Spotlight |h.s|

Thirty

"Uh, isn't it a little early?" I rub my eyes with my fingers.

What kind of freak am I? Why was I just staring at her like that?

"It's noon. Did you just wake up or something?"

"Yeah. Give me a minute to wake up. I'll meet you at your place in an hour." I tell him so I can prevent a very awkward encounter between him and Aubrey.

"But I was already on my way to your building." He pouts.

"So get food or something and go back to yours. I'll be there soon." I shake my head.

"Whatever." I can sense him rolling his eyes without seeing him before he hangs up on me.

I sit my phone down on the coffee table, Aubrey just looking at me as I sit up and put my feet on the floor. She slightly furrows her brows so her face forms a questioning look, me grasping that she wants to know who I was on the phone with.

"Louis." I give her a short one-word explanation.

"He's not coming here, is he?"

"Not anymore." I ease the nerves I saw spike within her at his mention.

She nods and stretches in her spot in an attempt to wake herself up, yawning and covering her mouth with one of her hands as she does so. She sits up, pushing the pillow to the side of her so it isn't covering her body anymore. All of her actions are very groggy, probably from a mixture of the slight hangover she has to have and the fact that she slept curled up on my couch.

She then tiredly rubs her eyes, forgetting she has makeup on and making the black more prominent beneath her waterline. She notices the stains on her fingers when she pulls them away, eyes widening.

"Do I have makeup all over my face?" She looks at me.

"A little, yeah." I downplay the amount as a joke.

She stands and reaches into her purse, pulling out her phone and sifting through the black bag. When she doesn't find whatever she wanted, she throws her head back with a disappointed groan.

"Of course I would take the makeup wipes out when I ended up needing them." She talks to herself with a head shake.

She then opens her phone to her camera, switching it to the front one so she can see her face and bursting out laughing at the sight. She moves her head around to see the blackness beneath her eyes at all angles, observing it and probably thinking of how she's supposed to get it off.

"I have Clorox wipes." I suggest in an attempt to help.

Why do I want to help her in the first place?

She pauses and brings her eyes away from her phone screen to look at me, waiting for me to say something else with an expectant look. When I hold up my hands in surrender without any more words, she chuckles at me.

"You were being serious just then?" She gives me an incredulous look.

"It was just a suggestion." I shrug in defense.

"You think I can put the shit in Clorox wipes on my face?" She stays with her eyes widened.

"I don't know how that shit works. I tried. Forget I said it." I cross my arms a bit defensively.

"You think all of those harsh chemicals could go on my beautiful soft face?" She points at it, her finger moving in a circle around the whole thing as I roll my eyes.

"Well what's in makeup wipe then?" I raise my brows to test her

She pauses, trying to conjure up the answer in her head before saying, "...Less harsh chemicals."