27| Ashes & Dashes
WHEN I woke up and Tyler's hand was still in mine, there was a warm and fuzzy feeling inside of me, and the sun shining through the windows radiated even more warmth into my heart. Tyler looked calm, serene while he slept. I didn't want to stop holding his hand and sitting on the ground beside him (which was surprisingly comfortable), but I was craving coffee and breakfast. On the coffee table, I clicked my phone and saw that it was almost 2 in the afternoon. It made sense that we had woken up so late considering how late we ended up getting to sleep, but I couldn't remember the last time I'd woken up later than 9.
I gently slipped my hand out of Tyler's, and his felt limp at the side of the couch while I stood up. My stomach rumbled a little as I walked into the kitchen to start making breakfast, and this morning, I was feeling like making an egg scramble. Eggs, potatoes, some sausage, some vegetables, cheese, all the works. I got things going along with a pot of coffee, and turned on some quiet music to try not to disturb Tyler. Even if he was asleep, I poured him another mug of coffee and took out some aspirin, ready for when he woke up. The hearty breakfast would help his probable hangover, too.
"Smells like heaven," Tyler's voice mumbled from the couch. My eyes gazed over to where he lay, and he groggily stood up from the couch, stretching his arms over his head and groaning loudly. His tired eyes met mine, and he smiled a hint of a smile before walking over to the kitchen, yawning.
"I hope you like eggs and a bunch of random shit," I said.
"I love eggs and a bunch of random shit," he confirmed, sitting down at one of the bar stools. He rubbed his tired eyes. "Hey, did I try to seduce you last night?"
I chuckled. "A little bit."
"And I suppose I failed?"
You wouldn't have failed if you weren't drunk out of your mind...
I wasn't bold enough to say something like that out loud, though. So instead I said, "You had 11 beers." It was pretty self-explanatory.
Tyler nodded. "Jesus, 11. All I remember is playing a couple rounds of beer pong, kicking Charles' ass, and then the rest is a blur of beer bottles and loud music. I barely remember coming here."
"You were pretty gone," I said, ignoring the dip in my heart when he admitted not remembering coming here.
"I remember kissing you, though. That's always extremely vivid."
The dip was gone, and the normal sense of happiness returned completely, more pronounced this time. So he remembered kissing me. And that felt ... really nice.
"And was there a ... a Hallmark Christmas movie on?" Tyler asked.
"Oh yeah, well, you couldn't sleep right away, so I turned on the TV. It was already on the Hallmark Channel," I said, scrambling the eggs.
Tyler chuckled, then took a sip of coffee, downing the aspirin at the same time. "You know it's literally August, right? We were watching a Christmas movie."
"It was Ashes & Dashes, a certified Hallmark Christmas classic!" I exclaimed in defense of the best channel to ever exist. "It's about two people who don't just find true love, they heal from their past traumas over the Christmas holiday. They do it together. It's so freaking cute. I cry every time."
"Ashes & Dashes? Why on earth is called that?"
"Well, I'll have to show it to you another time since you were too drunk to remember. But let's just say there are ashes because of the past traumas, and there are dashes because one of the main characters is too afraid of letting things go and giving their all to the relationship," I explained. "It's also an incredibly play-on-words for 'dashing through the snow'."
"You're very passionate about your Hallmark movies. I find it adorable," Tyler said. "Sorry I got dumped on you last night. And did you sleep on the floor?"
"You didn't want to be alone. And then when you fell asleep, I was too tired to get up."
"Fucking hell, you're so nice," Tyler muttered. "You took care of me, stayed with me, now you're making me breakfast and giving me coffee. You're basically my dad. Except in that case, everything else we've done would be incredibly incestuous, which is gross, so I'll actually never call you that again."
"Sounds good to me," I said, ignoring the burn in my cheeks. I turned around and got out 2 plates, piling them full of the scramble I made, and handing one over to Tyler, who instantly dug in.
"I guess we said we'd make plans to hang out today, anyway. So it's kind of convenient I'm here," Tyler said. "And it's nice to see you. I feel like I don't see you enough. I haven't met my Clay-quota. Not like there is one. I don't think there is. I don't see how anyone could reach a quota with you."
My heart fluttered and I stopped eating completely, my eyes fixated on Tyler. The fluttering sensation didn't stop, and it had just kept getting more pronounced since Tyler woke up. Really, since I'd woken up with his hand in mine. But my mind was stuck on one thing...
How could he say so many nice things about me in no more than 15 minutes? The continuous compliments, him telling me that I was nice, that I was doing a lot for him, were all melting up my heart and making the flutters go even more ... well, fluttery, I guess. I couldn't even eat right now because they were so intense, and oh no. I was a goner. I was totally a goner. Tyler Hamilton had squeezed his way right into the special crevice of my heart, and he was still trying to get further in there. The worst part was that I was going to let him.
It was bad because I knew I was falling for him, and when I fell, I fell hard and very fast and very, very seriously. Falling for someone had never been a small ordeal for me. When I fell for Gracie, it happened in the span of a few days. It was like each time I saw her, even if we were just walking past each other in the hallway, or even if I literally saw her car on the road, those fluttering feelings would grow more and more, and the falling period would just shorten.
