The Watch – Part 79:

After dinner, we headed back to her place. By now, the lampposts were turned off and the night sky was allowed to show off its brilliant stars. It had gotten a lot chillier than before. To adjust to the cold, we picked up the pace slightly so that we could get home within good time. I noticed that Amy was shivering slightly, so I let her take my hoodie, which she gratefully wrapped around herself.

‘But you’re going to get cold,’ Amy said.

‘I’ll be fine,’ I said, waving away the cold air that bit my arms and hands. ‘Besides, I don’t get cold,’ I said toughly, emphasising my defences by popping out my chest and lifting up my chin.

‘Oh yeah,’ Amy said smiling at my antics. ‘Well, there won’t be any need for me to warm you up when we get back then,’ she said as I immediately switched to shivering a lot. This made Amy laugh.

We arrived back at her house where Amy unlocked the door and we both practically jumped through the doorway. The air inside her house was hot to our cold skin, making us both feel much better.

My hands started to warm up gradually, but that didn’t stop them from stinging a bit as the warm blood rushed into my cold hands. However, my constantly moving them prevented them from stinging too much. It doesn’t help that I have bad circulation in my hands anyway. Amy’s hands had much better circulation so they were able to get nice and comfortable after only a couple of minutes. She had taken off my hoodie and giving it back. I wrapped it around my arms once more.

‘Here,’ Amy grabbed my hands with hers and squeezed them gently, allowing some of her heat to spread to mine and warm up my hands much faster.

‘Thanks,’ I said as the effect was immediate and soon my hands were the same temperature as hers.

‘I assume you don’t particularly want to go outside any time soon,’ Amy said, ‘so I ask you what you would like to do?’ I looked at the time and saw that it was getting close to ten O’clock at night, and I’m too tired to concentrate on anything too strenuous on the mind, such as more research.

‘How about we just watch a couple of episodes of a comedy series?’ I suggested not knowing what she has.

‘You know what,’ she smiled, ‘I was actually going to suggest that, too.’

‘Great minds think alike,’ I said.

‘I know, right,’ she said, reaching for the cupboard beside her bookcase. Upon opening up, an array of neatly stacked DVDs filled up every inch of all four shelves. On the first two shelves were films organised in single disks to double disks to boxsets, and the last two selves were filled with many box sets of TV shows. They weren’t organised in any particular order from what I could see and before I could figure out if there was one, Amy had already picked a TV show and closed the cupboard.

‘How about this?’ Amy said, presenting me with the TV show of Friends.

‘That’s one of my all-time favourite TV Shows,’ I said.

‘How can it not be,’ Amy agreed, switching on the TV and DVD player and placing a random disk onto the disk tray.

‘Are you comfortable?’ Amy asked with the remote controller in her hands and her thumb resting on the play button.

‘Couldn’t be more relaxed,’ I said.

‘Then prepare to laugh your socks off,’ she said as she pressed the play button to start the episodes running.

***

The sun’s rays penetrated the living room, waking me up naturally. I opened my eyes and blinked the sleep out from under my eyelids, allowing me to focus properly. When my vision had eventually woken up, I realised that I wasn’t in my own bed. In fact, I wasn’t even in my own house. Giving the previous circumstances, I did have to figure out whether I was in my home Universe, but instincts told me that I was. Where I was in fact, was in Amy’s home, on Amy’s sofa, with my head resting on one of its arms. My neck was stiff, which was the second strangest thing about this situation. The first was when I noticed that Amy was lying on the sofa as well, with her head resting on my chest, still asleep. The last thing I remember from last night was that we were laughing our heads off from watching episode after episode of Friends. I looked over to the TV and saw that it and the DVD player were still on. It had gone to its screensaver where the logo was bouncing around the screen.

I didn’t want to move since I knew that would wake up Amy. However, as luck would have it, she began to stir as well. I waited for the realisation to kick in before saying anything. She looked around and noticed my chest. She then looked up and saw me smiling back.

‘Morning,’ I said. Amy sat up and stretched. I righted myself and stretched my arms and legs as far as they would go to wake them up even further.

‘Erm,’ Amy said. ‘We fell asleep.’

‘It looks that way,’ I said.

‘Um…’ I knew that she wanted to talk about her laying on my chest, but she couldn’t form the right words. I didn’t either, so we sat in an awkward silence before Amy decided to turn off the TV and DVD player and put away the boxset of Friends back into the cupboard.

‘I had better get going,’ I said standing up.

‘No, wait,’ Amy said. I turned around in the doorway that connecting the living room and the hallway, waiting for Amy to finish what she wanted to say. ‘I just wanted to say that I hope you didn’t think that we’re moving too fast,’ she said.

‘How do you mean?’ I asked.

‘Well, I mean we kissed on the first day of meeting each other for the first time, properly I mean, and a few other times after that. And then this happened. I just wanted to know whether you think that we’re not moving too fast, for most couples tend to kiss after at least a couple of weeks or more, you know,’ Amy explained.

I understood where Amy was coming from but I didn’t think we were moving too fast at all. ‘I don’t,’ I said my thoughts aloud. Amy waited for me to carry on with my explanation.

‘For I believe that we are moving at the natural speed for us. I mean, we met each other after the surprise of knowing that we had the same feelings building up in each other for four years and we are now finally allowed to release them.’

‘For someone who doesn’t know what to say half the time, that was a pretty insightful thing you’ve said right there,’ Amy said smiling at how she feels reassured.

‘I can hardly believe it myself,’ I said.

‘I know, right,’ Amy said ending that particular conversation. We stood in silence, waiting for one of us to do something. Amy broke the silence by saying.

‘Well,’ Amy said. ‘I guess I’ll let you get back home then,’ she said before she took a step forward and kissed me on the lips.

‘What’s that for?’ I asked, ‘not that I’m against that or anything.’

‘My good night’s kiss that I promised last night.’

‘Well,’ I said not knowing how to end this and head off home.

‘I’m cute when I don’t know what to say, you say,’ I said.

‘Of all the things you could have said, you said that,’ Amy laughed, which only made me realise what I had said and make me blush with embarrassment. ‘Yes. Yes, you are cute when you don’t know what to say. Now go before I push you out.’

‘OK, OK, I’m going, I’m going,’ I said, spinning on the spot and heading towards the front door.

‘I do want to say, though,’ Amy said, stopping me just before I stepped outside. The day was so much warmer than the night.

‘I did like that sleep.’ I turned around once more and smiled back.

‘I did, too,’ I said.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Thanks for Reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)