Island Vibes

5. rise and shine

The racket was unbelievable. I was startled awake, jolting myself into consciousness like a thousand volts had just rocketed through my system.

My bleary eyes settled on the source of the noise and I practically snarled at the idiot stood in front of me.

"Rise and shine, kiddo," Noah grinned, lowering the two saucepans he'd been clanking together at the foot of my bed.

"Get out of here," I sighed, pressing the back of my hand to my forehead as if it needed the support.

"No can do. We gotta get to work."

"What time is it?" I asked, the words coming out cracked and dry. Before he answered, I sank back down into my bed. "And why did I let you keep those keys?" I groaned.

Noah laughed warmly. "It was a bad decision, obviously," he said, twisting his wrist towards himself to glimpse his watch. "It's 7.37. I'm late, if anything," he teased, smirking at me.

"Classic Noah," I mumbled against my duvet, but I kept an eye trained on him to watch his reaction. He didn't disappoint.

His eyebrows shot up, and a slow grin spread across his lips.

He deserved the sass, I thought, since he'd left me to fend for myself at the airport.

He began to chuckle, low, almost disbelieving. "You're gonna pay for that," he said, starting to laugh properly now he'd had time to process my remark.

I was happy that I was buried under my bedding, because it meant Noah couldn't see the stupid smile he'd gotten out of me.

"Try it," I said, stifling a yawn.

He turned to put the two pans he'd chosen to frighten me awake with on top of the dresser, then reached for the bottom of my sheets. I saw it coming before it happened, and began with a panicky yelp of "No, no, wait--!" but my bedding was already whipped away, all of my snuggly cosy warmth lost forever.

Noah bundled up the sheets, his crooked smile glancing down at what I was wearing. "Cute jammies," he teased.

"Thanks," I muttered, feeling silly now I didn't have my bedding to shield me.

I was beyond glad that I hadn't been too tired to change into my pajamas before going to bed. They were made up of a striped men's style pajama shirt and a pair of matching shorts. Weather appropriate, I figured, and definitely not the most embarrassing thing I could have worn to sleep in.

I slid my feet into the flip-flops I'd left by the bed to act as a pair of slippers and padded over to Noah to grab my sheets back off him. I heaped them onto the bed once he'd relinquished them, then shoved his arm lightly.

"You're a monster, you know that?" I tutted, clucking my tongue as I shimmied around him, wandering through to get to the kitchen. "Disturbing a girl's beauty sleep? You should be ashamed."

"Ahh, c'mon, Cal!" Noah was following me, only a step or two behind. "You don't need it," he teased, stealing the bar of chocolate from the fridge as I opened it to retrieve the orange juice. He broke off a few squares and then opened the fridge again himself to slot the bar back in.

His words settled nicely around my heart, then dropped nastily into the pit of my stomach.

If it hadn't been for his girlfriend, it would've been a dreadfully cute thing for him to say. Unfortunately, he did have a girlfriend, which actually just made it kind of skeevy of him.

"You wanna say that a little louder? Maybe your girlfriend'll hear," I said, raising my eyebrows at him in judgement, like he ought to have known better.

Noah scoffed, rolling his eyes and biting off a block of chocolate. "She knows I still have a working pair of eyes. Besides, I'm loyal. It's all cool," he shrugged.

As I poured myself a glass of juice, I realised I was beginning to think his nonchalance was more annoying than attractive.

"Whatever," I grumbled, as I knocked back a good mouthful of the orange.

Mature, I reminded myself. I was going to deal with this maturely and responsibly.

"You wanna pick up some cereal bars at the store and have breakfast on the go? We have so much to do," he said, bizarrely enthused at the prospect of a ton of work being ahead of us. "It's gonna be totally awesome. Today I figured we could hammer down the floorboards - some of them are definitely sketch-" he nodded, looking at me as if I knew the first thing about floorboards, "-but I think they'll all be okay - and then I thought you could look at color schemes. Since, you know, that's kind of your domain, right? Your mom says you're like, a rockstar artist." He was grinning at me, waiting for me to gush some details back at him, but instead I just pulled a face.

"It's not even eight AM, Noah." He cocked his head at me, as if that wasn't a good enough reason for why I wasn't bouncing off the walls like he was. "Love the enthusiasm. Really. But I'm having a bowl of cereal and a shower, picking out an outfit, stopping somewhere for coffee... enjoying my morning, okay? I'll meet you at the café in, like, I don't know-- two hours. Half nine. That's a respectable time."

Noah stuck his bottom lip out at me, and I had to tear myself away from his big, sad brown eyes or else I knew I'd cave.

"I mean it, I just got here. Let me live," I groaned, sparking a little bit of playful drama into my words to try to win him over.

I still wasn't cool with his overly-friendly, overly-flirty behavior, but I needed a few extra hours just to wake up. I didn't know how he could possibly have so much energy at such an ungodly hour.

After a long moment of avoiding eye contact with him, he sighed. "Fine, you win. Just for today. Since you're new around here. But you're missing the best part of the day," he said, tapping the counter twice as he started to back away.

"Sure I am, Noah," I said, completely dryly, trying to fight the sarcastic smirk that tugged at my mouth.

"Half nine," he said, forcing a stern look onto his features that seemed completely out of place.

I took another sip of my drink and nodded emphatically, just trying to get him out and end the conversation.

"Good," he grinned. "I'm the only one who's allowed to be late around here."

He yanked the door open and stepped out into what was already glorious sunshine. I blew out a breath and set about making some cereal, hoping I'd recover soon from my unwelcome wake-up call.