The next morning, Heather felt the bright morning sunlight gleam through her windows and she sleepily rolled around on her bed, reaching her arms out to lean against Alejandro's body and snuggle in his chest.
She froze when she realized he wasn't in the bed next to her and her eyes snapped wide open.
The next moment, she immediately breathed a sigh of relief when she heard the sound of water running from the bathroom - he must be taking a shower.
Heather yawned and stretched her arms. She realized she was pretty thirsty, and that this would probably be a good time to go downstairs and pour herself a glass of water.
She got up from her bed and then scanned her bedroom...something about it seemed different. The next moment, a tiny smile formed on her lips as she saw Alejandro's white shirt and suit jacket scattered on the floor, along with the dress she had worn to last night's awards ceremony.
Heather started humming - a rare occurrence - as she jogged down the stairs in her pyjama shirt and shorts. Once she reached the kitchen she suddenly heard the sound of the front door unlocking and she stopped in her tracks.
The door slowly opened, revealing Courtney.
"Court? What are you doing here?" Heather let out a laugh.
"Heath, I also live here, remember?" Courtney replied. "I've only been away for one night, surely you haven't forgotten me already?"
"I know!" Heather laughed again as she played around with the ends of her hair. "I just thought you wouldn't be back from Duncan's place until Monday."
Courtney was about to open her mouth to speak again when she suddenly heard the voice of a man.
"Heather? Are you on the phone with someone?" Alejandro gently asked as he slowly walked down the stairs; he was shirtless, with only a towel wrapped around his waist.
Courtney's eyes widened and she instantly gasped at the sight of Alejandro, whilst Heather felt a blush forming on her cheeks. Courtney then turned to look back at Heather, her mouth still agape. She wanted to say something, but for some reason, no words came out and she simply stood there like a statue, whilst continuing to flick her gaze between Heather and Alejandro.
The room remained utterly silent for the next few moments, aside from the sound of the clock ticking.
"Uh, I'll just be upstairs," Alejandro awkwardly said, breaking the silence, as he scratched his hair and started walking back up the stairs upon noticing Heather and Courtney's expressions.
"Wait!" Heather blurted out. Alejandro turned back around.
"Court, this is my boyfriend, Alejandro," Heather confidently said a moment later as she walked over to grab Alejandro's hand and instantly felt his fingers intertwine with her's. "Alejandro, this is Courtney, my best friend and housemate."
"Nice to meet you, Courtney." Alejandro gave Courtney a polite smile.
Courtney gasped and she finally managed to find her words. "Oh my gosh, boyfriend? Heath?! Welcome to the club, I feel like a proud mom! You're going to have to give me all the details later!" Courtney squealed as she pulled Heather into a hug. Heather let out a laugh at her best friend's reaction and hugged her back.
Courtney then turned to look at Alejandro. "Also, if you do anything to hurt her, know that you'll be dealing with me," she firmly said.
"Court," Heather groaned. "Give him a break."
"It's alright," Alejandro let out a chuckle as he held Heather's hand again. "And I want to reassure you that I absolutely have no intention of doing anything that would hurt Heather the slightest," he added firmly and without any hesitation as he turned to look Courtney in the eye.
Courtney studied him carefully and acknowledged him with a nod. One thing about Courtney was that she was good at studying other people's expressions, and picking out liars - perhaps a perk of her job. She could tell Alejandro looked sincere and genuine.
"I only came back to quickly grab some stuff," Courtney winked at Heather. "Don't worry, I'll leave you two lovebirds alone. Oh, and Alejandro, don't take what I just said too seriously, it's more of a habit from my job," she turned around to face him again. "Nice to meet you, too."
"Courtney works as an attorney," Heather quickly added, and Alejandro simply nodded.
"Well, I'll see you both around," Courtney smirked as she picked up a bag from the lounge room, and then made her way back outside, gently closing the door behind her.
Once Courtney left, Heather and Alejandro turned to look at each other. The both of them then let out a laugh at the exact same time, before Alejandro leaned over and kissed Heather on the lips.
"Good morning, mi amor," he whispered, leaving a rosy pink blush on her cheeks all over again.
