Under the sunset, over the moon

chapter 7

~Kate's point of view~

Before Liv leaves, she asks if we could come to the kitchen at noon for a talk with all the roommates in our unit of 6. I frown and look at Max, who looks a little surprised too. "What would she want to talk about?" I ask, not expecting an answer. Max lifts his shoulders, not knowing it either. We eat our breakfast quietly. It's a very comfortable silence between us. When we're done eating, we lie down again next to each other, staring at the ceiling. I decide to break the silence, saying:"I'm sorry for falling asleep on you yesterday. I didn't mean to." He giggles at my apology. "You don't need to apologise for that, Katie! You're fine, honestly," he answers. Nobody calls me 'Katie', but I kind of like it when he says it. We sit up after a while and make our way to the kitchen, where the rest of our roommates are already seated. One of the boys has their legs on one of the chairs, leaving only one chair open. I offer Max the seat and stand next to him in the doorway. He accepts my gesture, but when he sits down, his hands grip my hipbone and pull me onto his lap, igniting little fireworks in my belly. I see the others look, but I choose to ignore it and act natural, failing miserably when Max' arms sneak around my waist. The big smile on my face that's making my cheeks hurt is way too obvious. When Liv clears her throat, everyone's attention is on her. "Okay, so I've gathered you here today because I have an important anouncement. I was asked for an exchange. It's a really big oppurtunity for me, so I took the offer. I will be exchanging with a girl from a university in Spain. I will move into her dorm and she will move into mine. She does speak English very well. The exchange will last the rest of the last semester of this year, including possible second sessions in august. I'm sorry I didn't tell you guys until now, but everyone was so busy, so I waited for the right moment to tell you all at the same time. Oh yeah, the girl I'm exchanging with is called Sofia and she's our age, that might be good to know," she explains before she tells us some other details too, like at what time she's leaving and stuff. I stand up and hug her, whispering in her ear:"I'm so happy for you, but I'm going to miss you so much! We'll call every day, though. It's only 1 hour time difference anyways." She laughs and pulls back. We decide to have a dinner with the six of us at a restaurant in the city somewhere before Liv has to leave. After that everyone goes their separate ways. Me and Max decide to go grab a coffee at a café nearby. We sit across from each other, a steaming hot mug in front of us. "I don't want to rush you into anything, but I do want to spend more time with you, because it just feels right. If you want that too, of course," Max breaks open the conversation, looking at me intently. I nod:"I agree, I don't want to rush into anything either, but it feels right to me too." We make some small talk, discussing random stuff. An hour and a half later, we decide to walk back to our dorm, since it's getting close to dinner time. 

~6 days later~

It was so much fun going out to dinner with my roommates, even though it was to say goodbye to Liv, who leaves tonight. Max and I have been hanging out nearly every day, not really taking it that slow. I love having my time off in London and not with my parents, because all my roommates stay and it's just like every school day, just with more free time and more time for each other. We really bond during those weeks of vacation, just living together and spending time together. I've also invited Thomas a few times to meet my roommates and to catch up some more. It's so fun to think back to all those good times we had when we were little. Right now, I'm cleaning up my room a little, since I just mess everything up during the semester. I step on a chair and take the boxes from the top of my closet. I start putting new stuff that I don't need in them, when I reach a box I almost had on my head a while ago. In that particular box, I see an old shoe box. I take it out and sit down on my bed, carefully opening the box and taking the picture on top. It's a picture of me and Thomas at the ice cream shop in the middle of the way between our houses. We used to meet there all the time, to the point where the guy who owned the place, Louis, gave us free ice cream sometimes. On a bench outside that ice cream shop, me and Thomas are sitting with an ice cream cone in our hands and ice cream all over our faces. We're smiling bright in the picture. It looks so cute. "Is that you and Thomas?" Max asks. He has been sitting on my bed to help me clean and make it a little more fun. "Yes. This is the ice cream place we would often meet at. The guy who owned the place, Louis, was our biggest friend and sometimes even gave us free ice cream. The place is in the middle of the way between mine and Thomas' old houses. Well, my old house and the house of Thomas' parents to this day," I explain, swiftly looking at Max before looking at the picture again. "You and Thomas seemed really close," Max proceeds. I nod, looking at him again:"We were. When I saw him again after all those years, it seems like I never left and we never lost contact at all. Our friendship is still the same, the only thing that's changed is our age. It's nice knowing that you can keep such a strong friendship alive through space and time." Max smiles. "So you were never, like, into him or something?" he asks, unvailing his motif behind his previous question. I smile and stand up, walking towards him until I'm standing in front of him. "Listen here; I don't want you to feel insecure or jealous, okay? I've never felt anyhting for Thomas and I would be surprised if I ever will, the same goes for Thomas. Of course, I'm not a magician and I don't know what the future holds, so I can't give you lifelong reassurance, but I can tell you right now, at this moment, that I don't feel anything for Thomas, never have," I reassure him, without being unrealistic. He smiles and puts his hand on my hip, pulling me onto his lap with my face in front of him. I smile as we lean in and share a kiss. I smile as I pull away. "Come on, I need to clean up this mess," I say, trying to stand up and proceed cleaning, but Max keeps his arms around me firmly, drawing circles on my skin underneath my tshirt and looking at me with a grin on his face. "Under one condition, Katie," he says playfully. I giggle at his statement:"And what would that be, Maxie?" He giggles back. He doesn't answer, instead he leans in for another kiss. My hands reach his jawline and slide to the back of his neck, interlocking my fingers. It is in this moment, that I realise that I have unavoidably, unconditionally fallen in love with Max. And I wouldn't want to have it any other way.