I knew I'd officially entered the falling period last night. Not because anything particularly spectacular or incredible happened. Just because ... there was something so nice, so intimate about caring for Tyler, holding his hand until he fell asleep, and sleeping beside him, even if I was on a different level.
Falling for Tyler wasn't inherently a bad thing. Because I loved love and the prospect of loving someone. But it was scary. And I didn't know where Tyler stood. But then again, I'd fallen for Gracie years before we even started dating. It seemed I was always falling for people who were on a completely different timeline than me. Tyler could have been anywhere, and I had no clue. I could have, should have asked him where we were, where he saw us, where we were even headed. But I was too afraid to ask and ruin the moment.
I went back to eating my breakfast, glancing up at Tyler every so often and smiling, a warm feeling overcoming me entirely.
I gave myself the internal warning to brace myself, but I knew I'd have to tell someone about this. Whenever Tyler left today, I would need to blurt out the fact that I was falling for Tyler Hamilton because holding it in was like trying to do the chubby bunny challenge with the biggest marshmallows ever. It wouldn't be long before I would have to give up and spit everything out.
✿✿✿
I am going to explode, I am going to explode, I am so so so going to explode.
That was pretty much my entire thought process as I drove through the late afternoon Atlanta traffic, leaving Tyler's apartment after dropping him off and heading towards Logan and Noah's. There were a couple of problems that were causing my jittery attitude and inability to sit still.
For one, I'd spent the entire day with Tyler at my apartment. We were lazing around the apartment watching some movies after breakfast, and we both fell asleep for a couple of hours. Then, we ended up walking around downtown Atlanta for a little. I showed Tyler my favorite little antique shop right in the heart of town, and everything just happened so quickly because of how nice it was. All I really knew was that Tyler's hand had been in mine every time we walked outside, his smile lit up the cloudy day it had been, and every part of him was so fucking wonderful.
And then the other problem was how Tyler kissed me when I dropped him off. I pulled in front of his building and offered to walk him up, but he said he was okay. And I also offered like 5 times just to be really sure he was okay, and he laughed and shook his head, squeezed my hand and assured me that it would be more of a pain in the ass for me to walk him up to his apartment and deal with the minute-long elevator ride to the 25th floor.
Anyway. That's not the point. The point is that when I pulled up to the front of his building and parked for a second to say goodbye, he leaned his entire body over in my direction, gently grabbed my collar, and kissed me. But it wasn't like a rough or demanding kiss, or like anything remotely hungry, if you can describe a kiss as hungry ... His lips pressed against mine in the softest way I'd ever experienced. Softer than the times Gracie had kissed me just once before a volleyball game, or when I was leaving her house on the doorstep. Tyler hand curled into the collar of my shirt, and his lips molded against mine like it was the easiest thing. It felt like, I don't know ... a thousand marshmallows. Yes, I was going back to the marshmallows. Just like kissing Tyler was a mix of a bunch of different hot chocolate variations, it was like the soft, barely rough, and incredibly sweet marshmallows on top. And god dammit, I was going to explode in this traffic!
I was no more than a few minutes away from Noah and Logan's apartment, but the stubborn city traffic was absolutely killing me. The traffic didn't want me to vent, it wanted me to sit in terrible, terrible silence and relive the kiss over and over and over again. Relive the warmth of his lips, the tug of his hand on my shirt, the way he smiled when he pulled away, and how my name sounded when it came out of his mouth as he said goodbye.
I couldn't do this anymore.
I was going to combust.
Instead of being patient with the traffic, I pulled a maneuver to get in the furthest right lane so I was able to park my car on the side of the road. It was a pretty shitty parallel parking job on my part, but I was desperate and going insane.
I got out of the car and I ran. I didn't even walk. I ran. And running wasn't really all that fun, and I wasn't very good at it either (as established by the time I ran from Tyler and he totally caught up with me like it was nothing). I was just in need of exploding everything that was circling in my mind to either Logan or Noah, whoever I saw first.
I sprinted into their apartment building and pressed the elevator button at least 10 times before it opened. I knew that jabbing the button a bunch wasn't actually going to speed up the process, but I had a lot of built-up adrenaline from my impromptu run, and my finger didn't want to stop jabbing.
When I finally made it to their door, I think I knocked relentlessly until the door finally opened and I spit everything out in one, long breath:
"IthinkImfallingforTylerwhichmeansthatImthinkingaboutbathandbodyworksandyouknowthatmeansthisisseriousandImnotjokingandpleasehelp."
Of course, I'd been expecting some response from Noah or Logan when I spit that out. But neither of them had opened the door. It was Hunter. She looked up at me, eyebrows raised, mouth agape.
Um ... oops?
"Porkchop's here!" Hunter yelled, then ran away from the front door in a rush before I could say anything.
I walked inside and shut the door, met by Noah who appeared in the entryway, smiling but also looking surprised, which added up. I hadn't exactly announced my arrival before driving, well, running over.
