't mind. Good job, huh?" he smirked.
There was a lull in the conversation, for the next twenty minutes, we just lay together, quietly, happily, in silence. I gently and rhythmically tapped my small, thin fingers on his chest, while he lay there, with his eyes shut and a smile on his face.
I got to thinking, as I lay there in the comfortable silence, had I accidentally let it slip how I felt about him while I was smashed out of my face the night before. I had to find out, in a subtle way. Then again, I was about as subtle as a flying brick.
"Hey Don?"
"Yes, Thee?" he mumbled, opening one eye, as I looked up at him, my head still on his chest.
"You know last night?" I began, propping myself up on my elbow as I looked at him, "How drunk was I?"
Don sat up and looked at me thoughtfully for a little while.
"Well, you did keep falling over... and laughing at apparently nothing."
I groaned with embarrassment, wincing as I attempted to hide my blushing face, "I did?" He nodded, as I looked up at him once more, through my fingers, while he grinned.
"I didn't do anything else did I? Didn't say anything stupid?"
"Something stupid?" he repeated, cocking his head to the side with a frown of confusion. It took him a couple of minutes, before he realised what I had meant.
"Oh, you mean did you accidentally confess your forever undying love for me that you've secretly been harbouring for months?"
I went bright red and my eyes widened in teenage crush horror, before Don burst out laughing.
"No Thee, you didn't say anything like that!"
Puffing my cheeks out and pouting my lips, I grabbed a pillow from the bed and hit him over the head with it. He laughed, holding his hands above his head, to protect himself from the soft blows.
"You dickhead!"
Don grabbed the pillow from behind his head and hit me square in the face and started to laugh as the strong yet gentle force knocked me on to my back. I pulled myself up and attempted to stand up to get the upper hand, but the red head sat up, with a laugh and grin, wrapped his arms around my waist, hoisting me up off of the bed.
"Donald G Malarkey, you put me down right this instance!" I laughed too, as I made a half arsed attempt at struggling out of his grasp.
"Yes ma'am!" he said, quickly setting me down in front of the window, mock saluting me. I rolled my eyes, with a gentle smile and turned away, looking outside of the aforementioned window.
The window was large and rectangular, because there was a fire escape attached to it. We were on the top floor of the hotel, so there was nothing to block the view of the city, save for the other, taller buildings. On the inside, was a plain net curtain, slightly yellowed because of the cigarette smoke through the years and a pair of beige curtains on the curtain rail.
I could see a lot of the city from Don's window. Mine just looked onto another builiding, but from his, I could see the city below us getting busier and busier.
"So what do you want to do today?" Malarkey asked, as he came to stand closer to me, by the window. I carried on gazing down at the increasingly bustling city, thinking of something that the two of us could do.
It took me a couple of minutes, but then I realised what he had said.
"Wait, just the two of us?" I asked him, turning the top half of my body to look at the tall red head at my shoulder.
"Yes just the two of us, is there a problem with that, my lady?"
"There's no problem with that at all." I replied, pausing to grumpily pout at him, "And don't call me my lady, you know I hate that."
My companion just laughed and took a step closer to me and the window, while I turned back to watching over the city. I stared out of the window, at the skyline, feeling Don's arm touching my shoulder, as he got closer to me, before I fixed my eyes on the fire escape that stood outside of the window, deciding that it would be a good place to watch the stars in the sky later that night.
"Well I suppose we could go and have a look around, get something to eat if we can find somewhere decent." I shrugged, tearing my glassy stare from the outside of the building and instead fixing it upon the taller, handsome red head standing by me. He was just looking down at me, when the two of us heard the doorknob turn. I was still wearing my oversized shirt, so everything was covered, but I was still a bit embarrassed when Skip walked into the room.
"Hey Malark we were gonna get..." he paused, blinking in surprise, as he saw that I was standing in the room too, and then started speaking slowly, "Some... breakfast...Uh..."
I blushed, self-conciously pulling my shirt down as far as I could to make sure everything was covered up. Glancing up, Don was also blushing, but looked a little impatient.
"You hear about knocking before coming into someone's room?"
"Yeah... next time I will... never know what I might walk into!" our friend smirked, evil glinting in his eyes.
The two of us rolled our eyes, blushing, but annoyed.