~The next day~

I've been awake for quite some time, because I went to bed really early yeserday. I wanted to tidy my room a little more, but Max is sleeping in my bed and he looks so peaceful and cute, I just can't wake him up. So I'm just sitting in the kitchen with all the doors closed and a book in front of me. In the background, I have my reading playlist playing the best songs for reading this genre. Yup, I have a playlist for every genre I own. I have over 140 books; mostly young adults, psychological novels and naturalistic novels. I feel like the silence distracts me sometimes while I'm reading, but the wrong music does too. So I made playlists per genre with songs that fit the genre and won't distract me. The playlists are a result of years and years of trying different songs with different novels and genres until i was left with the perfect songs for me. I finish the chapter and put the book away, standing up to make some more coffee. My phone signals that I've received a message. I look at my screen and smile when I see the name of the sender.

Thomas

Wanna go for a ride? 🏇🏼

Just like we used to

I ask him to come get me in 30 minutes and run to my room, waking Max up in the process. "What's going on?" his sleepy voice reaches my ears. I turn away from my clothes and smile at him:"Good morning. Well, Thomas asked me to go for a ride, like we used to. Well, we used to go horse riding together and I quit when i moved, but we did competitions together and everything. I had to sell my own horse when we moved and it made me really sad. but yeah, we're going horse riding and I'll be back in the afternoon. If that's okay with you, of course?" He smiles:"Of course it is, I won't keep you from something you had to miss out on for so long. Have fun! I'll make pancakes for when you return." My smile grows even wider at his statement. "Pancakes? With ice cream on top?" I ask, my eyes wide in excitement. he nods and smiles at my childish reaction. I run towards him and jump on top of him on the bed. We laugh and kiss for a little while before he goes for a shower and I get dressed.

Thomas picks me up 30 minutes later and drives us to Hyde Park Stables. He said we're going to ride through Hyde park and I'm so excited for it. We both get a copper brown horse with white around a few of their legs and a white blaze. Their names are Goldy and Felix. We brush them and then saddle them up. I enjoy the ride form start to end, I realise I miss it so much. Thomas and I reminice about all the hours we spent on the back of our horses, Beauty and Bella. We talked about our first ponies, Goofy and Pluto. We talk about our lives now, our romantic life too. Apparently, we're both seeing someone, yet it's not official.

 When I enter the dorm again two hours later, my head on cloud 9, I'm surprised to indeed find Max in the kitchen baking pancakes. Next to the stove he put a plate. He must've been baking for some time already, because on the plate is a really tall stack of pancakes. There must be more than 30 pancakes already. "Are you inviting the whole building to eat those pancakes?" I jokingly ask, startling max. His face is wearing a smile:"Of course not, these are ours. I thought we could save some to take with us tomorrow." Confusion washes over me at his statement. "Tomorrow? Where are we going tomorrow? What did I forget?" I ask him, not having a clue as to what we're doing tomorrow. "Oh, yeah, I wanted to surprise you with a picnic, but I didn't know for sure if you had something planned, so I just wanted to casually ask you if you're free tomorrow," he explains. I smile and walk towards him, pecking him on his lips. "Thank you! Yes, I am free tomorrow. I would love to go for a picnic with you," I say. "It's a date, then," he states, not realising my hopeless romantic mind starts rattling like a rattle snake when hearing that word. The rest of the evening, eating pancakes with ice cream and watching a movie, I'm fantasising about the date tomorrow.

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I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter. See you in the next one!

xxxDieuwke