"Hey Clay," Noah said. "You alright? I heard a long jumble of words just then, which leads me to believe somethings up."
I sighed. "I ... I'm having some sort of ... dilemma."
"Okay..." Noah drawled, eyebrows furrowed. "Do you want to explain your sort of dilemma? Logan's at work late, but I'm around. Ive got 2 perfectly working ears and some of Hunter's favorite apple juice. As long as you don't tell her, of course."
I nodded and followed Noah further inside. I sat down on the couch, fiddling with my hands. Noah came in a minute later with a couple of juice boxes and a plate full of crackers and peanut butter. He knew me too well.
"Alright. First of all, your face is sweaty," Noah observed.
I stabbed the straw into the top of the juice box and took a quick sip. "I ran here from 5th street."
Noah's eyes widened. "Excuse me? You don't run. None of us do. We're volleyball players. We despise running."
"I know. But there was just so much traffic and I was literally about to explode and not even One Direction was going to make me not explode," I explained. "I had to pull over and run here from 5th before I like, died or something."
"And your dilemma. That's why you were going to explode?" he asked and I nodded. "Alright, let's hear about it then. I'm all ears."
I sighed. "I ... am falling for Tyler Hamilton. Maybe. Sort of. Definitely?" I groaned and dropped my head into my hands. "Who am I kidding? Ive entered the falling stage, and I'm probably going to be head-over-heels in love within the next week, which means I've been thinking about—"
Noah interrupted, "Bath & Body works?"
See? He knew me too well. I nodded.
"That's a big step for you. Bath & Body works is serious," Noah said.
"I know. Candles are sacred in relationships, and it's the next big step in any serious, really important relationship," I said, shaking my head and sitting up again. "And that's exactly the issue. We're not even dating. Not technically."
"But you are, basically. Right?"
I sat up more, craning my body in Noah's direction. "Are we? Does it ... does it seem like that?"
"God, I can't tell you that, PC. I could only give you the opinion from an outsiders perspective," Noah said. "I've seen you two interact. I know the way that you look at him, and the way that he looks at you. Like you're this wonderful person, which you are. I know that Tyler sees that about you. It's obvious that he's into you. Honestly, Clay, I don't see why you two aren't together officially."
I looked away. "That's what I was afraid of. Because I feel like that, too, even though sometimes I still can't believe he actually likes me," I admitted. "I just don't know ... I don't know where we stand. I think that we could be, you know, boyfriends or whatever. I think both of us would probably like it, maybe definitely a lot. But we're in this grey area still where I don't know if Tyler is like ... ready to be with me like that. And here I am, falling yet again. How stupid is that?"
"You're not stupid, Clay." Noah scooted closer, touching my shoulder. "And falling for someone isn't stupid either. You know how stupid I felt when I started falling for Logan? It was so dumb to me because I thought we'd never work. Yet, here we are. It's not ever dumb to fall for someone because of how they make you feel."
"I know you're right. It's not even just how he makes me feel, it's the fact that I want to constantly make him feel good. I want to be there for him, and I know that there are still things I don't really know about Tyler, but I'd like to. Because I just care, so much."
"You always care. Again, it's not a bad thing," Noah said, squeezing my shoulder while I drank the rest of the tiny juice box. "If you care about him as much as you say you do, then I don't need to tell you what to do, or give you advice you may be seeking. Because I know you. You're set on your emotions, you know what you're feeling, and you know where you stand with Tyler. Which means that you know what you need to do, and that's talk to him. Find out where he stands with you."
"I just ... don't want to ruin anything. Or rush him," I said.
I remembered my conversation with Alex at their birthday party. I knew that I couldn't just be patient forever, and probably not for much longer, but she'd asked me to be that way with Tyler. Because of how he was. Because of how slow he was to be able to open up. I'd gotten glimpses of his insecurities, and the things he kept inside of him rather than showing them to the world. But glimpses were so small.
I was afraid, though, if I sprung this conversation on Tyler, he'd back away. Build up yet another wall that didn't have a door, that I couldn't even knock down if I tried really, really hard. I knew enough that I didn't want to lose Tyler. I was in the falling process, which meant I was already in too deep.
But Noah was right. A conversation needed to happen. Sooner rather than later. Preferably before I completely fell in love and couldn't dig myself out easily if things didn't end up working out.
"You know I love you and trust your judgment, PC. And I don't see why Tyler wouldn't be ready to fall for someone like you," Noah said.
I let the warm words seep into my heart and convinced myself that he was right.
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ASHES AND DASHES BABYYYYYY.
Okay first of all we reached 10k reads on this book! 🎉
First of all, Hallmark Christmas movies are everything. A GUILTY PLEASURE.
Anyway. So it seems our boy PC is realllllyyyy falling. What else could we expect from a hopeless romantic? From our cutest little innocent Porkchop?
I mean. We haven't yet gotten to Tyler's POV, so we don't really know completely where he stands. He could be falling too and we don't even know it! Maybe. Perhaps. Guess we shall find out...
Some HOTTTTT tea is coming for y'all next chapter. And the one after that. It's time for the SPICY tea. That chai tea.