***
Heather sat on her bed, still in her pyjama shirt and shorts as she played on her phone and scrolled through her social media apps. Alejandro was downstairs, doing something...what did he say he was doing again?
Moments later, she heard Alejandro's footsteps come closer and she immediately put her phone down on her bedside table.
"Breakfast is served for mi reina," Alejandro smiled as he waltzed inside Heather's bedroom, still shirtless with the same towel wrapped around his waist.
Heather could only keep her focus and eyes on the sight of his bare, perfectly tanned chest and defined abs.
"That does look pretty delicious," she smirked and sighed dreamily.
"I put maple syrup too," Alejandro added as he continued to walk closer.
"Wait, what? Why would you put maple syrup on your body?" Heather absentmindedly blurted out and then she immediately froze when she realized what she had said. The next moment, her face turned a beetroot red.
If there was an award for 'lovestruck idiot' at last night's ceremony, I would've won that for sure, she thought as she internally facepalmed herself.
"Qué?" Alejandro was confused for a moment as he stood there in her room and then a smirk plastered across his face as soon as he noticed Heather's flushed expression.
"Ah, so I was referring to these pancakes I made, but it looks like you were thinking of a different kind of breakfast..." Alejandro smirked as he inched closer to her and carefully placed a plate of pancakes on Heather's bedside table.
"Shut up jerk," Heather muttered as she folded her arms and glanced down at the floor, her face still bright red.
"You do know that sentence sounds so cute and sexy coming out of your mouth, right?" Alejandro teased as he sat down on the bed next to her.
"Shut up jerk," Heather repeated playfully as she spun back around to face Alejandro. "Shut mmph—"
This time, Heather was promptly cut off as Alejandro stuffed a piece of pancake in her mouth.
Heather's eyes widened as she chewed. "Oh my god, this is actually so good!" she exclaimed.
Alejandro beamed with pride. "I'm glad," he smiled at her.
Heather picked up the plate and started eating the rest of the pancakes, feeling pure bliss and happiness all over her body, and still soaking in the fact that she could now call Alejandro her boyfriend. And probably her personal chef now too. Two in one, what a package deal, she thought to herself and smirked.
Her eyes then suddenly widened again. "Would you like some too?" she asked with a mouthful. Alejandro smiled and opened his mouth as Heather carefully cut another piece of her pancake and put it in his mouth.
"Mmm," Alejandro nodded in agreement as he ate his food. "I do agree, my cooking skills are indeed quite spectacular."
Heather let out a tiny giggle, before playfully tugging his arm as they sat on her bed together.
"So how about that other breakfast?" Alejandro smirked once they had both finished their food.
Heather pretended to be deep in thought. "Well, I guess I probably still have room for a little dessert," she eventually replied in a shy but also teasing voice.
Alejandro smiled. He then snaked his hands around Heather's frame as he started placing gentle kisses on her lips tenderly. He felt Heather reciprocating the contact as she ever so gently and lovingly pressed her soft lips against his, all whilst teasing and playing with his brown hair.
Admittedly, Alejandro was always quite particular about his hair looked, but when it came to Heather, he didn't mind at all if she was messing his hair up; he loved all and any trace of her.
Just then, Heather's phone started ringing loudly, startling the both of them.
"Don't answer it," Alejandro groaned.
"I don't want to," Heather muttered.
Alejandro began gradually trailing kisses to her jawline. But unfortunately, the ringing didn't stop and it was clearly distracting the both of them.
"Hang on, this is too annoying, I'm going to turn it off," Heather groaned as she leaned over to grab her phone.
Her eyes widened when she saw who the caller was - it was Cody.
"Why is Cody calling me on a weekend?" Heather rolled her eyes.
"Maybe it's an urgent work matter? Pick it up if you need to, mi ángel," Alejandro gently said as he stroked her back.
Heather sighed in exasperation as she proceeded to press the 'answer' button on her phone. "For his sake, it better be," she muttered.
"Cody, it's 9 AM on a Saturday, can this not wait until Monday?" Heather snapped the next moment as she spoke into her phone.
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line.
"Cody, are you still alive? Did someone kidnap you? Do I need to call 911?" Heather impatiently said.
"Heather? Can you hear me?" Cody eventually whispered.
