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24
Sky
Dylan knows where I live.
The first clue is indicated by the housewarming gift—a beautiful oil painting of the Cornish coast with a house looking a lot like Gran's in the background.
The second clue is the incessant ringing of my doorbell at 3A.M. I'm particularly pissed off about this because I’m not sleeping well since I returned from Broadbeach.
Aware the doorbell won't stop ringing anytime soon, I crawl out of bed and peer out of a gap in the curtains. The streetlight casts a glow over the road and front garden, but the visitor stands too close to the building to see.
I shrug on my pink, towelling robe and press the intercom button. "What? Who is it?"
"Sky."Dylan?"What the hell are you doing here?" I ask in shock.
"Can I talk to you?"
"It's three o'clock in the morning, Dylan. You can’t just arrive unannounced in the middle of the night."
"Sorry. I had a bad night and you're the only person who can make things better."
It’s difficult to tell over the intercom crackle, but I suspect he's been drinking.
"You crazy man. Go home."
"No. Can we talk?"
I knock my forehead against the wood chip wall above the intercom. "If I talk to you, will you go home?"
There's a long pause before the crackling voice replies. "If that's what you want."
Pressing the button to open the main door to the building, I run two hands across my hair. The sleepy-eyed girl in the mirror has creases up one side of her face where I've slept on scrunched up sheets. I definitely have the scarecrow look perfected here.
The entrance door below closes and butterflies swarm low in my belly as footsteps climb the carpeted stairs. I don't want to see Dylan because I want to see him so bloody much. I'm a huge contradiction and my head aches with the confusing thoughts circling.
Each day that passes, I'm hopeful Dylan will fade from my memories of our short time but he doesn't. I feel as if a chemical reaction happened when we kissed, and I absorbed part of him into my psyche.
The footsteps halt outside my flat and I take a deep breath before unlatching the door. 'Must be mad at him. Don't be nice. And definitely don't listen to my body.'
Dylan stands in the doorway and I take in his appearance. This is the Dylan from the day we collided, not the one I’ve looked at in pictures on the internet. He's unshaven, with black circled eyes—exactly as when I first met him.
An unsure smile flickers across his full, all–too-kissable lips and I squeeze my eyes closed against his immediate effect on me. Denying how I feel when I see him in pictures online is easy; in the flesh this denial is impossible.
"Hey," he says.
"Hey?" I open my eyes and step to one side so he can walk in.
Closing the door behind, I stand against it and face Dylan who immediately sits on my sofa. "Make yourself at home.”
"Thanks."
Somethingisdifferent about him. His eyes are less focused and his muscles looser as he reclines on the sofa with my sarcasm sailing over his head.
"You're drunk."
"Kind of. Went out with some of the band and had a shit time. So I came to see you."
"You went out with the band in Bristol?" I ask, picturing the chaos if they visited Roxy’s club in town.
