Chapter Twenty-six
Veronica
“You’re such a big baby when you’re hungover,” I teased Caleb. He was in his bed, wrapped in a heavy white duvet with a fat gray pillow on top of his face, groaning and moaning in pain.
I’d woken up this morning in his bed, wrapped in his arms. That was the second time I’d slept beside him, and I realized that it felt…good. Really good.
The feel of his warm, hard body behind mine was getting familiar.
Caleb loved to spoon, I thought with a smile as I sat beside him gently. He groaned as my
weight disturbed the bed.
“You stink, Caleb.”
He made a noncommittal sound.
“Please sit up so you can take this aspirin.”
“Why are you screaming at me, Red?” he moaned, his voice muffled by the pillow. He didn’t move.
“I’m not screaming.” I couldn’t help smiling. After the awkwardness of yesterday, it felt really good to be back to normal. “Do you know the cure for a hangover?”
He grunted.
“Stay drunk,” I answered.
This time, he moved the pillow so that one green eye looked at me with amusement. “Did you just make a joke?” He sounded like he was laughing at me.
I felt myself blushing. The only time I’d made a joke, and he had to make me self-conscious about it. He could have faked a laugh. I never told jokes, and this was why. This was so embarrassing!
He started laughing silently. Not at my joke, but at me.
“Ah! You’re being a jerk.” I pushed the pillow into his face and stood, making sure that the bed shook a lot.
“Ow. Ow. Ow. Why you so mean to me, Red?”
I smirked. He deserved that! When his moans subsided, he just lay there like the dead. Not moving, not talking.
Oh no. I shouldn’t have done that. But he was teasing me…and I had just reacted. I felt bad.
“I got you orange juice,” I said. Nothing. “I’m going to work. Make sure you take the aspirin.” He didn’t respond. “Caleb?”
Still nothing. He must have fallen back asleep. His arm was covering his eyes, the pillow having fallen away from his face. The light must have been bothering him, so I closed the drapes silently. I didn’t want to wake him up.
I hadn’t really been in his room before. It had pretty much the same layout as my room, only bigger. And messier—not dirty, just messy. An oversize chair he’d been using as a catchall for his clothes and little knickknacks sat nearby. Textbooks were thrown haphazardly on the floor, as if he’d opened them and decided they weren’t worth his attention. He had a bad habit of leaving a trail of clothes on the floor, but I noticed that his DVDs and CDs were stacked neatly on his computer table.
We hadn’t watched a movie together yet. That was on his list, I thought, smiling like a lunatic. Our list.
He was already snoring, so I mustered the courage to lean down and place a kiss on his cheek.
What is he doing to me?
“Feel better, Caleb. I’ll see you later,” I whispered.
I was about to leave when my eye caught something on his desk. It was a small black box with the lid slightly open and a neon-green Post-it Note hanging off it. I probably shouldn’t have snooped, but I wondered if it was…
I turned around to check if he was awake. He was still snoring softly. I opened the box silently, and my heart jumped when I saw a stack of the Post-it Notes I had stuck to the fridge for him.