When I woke up, I had no idea how I'd gotten into this bed. I could feel Troye's arms around me and some of the panic faded but I still needed to know where I was. The last thing I remember properly is dancing at a nightclub in Perth with Troye, the two of us celebrating our reunion.
"Troye?" I asked, gently shaking his arm.
"Five more minutes..." He mumbled, rolling away from me.
"Troye." I tried again and this time, he woke up, looking at me.
"What? I was sleeping."
"Where are we?" He frowned.
"In LA. We got here a few hours ago. Don't you remember the flight and the cab ride from the airport?"
"No. It's all a blur."
"Wow. You were really drunk. How much did you have to drink?" I thought back, trying to remember.
"I don't know. I lost count when we started doing shots."
"You did shots. I stopped drinking before that. But I did watch you. There were a lot of shots taken by you."
"Oh god." I hung my head. My first time getting drunk and I'd gone way overboard. "I'm guessing I wasn't much of a plane companion?"
"Not really. We talked a little, mostly about being back together. At one point we were discussing whether to officially announce it because of all the tweets and stuff." He grinned. "We managed to sneak in a few little make-out sessions too."
"I don't remember any of it."
"I'm not surprised, actually. You were really out of it for a while. I had to practically drag you up to the room when we got here."
"Sorry."
"It's okay. I'm taking it as punishment for what I said to you on the flight from Rome."
"You don't have to do that. I've already forgiven you."
"I know." He touched my cheek gently. "But I still feel like I need to make it up to you."
"Well, I think you can tick that box after looking after me with my hangover."
"How do you feel now?"
"Actually, pretty great. I think it's pretty much gone." Troye's tablet beeped in across the room, signalling a Skype message. Troye let go of me and climbed out of the bed.
"Sorry. It's probably Emma. I kind of ditched her to stay up here with you."
"Okay." I watched a smile spread across his face as he typed something back to whoever it was. "Was it Emma?"
"Shh." Now I was curious so I got up and crossed the room to stand behind him, peering over his shoulder.
"Connor!"
"Put a shirt on, man."
"Good to see you, Con."
"Why do you look like you've been hit by a bus, Connor?"
A whole flurry of comments hit my ears as the screen suddenly became filled with the faces of all our friends. I looked down at myself to see that, indeed, I wasn't wearing a shirt.
"When did my shirt come off?" I asked Troye who shrugged.
"I don't know. You were wearing one when I fell asleep. You must have taken it off at some point."
"Okay, ew. TMI guys." Niomi leaned forward,covering her ears with her hands and laughing.
"No, we weren't..." Troye scrambled to cover up the idea but Zoe beat him to it.
"You really think they were doing that? Come on guys. Connor looks like hell and Troye looks about to fall asleep at any second."
"Why do you look like hell, Con?" Jim asked.
"Um, I may have gone slightly overboard at a nightclub in Perth." I said, feeling my face heat up. The boys in the video began to laugh and I hung my head.
"Leave him alone you lot." Tanya scolded them, to no prevail.
"So are we right in assuming you two have stored out whatever issues you were having?" Zoe asked. Troye turned to look at me, clearly asking if I was okay with telling our friends. I nodded slightly.
"We have. That's kind of why we went clubbing in Perth." He told them
"But we haven't officially confirmed anything yet. So don't say anything." I spoke up as I walked over to my suitcase.
"What was that?" Alfie asked.
"Don't say anything about us being back together until we do." Troye replied, shaking his head. "Was there a reason you guys called?"
"We wanted to hear the truth from you guys. We saw all those tweets about you but you were on the plane so we couldn't ask."
"On the plane and hungover." I mumbled, making Troye burst into laughter.
"What? What's so funny?" Joe wanted to know. I made eyes at Troye, begging him not to say anything.
"Nothing. Connor was pulling faces at me."
"Thanks." I mouthed to him.
"Oh hush. You know what that's for." He pretended to scold me.
"Um, guys? We're still here. We can hear your flirting." Kayla said.
"We're not." I leaned over the top of the screen so they could see me.
"You kind of were." Caspar pointed out. "Hey, aren't you guys supposed to be on a tour bus? You look like you're in a hotel."
"That's because we are in a hotel." Troye began. I waved my hand at him until he looked up.
"I'm going to shower." I mouthed and he nodded.
"We're staying here for one night until the bus gets here tomorrow..." His voice faded as I shut the door of the bathroom. My head still felt a little cloudy and my skin felt sticky so I hoped a shower would help.
