Another flight, another sleepless night. I felt like a zombie by the time we landed in Boston. I was ready for a long shower and a bed to sleep the next few days away in. Once again I sat in the back of the plane and managed to go unnoticed through the terminal once I got off the plane. I sent Thea a quick text saying I landed and I was on my way to baggage claim.
After a quick trip to the bathroom I found my way to baggage claim with my duffle over one shoulder and my backpack on the other. I hope that when I find Thea she has a cart because I don't want to carry this stuff anymore.
The farther I walked into the baggage claim the more I looked around. Where's Thea? I did a quick 180 and didn't see her. Was she running late? I looked down at my phone and pulled up our message stream and didn't see any other text after I sent the one that I landed. I heard the announcement about which baggage claim was assigned to my flight and had to walk all the way down the to it as it was on the far end of the terminal.
Just as I rounded the corner to I found Thea. She is standing next to the carousel holding a small bouquet of flowers with her SPD hat on her head wearing my Salem High School sweatshirt. A large smile crawled onto my face and as the air left my lungs. She's here.
Thea smiled and started walking over to me and I dropped my bags and ran over to her almost tackling her in a hug. Thea's grip around my waist tightened as she lifted me off the ground.
"I've missed you." Thea said in my ear. Finally Thea put me back down on the ground and I just smiled at her.
"I'm really happy I'm home." I said and kissed her cheek.
"These are for you by the way." Thea said and held the flowers out for me to take. I grabbed the small bouquet of white daisy's, lavender and baby's breath that held together by some twine.
"These are beautiful thank you." I said and rubbed the back of her neck.
"You're welcome, how about we get your bags, they are starting to drop now." Thea said and nodded towards the baggage carousel that now has bags coming around.
Thea grabbed my duffle bag as I took my backpack and made our way to the carousel to find my bags. As I started pulling my guitars from the carousel Thea left me to get a cart to help us take this stuff to her car. Once I found the only large luggage I checked, I had all of the bags I left with. Thea came back with a cart and I helped her load it up.
It took us a minute to get everything into her truck but once everything was inside, Thea drove me home. With my return to Salem, Thea was placed on my detail. When I heard that, warmth rushed through me. The drive to my house was longer then I thought it would take because of rush hour traffic. By the time Thea pulled into my driveway I was almost asleep in the passenger seat.
Thea helped me take everything I brought home with me inside as I placed the flowers she got me in a vase and set it on the kitchen table. Once everything was inside, I pulled Thea upstairs with me and told her to make herself comfortable in my room while I showered. It felt so nice to get grime of the flight off me and into some fresh clothes before meeting Thea in my room.
She was on the phone as I closed my shades to only allow a little bit of sunlight inside before crawling into bed. I sent Eli a message to tell him I'm home. It was still early in the morning in LA and I doubt he would see it until much later. When I no longer heard Thea's voice I looked up from my phone to find her taking off her sweatshirt and under the sweatshirt was a tee shirt. My eyes met hers and I heard the zipper of her jeans go down. Thea quickly slipped herself out of her jeans and joined me in bed.
Once she was settled I crawled into her open arms. My head found it's home on her chest and I let out a content sigh. I could feel Thea kiss my forehead and her hand started to run up and down my spine.
"How was your trip?" She asked as I was almost asleep.
"Have you ever packed up an apartment in two days?" I asked struggling to keep my eyes open.
"No I haven't." Thea chucked.
"It was a lot of work and very little sleep. I need to nap; can you wake me up in a few hours?" I asked as my eyes closed.
"Sweet dreams Ash." I heard Thea say before I feel asleep in her arms.
What only felt like a few minutes later I heard Thea say my name. I groaned and tried to burry my head in a pillow to block it out only to realize I pressed my face deeper into Thea's chest. My left hand pressed into something soft and I opened my eyes to see I grabbed Thea's boob. I looked up and saw Thea's perfectly shaped eye brow raised.
"Trying to cop a feel?" She asked amused. It took me a second for the sleepy haze to lift from my brain to pull my hand away from her chest.
"What time is it?" I asked as I rolled off of Thea to try and rub the exhaustion from my brain.
"2:07pm to be exact, you sleep okay?" She asked.
"Yea just not enough." I said and closed my eyes.
"Hey, no more sleeping right now, you need to get up." Thea said and shook me until I opened my eyes again.
"You're so annoying you know." I said and pushed her hands off of me and sat up in bed.
"Sure I am. You know you still haven't even said thank you for picking you up." Thea said her voice dripping with sarcasm.
