I woke up in the morning to a shaking sensation. I had no idea what it was, for a second I actually thought I was experiencing an earthquake.
Slowly I let myself open my eyes, looking over at the boy next to me who was bright red. At that moment I realized he was laughing, but trying not to make any noise!
“Whaaa?” I asked, groggily trying to sit up.
“Shhh… listen…” he said, pulling me back towards him.
I shut my mouth and laid back in the bed, listening as Aston had told me to.
At first I heard nothing, just a flitting about in the hallway, then my mum’s voice, “Where has she got to? Do you think she snuck out? Oh god, what is going on with her these days? It's like she's gone off on some horrific bender! I mean she got deported from America! Deported!!! My little baby....”
I looked up to see Aston’s eyes sparkling with laughter over the fact that my mother actually couldn’t find me in my room and therefore thought I was some sort of delinquent.
“Darling really!” shouted my Dad from downstairs. “That boy’s car is still parked out front, she is probably in the basement or the guest room somewhere with him!”
My eyes went wide at this, my dad had it spot on. Would my mum actually come bursting in the room right now? Was a bit awkward wasn’t it? At least we were fully clothed…
Before I could think about it any further, the door burst open and my mum came bustling into the room, “Jessica darling?” she said. Just as she did this I tried to pull away from Aston so it wasn’t super awkward, but he decided at the same moment to pull me towards him, so we ended up in this weird wrestling position.
“Morning Mum,” I mumbled as I tried to undo Aston’s hands from around my waist.
“Oh hi!” she said awkwardly, clocking that we did in fact have company.
“Morning Mrs. Rego,” said Aston sweetly from behind me.
“Hi Aston,” she smiled awkwardly before adding, “Would the pair of you like a fry up?”
“Yes please,” said Aston fervently. I only managed a head nod before my mum awkwardly left the room.
“Oh my god, that was so embarrassing,” I laughed, turning in Aston’s arms so that I was facing him. I looked up at him, my breath catching in the back of my throat as he pressed his lips softly against mine.
“Morning,” he whispered.
“Hi…” I replied. “I can’t believe you just let me be all awkward like that,” I added, giving him a slight smack on the arm.
“Why was that awkward?” he asked, running his hand through my hair.
“Trust me, I’m going to get the inquisition now. Has your Mum ever walked in on you and a girl?”
“No…” he said quietly.
“Just wait,” I said, before finally untangling his hands from my frame and climbing out of bed. “Am gonna brush my teeth, meet you in the kitchen in a few babe.”
“Ok,” he smiled, laying back on the pillow and looking up at the ceiling. I stared at him for a minute. I still couldn’t believe what he’d said to me the day before. All of it.
I wandered down the hall back to my room to grab a dressing gown and then I went into the bathroom to quickly clean my teeth. I took a deep breath before going down the stairs to the kitchen, preparing myself for the onslaught of questions from my mum.
“Hey,” I said to her, grabbing two mugs down from the cupboard and grabbing the water boiler.
“Have a good evening?” my mum said with a wink.
“It was nice,” I said.
“That all?” she asked, a hint of laughter on her voice.
“Mummm! Stop!” I whined turning to her.
“Just a bit curious about how you ended up in our guest room with a boy!” my mum smirked at me while tending to breakfast.
“It just happened that we got home from dinner rather late and I offered to let him stay here instead of driving all the way down to London last night,” I said.
“Yeah, but how did you end up in the guest room?” I felt my cheeks turn bright red as she pointed a spatula at me. I just shrugged my shoulders as I got busy with the coffee. “Are you two together?” she blurted out, just as I watched Aston approach the kitchen out of the corner of my eye. My face was actually burning at this point.
“While that depends on what Jess wants,” said Aston cheekily, leaning against the doorframe. I shoot him daggers at this, I was not having this conversation in front of my parents!
“Well Jess obviously wants to be with you,” said my Mum with a laugh.
“What??” I asked incredulously.
“Look at you, I have never seen you so red in my life,” my Mum said teasing me.
“Well then we’re together,” said Aston with a smile. I scowled at him, but pretty quickly it turned into a little smile.
I ushered him into a chair at the table in the kitchen, passing him a cup of coffee and leaning down so my lips were near his ear, “For the record, I do want to be together,” I whispered.
“Good,” he smiled as I sat next down next to him, his hand immediately moving under the table to squeeze my own, a little smile playing on his face. “So Jess and I were talking about her moving down to London,” he said.
I stared at him wide eyed, mouthing ‘what are you doing?’ to him.
“Really,” said my Dad, coming into the kitchen with a newspaper and taking a seat at the table.
“Yeah, I’ve got a spare room at my place and it might help her with finding a job if she is actually in the city. Told her she could stay as long as needed, its no bother.”
“Really? That’s very kind of you Aston,” smiled my mum as she placed plates down in front of all of us and then took her own seat at the table. “When are you moving down Jess?”
“Who said I agreed to that?” I asked. I could feel the three of them ganging up on me. They had practically just assumed that I was ‘with’ Aston, and now they were basically bullying me into moving in with him. What was this?
“Darling, you know that you’ll do it,” said my Mum with a knowing look on her face.
“But…” I started.
“Might as well not beat around the bush,” added my Dad.
I just turned to look at Aston who had the most playful look on his face. Without even hiding it I swatted his arm. “You are trouble,” I said. "All three of you are!"
“So when are you moving in then?” he asked me with a smirk.
I needed to turn the tables on this whole conversation, I couldn’t let them win! I took a slow bite of food and appeared to ponder the question for a moment before setting my work down and replying with a smile, “Today.” To my side I heard Aston pretty much choke on his food. I just smiled to my parents and continued on with the meal.