--------------------
"Where are you?" I called when I finally left the bathroom to find Troye nowhere in sight.
"In here!" His voice was muffled and I turned around, trying to pinpoint where it had come from.
"Where?"
"Here." I turned to see him sticking his head out from what I assumed was the walk in wardrobe.
"What are you doing in there?" I asked, laughing.
"It's a secret. You can't come in."
"Please? I won't tell."
"No. It's for you so you have to stay out there." There was something in his voice that I couldn't quite pin-point.
"Okay. What am I supposed to do? I wanted to spend some time with you."
"Connor, be quiet, I'm concentrating." I laughed but did as asked, puling out my laptop to edit some photos from Perth and sat on the bed waiting. On my desktop, I had two folders for photos from tour. Nice photos I'd taken the time to edit and would eventually put in a scrapbook. And other random photos of me and Troye throughout Europe. I was kind of disappointed that there were none from Australia but I figured we could always go back again one day.
"Con, I'm coming out now." I'd finished about ten photos by the time I heard Troye call out.
"I thought you already did that." I called back, teasing.
"Ha ha. Funny." He opened the door and walked into the room.
"So do I get my surprise?"
"No. Not yet." He used his hands to bounce onto the bed beside me "The others said bye, by the way."
"Oh, yeah." I tilted the laptop so he could see what I was doing.
"I'm actually sad we don't have any Australia photos together."
"Me too. But we can go back there one day, right?"
"Definitely. But right now, we're in LA and I seem to remember you telling me you wanted to spend time with me..." He pulled my laptop away from me, putting it on the table beside the bed.
"What are you...?" I was cut off when he pressed his lips to mine, climbing onto my lap and tangling his fingers in my hair. Realising what he wanted, I wrapped my arms around him, pulling him closer to me as I kissed him back.
"I missed you." He muttered against my lips.
"Mm. I missed you too." I started trailing kisses along his jaw line as he pushed me down onto the bed. "I love you."
"Love you too." I let my fingers dance along the bare skin of his back, his shirt riding up a little as we made out. "I don't ever want to be apart from you again."
"Me either."
"I'm serious." He pulled back and looked at me. I whined, wanting to keep kissing him.
"No. Come back." My efforts to pull him back down were in vain.
"Con, I'm actually serious. I don't ever want to be apart from you. Even when you go to college."
"I go to college?" His choice of words struck me and I frowned. "I thought we were going together." He bit his lip, his eyes not meeting mine.
"Um..."
"Troye?" I pushed him off me and sat up. "What do you mean 'um'? What aren't you telling me?"
"I was going to tell you in Sydney, I swear. But then after our fight, it didn't seem relevant."
"What's not relevant?" He sat up and took hold of my hands.
"I've decided I'm not going to college." I opened my mouth to protest but he silenced me with a look. "It's just, I'm happy with my career and where it's going and I just think that if I put it on hold any more than it already is...I just don't want to be one of those has-been teenage pop stars."
"But what about everything we talked about? Sharing an apartment off campus together, sneaking little coffee dates in between classes?"
"We can still do that, I promise. I just won't actually be going to classes. I'll be working in the studio and with the label and stuff."
"When did you decide this?"
"To be honest, ever since my career took off, I've been toying with the idea of not going to college. But when this tour started, I realised just how well everything was going and, well, it just kind of seemed like the right thing to do." His eyes searched my face as I let what he'd said sink in. "Connor?"
"What?"
"Say something."
"Like what?"
"Anything."
"I just, it's a lot to take in. We've been talking about going to college together for months and now you're dropping it on me that you're not even going?"
"Con, we can still do everything we talked about. The only difference is I won't be studying. I'll be working."
"You promise?"
"I do." I had to laugh at his choice of words.
"We're not getting married." When he flinched a little I frowned. "What?"
"Talking about marriage is what got us into trouble before. I'm sorry, it was just a reflex."
"Oh. Right, yeah. I didn't even think about that."
"It's okay. We should be able to talk about anything. It shouldn't bother me, talking about marriage."
"No, but it's okay. I understand your reaction." I pulled him close, letting him bury his head in my neck.
"I just have to try not to jump to conclusions straight away."
"Yeah. That sounds like a good plan." I kissed his head, laughing.
"I'm not just a pretty face." He whispered, mimicking what I'd said to him so long ago.