I looked back at her from over my shoulder and found her resting against my headboard. I turned around and crawled over to her. Thea sat up a bit more and the smirk she had on her face slowly started to fall. Being bold, I straddled her lap and wrapped my hands around the nape of her neck to pull her close to me. I could see the nerves swim in Thea's green eyes as she got closer and closer to me. Her eyes flickered to my lips and it didn't go unnoticed. I leaned in like I was going to kiss her but right at the last second I diverted my lips to the corner of her mouth and pressed my lips there. When I pulled away I moved my mouth close to her ear and scratched at the base of her neck.
"Thank you for picking me up at the airport Themis."
My chest is heaving with want as I pulled away from Thea. Before she could do anything in response, I backed away and stood from my bed. I slipped on my Salem high sweatshirt that still smells like her and a pair of socks before I left Thea still in bed. Once I left my bedroom I went to the bathroom and took a moment to collect myself. I splashed some water on my face and looked at myself in the mirror. If I'm going to do this I'm going to do this right. I splashed my face again and wiped away the water before leaving the bathroom.
With a new resolve I went downstairs to look at all the stuff I brought home with me. This is going to take a while. The first thing I did though was walked into the kitchen and started making some coffee. I'm going to need some to get through today without taking another nap. As I let the coffee brew, I grabbed my phone and sent Lindsey a text about bringing my old contracts over to her and Jack one day this week. She agreed and told me to stop by tomorrow afternoon with them as the coffee finished up.
After a few sips of the coffee warmed my body, I grabbed my backpack from the mess on the floor and returned to the kitchen table. Thoughts ran through me about the last time I was sitting here, going over the new contract with Logan and Bobby. I took another sip of my coffee and started to pull everything out of my bag. All of my important paper work I stacked in piles on the island in the kitchen while I searched for my old contracts. When I found them I stuck them to the fridge so I don't misplace them in this mess.
Just as I settled in my chair again to look over my journal I heard footsteps coming from the hallway. When I looked up I saw Thea walk into the kitchen. She didn't say anything as she walked farther into the kitchen and looked over all the papers I had on the island. I gave her a once over as she took the seat across the table from me. She's wearing one of my flannel shirts unbuttoned with just her sports bra underneath along with a pair of my shorts.
"I hope you don't mind, you kind of took my sweatshirt." Thea said and looked over the table.
"Well technically it's my sweatshirt but yea it's all good. Any chance you want to help me unpack?" I asked and flipped open the journal.
My face dropped as I read the first think written in the notebook. This is the notebook I've been writing in since my siblings past away. Everything in here is mostly unfinished and dark. I've been looking for it and wanted to take it home with me when I left LA three weeks ago but I couldn't find it before I left. Now that I have I almost wish I didn't find it.
"You okay Ashlyn." Thea asked picking up on the shift in the air.
"Yea this notebook, is just filled with a lot of emotions. After Ashley and Asher died, I poured my anger and grief into this book and I didn't realize this was that book until I read the first page." I said and took a sip of coffee before turning the pages.
Thea remained quiet as I skimmed the book. The deeper I got into the book the more just random scribblings of loss formed into song lyrics. As I finished the last of my coffee I flipped the page and found a mostly complete song titled 'Welcome to My Life'. I read the lyrics and felt like I needed my guitar. I could hear how I wanted this song to sound like and I need to capture it before it slipped.
"Can you get my laptop from upstairs please?" I asked as I grabbed the notebook from the table to rush into the living room.
I placed the notebook on the coffee table and grabbed both guitar cases and brought them over to the couch. I opened both of them up and made sure they weren't damaged on the flight over here before I picked up my acoustic guitar. Thea came into the living room and set my laptop on the table. I handed off the guitar to her as I started up my laptop.
"What are you too?" Thea asked as I set up a new project.
"There is a song I have in here that I feel the need to get out right now. Sometimes I get these rushes where I can almost hear what I want a song to sound like after I write it and I'm having one of those right now. So I'm going to play it now, I just have to get this up to record it." I said and took the guitar back from her. I found a stray pick in the bottom of the guitar case and used it to make sure the guitar was in tune before I started to play.
When I was done I hit end on the recording and sent it off to Eli to get his opinion and for him to add more to it. I put my guitar down and looked at Thea.
"So what do you think?" I asked trying to read her blank face.
"I think you should have been writing songs like that since you started music." Thea said with a smile.
"So do I."
Song on the side is Welcome to my Life by Simple Plan.