"Why are you whispering?" Heather grumbled.
"Sierra— Sierra's outside my house, she— she's been knocking on the door non-stop for the past forty minutes as well as spamming my number with love heart emojis and I have no idea how she found out my address or my number," Cody stuttered.
"Ok, that was so not worth stopping what I was doing just then," Heather muttered as she turned around to look at Alejandro. He teasingly blew her a kiss and she giggled and pulled a face, before pushing him playfully.
"And this has anything to do with me because?" Heather demanded into her phone as she turned back around.
"I started thinking about how she could possibly have obtained both my address and my number, and then it hit me. Or rather, the timing hit me. I realized it was the universe's way of punishing me, for not owning up to my conscience, my values, my beliefs, my morals and my ethics..." Cody nervously ranted.
Heather couldn't believe her ears and that she was wasting her precious time and Saturday morning listening to this, when she could be clearly doing something else.
"Cody, if you have nothing else important to say, I'm going to hang up right—"
"That day Alejandro came into the office after the magazine photoshoot, I saw Nathan come out of the surveillance room!" Cody blurted out.
Heather's eyes instantly widened. "What? Why did you lie that day then when Nathan said you were his alibi?" she hissed.
"I wanted to tell the truth, but Nathan threatened me," Cody gulped. "He said that if I said anything to anyone, he would fire me and hurt me and—" his voice trailed off.
Heather bit her lip, unsure what to say as she felt a pang of guilt stab her stomach. She felt Alejandro lovingly put an arm around her and she turned around and gave him a tiny smile.
"Heather? Are you still there?" Cody asked on the other line.
"Cody, thanks for speaking up about it," Heather eventually said. "Look, don't worry about Nathan and Sierra. Also, you do know that you can block people on your phone right?"
"Well, yes, but, I don't know. I guess I don't necessarily want to block her," Cody sighed. "Since you're her boss, would it be possible for you to just ask her to leave, but like, kind of in a nice way, if you know what I mean?"
Heather rolled her eyes. "You got it," she replied and then hung up.
The next moment, she proceeded to send Sierra a text: Sierra, Cody told me to tell you to stop lurking outside his house like a creep. K, thx, bye.
She sighed and then switched her phone to silent, before tossing it on her bedside table.
"Is everything alright, mi ángel?" Alejandro asked in a concerned voice.
"So Sierra, my secretary, who you would've met at the photoshoot has this huge crush on Cody, which by the way, our whole entire office knows about, and she was stalking him outside his house just then." Heather rolled her eyes and then bit her lip.
"But that's not the important part," Heather swallowed and then continued. "Cody confessed that he saw Nathan come out of the surveillance room that day after the photo shoot."
She saw Alejandro's eyes widen and instantly felt the guilt in her stomach again. "Alejandro, I'm sorry for even doubting you for a second—" Heather looked down.
"Hey, don't apologize, none of this is your fault. It was such a delicate and difficult situation and I understand how conflicted you would've felt that day," Alejandro gently rubbed her back.
"And besides, you didn't need Cody to convince you," he gently reminded her. "We're together now, and that's all that matters."
"I know," Heather sighed. "It's just that I feel so bad and stupid for not putting everything together earlier about how Nathan framed you that day." She shook her head.
Alejandro kissed her lips lovingly.
"We'll worry about Nathan later," Alejandro said as he put his arm around her back. "Right now, how about we focus on just us?" he added with a smirk on his face.
"That does sound like a plan," Heather let out a small smile.
"No more distractions," Alejandro agreed as he let out a smirk.
"Mmm, no more distractions," Heather murmured as she instinctively wrapped her arms around his body and allowed his delicious scent and cologne to infiltrate her nostrils.
And then the next thing she felt was Alejandro's lips pressing gently against hers, as she crashed down on her bed, with Alejandro following after her.
--
A/N - *cries in single* - that's it, that's the author's note.
I think this chapter might be another one of my personal faves; I love writing more dramatic chapters (like chapter 15), but I also always have so much fun writing light-hearted scenes like this one :)
I'm excited for you guys to see what's next in store for Aleheather!
Comment / hit that star button if you think they're cute together ;)
Thank you for reading!