"It's not like that Skip." Don grumbled. "Now did you want something or not?"
"Yeah, me and the guys wanted to know if you wanted to grab some breakfast?"
Don shook his head, "Sorry, but we've already got plans for today."
"Oh... right... Well, enjoy your date!" he snickered, shutting the door behind him as he left.
"Well... I can't wait to hear the rumours that's going to come flying out after this!" he sighed, rubbing his face. I just laughed and shook my head, making my way over to the chair with my clothes on it.
"Right, I'm going to get ready and then we can head out!" I smiled happily at him, as I pulled on my stockings. He sat on the window ledge, watching me struggle with the button on the suspenders. I heard a soft chuckle and before I knew it, he was kneeling next to me, buttoning my suspenders for me. I watched him, quietly, my stomach and heart fluttering as his touch lingered on my skin.
Don always had the most gentlest touch I've ever felt in my life. He must have felt my soft gaze on him, because he lifted his head up and returned my gaze with one equally as caring. For a few short moments I was lost in him, and all I wanted to do was put my lips on his and taste his mouth. All of a sudden, he stood up, clearing his throat and we both awkwardly tore our gazes away from each other.
Once I had showered and freshened up, changing my clothes, I met Don in front of the hotel, on the steps. There was a huge grin that spread on his face when he saw me, in my navy blue and white polka dot swing dress with my matching blue shoes, with white gloves with little white lace cuffs. Don asked me to do a twirl and his grin grew even wider when I complied.
"Beautiful." he beamed happily, sticking out his elbow so that I could take his arm.
The two of us took a taxi to central park, and we wandered through, watching the ducks on the water, listening to a band playing, before we moved on to a small cafe, near to the entrance of the park. We watched, through the window, as the couples and service men strolled past, the two of us sipping coffee and eating doughnuts.
"Why are they in such a rush?" I pondered, my chin in my palm as I gazed out onto the street through the big glass wiindow.
"Who knows." the red head across from me shrugged, sipping his own coffee.
I turned my lavender eyes to the man sitting across from me, chin still in my hand.
"Are you alright Don?"
"Yeah, sorry, I'm just pissed off."
"Is it because of your uniform?" I asked, lowering my voice.
"I hate looking like all of the others, after all the training we've gone through."
He and I sat quietly in the cafe, until Don sighed and rubbed his clean shaven face.
"I'm complaining about not being able to be wearing my proper uniform, but you can't even wear yours at all." He sighed guiltily. I smiled and patted his hand that was on the table.
"Don't worry about it." I leaned in closer, to whisper to him, "Besides, I get an excuse to wear stuff like this."
His guilty look changed in an instance, to yet another beaming smile.
After we left the cafe, we walked along down the street, stopping on our way to Broadway, in a camera shop. I desperately wanted to buy a camera, since I'd lost almost all of my physical memories from my life before, so I wanted to have some new ones.
Malarkey insisted that he carry the package in which my camera and film resided in, as we carried on to Broadway.
There were so many shows on that evening in the cinema and theatres, we almost couldn't choose, until we found a cinema that was reshowing Dumbo, which Malark bought tickets for and while we waited for the movie to start, the pair of us decided that we'd go find a place to dance afterwards.
As the opening credits came on, I couldn't help but think about how I used to watch Disney movies with my mum, every Saturday, wrapped up in her 15 tog, kingsize quilt, with chocolates and other snacks.
I had a huge grin on my face, as all of the baby animals floated down to their parents and it wavered a little, when Dumbo's mother didn't get one, but it soon came back when Dumbo finally arrived. I curled up in my seat, fingers to my lips in near giddy happiness.
I was perfectly fine through the movie, until the scene came, where they took his mother away. It broke my heart on a normal occasion, but now that I had no mother of my own... I cried my heart out. I missed my mum. I'd been so busy with training and adjusting, that I'd had no chance to think about home. It felt like there was a part of my soul missing from me and I finally understood what it was. I never smiled for the rest of the film. It just tore me apart.
As soon as the credits began, I dashed off to the toilets, to sort my face out. My eyes were puffy, my cheeks were blotchy, mascara was under my eyes and down my face. I looked a right state.
The look on my face when I came out of the toilet to Don who was waiting in the lobby for me, said all it needed to, and the two of us got a taxi back to the hotel, neither of us saying a word.