Page 286 of The Perfect Spiral
“I love you too.”
Chapter 104
I awaken to an empty bed and a slightly ajar door. “Knox?” I call out, sitting up and scanning the room. I call his name again, but there’s no response. Where could he be?
I don’t rise from the bed, feeling utterly drained from the torrent of tears I shed last night. After everyone had left the room, it was just Knox and me for the rest of the evening.
I had continued to weep into his shoulder while he gently teased me. Each time I managed to stop crying, I’d think about the movie and the waterworks would start all over again. And now, I’ve woken up this morning. Alone. In my own bed.
It’s such an unfamiliar sensation, even though I’ve only woken up next to him a handful of times. I feel so secure with him, so protected.
I continue to lie there, waiting for him to reappear, when I hear footsteps ascending the stairs. Seeing that it’s Ben and not Knox, I’m met with his signature smirk.
“Sorry, I’m not Carter, sweet cheeks,” he teases, kicking the door shut behind him and crawling over the bed to lie beside me. I settle back down with him and we gaze at each other.
“I’ll just suffer with you then...” I tease back, eliciting an even wider smile from him.
He’s always such a cheerful person, even in the mornings, and sometimes it irks me to no end. He knows this too. That’s why he often exaggerates his morning cheerfulness just to get a rise out of me.
How can someone be that happy in the mornings? I’m barely functional until lunchtime.
“Aye! I’m a delight and you know it!” He ruffles my already messy bedhead hair, making it even more disheveled. He then rests his hands behind his head and stares up at the TV screen mounted high on my wall.
The same screen where I watched people speculate about the identity of the girl in his Instagram picture, knowing full well who it was.
Pulling out my phone, I open the app and navigate to his profile. Ben leans over to look at the screen and I click on the picture he posted of me. Except it’s not the one where my face is hidden.
It’s the one where I’m smiling down at him from his lap, taken on that same day. The caption is what catches me off guard: My Love. I can’t help but smile at his sweet gesture. I stare at those words, trying to absorb them but failing miserably. It just doesn’t feel real. None of it feels real.
“He’s got good skills, you look beautiful, sweet cheeks!” Ben compliments me, and I give him a questioning look, waiting for the inevitable ‘but’. “Some good airbrushing skills too!”
He laughs and I punch him hard in the arm. He lays back down, cradling his arm and laughing at my reaction.
“Kidding, I’m kidding! You do, I’ve seen the collection of photos of you though. He’s really talented at photography, he has some unbelievable shots of you...”
“There’s a collection of them?” My voice raises higher than usual. Seeing him nod his head, my curiosity peaks.
And I like the photo, along with the one that currently holds the title of most-liked photo on Instagram with eighteen million likes. That’s right, eighteen million likes!
“Where is he?” I ask Ben, and he shuffles to his side, propping his head up on his hand to look at me.
“Downstairs, making ‘His Love’ breakfast,” he quotes him with his fingers, joking with me. I roll my eyes at my best friend and drop my phone down on the bed.
I stand up and turn on my heel to face Ben.
“I’ll go to my love and you go to yours,” I wink, and he groans, chasing me out the door. I sprint down the stairs away from him and burst through the kitchen door to see a shirtless Knox with his back to me.
Completely oblivious to my entrance. Ben slows down and winks at me, leaving us to it. He exits through the back door to gosee Hannah. I wink at him as he closes it, rolling his eyes in response.
He raises his hand up and flips me off, biting his lip. I return the gesture.
I tiptoe towards Knox, as quietly as I can, and wrap my arms around his waist. I feel him tense up, then relax as he turns his head over his shoulder to look down at me and smiles, realizing it’s me.
“Hey, baby doll,” he murmurs softly. I kiss his back while he rubs his hands across my arms, waiting for the food to cook.
Still wrapped around him, I turn to his side and look at what he’s preparing for us. His arm goes around my shoulders protectively and he kisses my head.
“How’d you sleep?” He asks, and I look up at him.
