"You can't use that for the base, Everett. There is no structural integrity."
He was arranging the sofa cushions into two teetering piles. They were small and round, the satiny material making it too slippery to stack.
"It doesn't need structure, it's a pillow fort!" He tossed a blanket over the pile, collapsing it instantly.
"Just use the sofa back as a foundation,
you don't need to build one."
"But then where is the moral integrity?"
I picked up a cushion and threw it at him. Everett laughed, ducking behind the beanbag. A moment later he was armed with a huge pillow. My eyes widened just as he swung it at me, knocking me to the ground. I rolled behind the pile of cushions, stacking a few more to make a barricade.
"Hey." A soft whisper sounded against my ear, sending a shiver down my neck.
I glanced over to see Everett at my side. "How did you get in here?"
He tapped at the pillow wall. "Your barricade is flimsy."
I leaned against the sofa back, grabbing a few more cushions to build the other side. Everett pulled a blanket over it when I was done. It was midnight blue with stars and moons. I stared up at the makeshift sky. The overhead lights filtered through the stars, making them glow. They reflected in Everett's starry eyes. His hair was blue under the light, curls falling over his face.
"Your hair is messy," I whispered, brushing a stray curl off to the side. Another fell in its place.
He sighed. "You can't fix it."
"I like it."
I twisted a silky lock around my finger, bringing it to my lips. Everett shifted closer to me, his long lashes brushing feather light over my cheek as he blinked. His breath was warm against my face, heating me to the core. His hair was still wrapped around my fingers and my thoughts were getting away from me. I tried to stop imagining all the places his pretty head of hair could be.
Everett looped his arms around my neck. "Are you having dirty thoughts?"
I gave out a sudden laugh which sounded forced even to my ears. "No, why would you ask that?"
"You're going red like a tomato." He grinned teasingly, moved closer till our foreheads touched.
"I am not red," I protested, even as I felt my face heating up more.
He brushed a finger across my cheek. "Hm, mhm. Must be allergies." He smiled. "My bad."
Before I could think up a witty response, his lips were on mine, pushing all coherent thought away. My mind floundered, unable to string a sentence together. All I could think of was how soft Everett's curls were against my cheek and how he smelled of burnt caramel. His hands cupped my face, thumb brushing over my fast beating pulse. My heart fell out of rhythm as his fingers traced down my neck.
The air was getting hot inside the fort, breaths getting shorter and more rapid. He leaned into me, his body pressed against mine, sharp collarbone digging into my chest. He dragged his mouth down to my neck and started working back up to my ear. I bit down hard on my bottom lip as I felt his tongue run over my skin. I think he had realized that was my weak spot by now.
Everett pushed me back into the pile of cushions. My elbow knocked into the pillow wall and the entire structure collapsed around us. The makeshift roof floated down until the stars and moons blanketed us both.
"You see what I mean," he muttered against my ear. "Flimsy."
"Y-you pushed me into it." I exhaled lightly, batting the thick blanket away.
"Did I?" Everett shifted his weight to his knees, seemingly to allow me space to breathe. Unfortunately, his knees were right over my vital organs.
I groaned. "I think those were my kidneys."
"Oh, sorry!"
"It's fine, I'm...used to it."
"Used to- to what?" He scrambled into a crosslegged position, lightly kicking me in the process.
"The pain you cause me."
Everett tried to huff but burst out laughing instead. I whacked him with a pillow and he wrestled it out of my grasp. Giving up on the fort, I collapsed on the beanbag instead, pulling him onto me.
"Hey do you want some Christmas cake?" he asked after a while.
"It's November."
"It's wintertime! I think it might start snowing soon. Maybe even today," he added conspiratorially.
"It snowed a bit in the morning, just before I left the house."
Everett gasped. "And you didn't think to tell me? It was the first snow of the season!" He pouted. "I missed it."
"It wasn't a proper snow," I quickly amended. "Barely a few flakes really."
"Okay then, I guess it doesn't count." Everett beamed. "Let me go grab the tray."
"Tray?"
"I haven't cut it yet."
I trailed behind him to the kitchen. The counters were laden with stacks and stacks of trays, all filled to brim with Christmas cake.
"Gonna start selling these soon at the cafe," he explained, pulling a tray out from the bottom. Like a horrifying—frankly Godless—version of Jenga. "But this batch is for us."
I threw myself at the counter, catching the topmost two trays before they crashed to the ground. "Wait, by this batch do you mean...."
"Yup, that's the one." Everett winked. "It turned out good, see." He held it out to me.
The cake was quite literally liquid. It was like crumbled up bits of cake in a sea of a alcohol. Red and green cherries floated around on the surface, so big and bloated that they looked like they were going to burst. The smell alone was close to making me feel lightheaded.
"God, Everett. That reeks."