CHAPTER THIRTY
Karen
The delicious and mouth-watering smell of pizza wafted into the bedroom and woke me up. I had to investigate. The smell of cheese, tomato and spicy goodness mingled together made my tummy rumble.
My eyes felt like slits, but as I came round fully, they widened as I pulled myself to sit up. I shuffled to the edge of the bed and dropped my feet to the floor. With an exhale, I stood up and padded out into the hallway, stretching my body as I went. I could hear Gav as he moved around the house, he wasn’t the quietest, I thought with a smile.
The cool marble floor was nice under my feet and helped to wake me up further. By the time I made it down the hallway and through to the living room, I was so ready for food. I hadn’t eaten a lot of my breakfast because of the sick feeling, but it had gone for the time being, thank goodness. I must’ve slept it off. Maybe it was something I’d eaten and not agreed with me, but at least now I wasn’t spending my last day here poorly. That would be a total waste of a beautiful setting and fantastic company.
My gaze found the two large pizzas on the small coffee table. The small gasp fell from my lips when I saw a candle sat in the middle of the plates. Just as I admired the scene in front of me, Gav came in holding a bottle of Budweiser in each hand. “Ah, you’re up.” He observed as he strode in.
“Afternoon.” I answered shyly.
“It’s more like early evening but who’s taking notes.” He smirked and placed the bottles down.
“What’s all this for?”
“For you.”
My head cocked, and I wondered why.
“Me? But why?”
He came up to me and held me by the shoulders, “It’s your birthday, is it not?”
“Well, yeah but you didn’t have to do this.” I tipped my chin back slightly, my eyes wide as they gazed back at him. This man that had never even so much as professed any feelings for anyone, was doing this for me. He was making it harder and harder to not tell him how I really felt about him. I knew in my heart that I loved him, but I wasn’t sure if I could tell him that without scaring him away. My heart sighed as he smiled at me, and the same smile came so easily to my lips in return.
“Come and sit down.” He led me over to the table with my hand firmly encased in his, then sat down on the cushion he’d placed on the floor for me. I got myself comfy while he sat down next to me, his legs pushed out flat in front of him and crossed at his ankles. He seemed a little nervous as he looked between the food and his lap.
“Are you alright?” It was my turn to ask him this time.
“I told Roman earlier that you were here with me.”
“You did?” My voice rose a pitch, I didn’t mean to sound so surprised but I couldn’t help it. His lips tipped up to the one side into a smirk.
“You sound surprised,” his smirk grew wider.
“I guess I am,” he took my hands again.
“He wanted to know where you were so I thought I should tell him, then he wanted to know more. Roman just loves a bit of gossip, especially when it concerns me being normal.”
“Gav, you are normal.”
“Hm, debatable.” I wondered what was going through his mind as he chewed on his lip, when every so often he glanced at me and swallowed, I knew his mind was working overtime.
“Gav? There’s something wrong. If we’re going to do this, you need to talk to me.”
A long exhale left his lips as he agreed with a swift nod. “I got you a little something, it’s not much though...” he got up and left the room. I was still focused on the fact that he’d bought me something, I didn’t care what it was. Not that I expected anything anyway, but this was out of the blue. I couldn’t keep the smile off my face as he re-entered the room with his hands behind his back. As he came closer, I moved to my knees and sat on my feet. He pulled a bunch of flowers from behind him. My hand shot out and covered yet another gasp of surprise while tears pricked at my eyes. I’d never been bought flowers before. His gaze searched mine, “Please don’t tell me you’re allergic to flowers or pollen or something?”
My head shook, “Not at all.” My voice was small.
“Then why do you look like you’re going to cry.” I shrugged. I didn’t want to tell him. I didn’t want him to think I was that sad that I hadn’t been with anyone long enough to be bought presents. Or even something as small as flowers. You know something that costs around five bucks. I needed to get a life.
The colours were amazing and brightened the room up instantly. “I love them, thank you.” My voice broke from the emotion I was feeling.
“That’s not all. Again, it’s just something small, but I wanted you to have something from me for your birthday.” He slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a small square box. “Happy birthday, K.” my cheeks ached with the smile that stretched across my face. I took it from him and carefully opened the box. Inside, a delicate silver bracelet with a dainty heart sat on a red velvet insert. “I had no idea what you liked and didn’t like. I didn’t know whether this was too soppy, but I couldn’t see anything else.” It was quite amusing to hear him ramble with nerves. Gav was never nervous; he was always so sure of himself, so to see this was different.I felt like I needed to capture this moment on camera, but I knew he wouldn’t want that, instead I’d capture it in my mind. In my own memory box.
“I love it.” I glanced back down and took it from the box. “I love it so much.” Those tears that had pricked my eyes at the sight of flowers now trickled down my cheeks.
