Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

  The next morning, I was surprised to wake up on the sofa, wrapped in Jonas’ arms. I looked up at his face with wide, surprise-filled eyes, and he looked down at me with a boyish grin that I couldn’t be mad at even if I tried.

  “Morning, love,” he whispered. “You’re beautiful while you’re sleeping,” he informed me, brushing some hair out of my face. “I’ve been lying here the past ten minutes, just watching you sleep.”

  “We stayed here all night?” I asked in disbelief. My mind flew back to the night before, and I realized that we must have fallen asleep during the movie we’d all watched together. “We fell asleep during the movie and no one ever even tried to wake us up?”

  “You fell asleep, I just had my eyes closed,” Jonas explained and then laughed. “You should have heard them all trying to decide whether or not to wake us up. Ana thought they should have, but Kara and Alaric out-voted her, so they just left us.”

  “You scoundrel! You just lied there, letting them think you were sleeping too while you listened to them and then didn’t wake me up yourself?” I gave him a gentle shove against his chest, which I was facing into. Thankfully, it was an uncommonly wide sofa, so there was plenty of room for both of us to lay on it together, provided we were very close and Jonas could wrap his arms around me; which he had to do partly to keep me from falling off, and partly to have somewhere to put his arms.

  “I liked having you right where you were, and you seemed comfortable,” he said with another beautiful smile before leaning in and kissing my lips tenderly. I allowed him to kiss me briefly, but then I pushed him away as much as our cramped quarters permitted and tried to get up, only to have his arms lock tighter around me, refusing to allow me to move.

  “Jonas! Let me up,” I ordered. Grudgingly, he complied, sighing to let me know his full distaste for having to do so. This time, I pulled away successfully, and stood up, looking down on him.

  “Invalid my eye,” I grumbled. “You’re suspiciously strong for a guy that was supposedly half dead less than a week ago,” I commented dryly.

  Jonas shrugged. “I’m a Matthews, we heal quickly,” he allowed with a wide grin. “Besides, I’ve been reserving my strength, lying around all day. Not to mention that with all that weight lifting I’ve had you do, you’re still a weak little kitten. So it doesn’t require much strength to keep you where I want you.”

  “Gee, thanks Jonas. I love being told I’m weaker than an invalid,” I shot back, irritated. “I think you can manage to get your own breakfast this morning,” I informed him, stalking off into the kitchen without a backwards glance, getting my own breakfast.

  In another minute, I heard a scrambling sound followed by a resounding thud come out of the living room. Inwardly, I chewed myself out for not having expected Jonas to take my words literally, while I rushed back to where I’d left him. I found him lying on his side on the floor, breathing heavily.

  “What happened?” I cried, dropping to my knees next to him. Jonas smiled a little as he struggled for air. Between gasps, he tried to explain to me what had happened.

  “I got...up...too...fast,” he gasped out. “Everything...was spinning...I grabbed for the sofa...to steady myself...but I fell.”

  “But I thought Ana was giving you something to help with that,” I replied, confused. “So you could get yourself to, you know, the bathroom and everything.”

  He looked at me sheepishly, breathing normally again. “Well, I was managing getting around well enough yesterday without any trouble, so I figured I didn’t need them anymore and stopped taking them,” he admitted to me. I rolled my eyes and sighed in exasperation at his foolishly, stubborn machismo.

  “You can be a real idiot sometimes, you know that?” I told him. “It hasn’t even been five full days yet, Jonas! The swelling in your face just disappeared yesterday. You’re still covered in tons of cuts and bruises, and Ana says you’re weak from all the blood you lost. Not to mention, in case you forgot, you still have some cracked ribs that you could’ve made worse falling like that.” We were both silent for a couple minutes, just staring at each other, until Jonas spoke.

  “I don’t suppose you’d help me up would you?” he requested. I sighed, but stood up and gave him a hand getting up and over to the sofa again. He sprawled out on it once again.

  “Would you like some waffles?” I asked him. “They’re only the frozen kind, but I can get you some if you want them.”

  Appearing humbled by his having to have had me help him up, he nodded. I left him, but was soon back, with a couple plates of waffles. One for him and one for me. He was sitting up, so I handed him his plate, set mine down on the coffee table that Ana had left behind for me, and went back into the kitchen for a short second. I came back out carrying a couple cups of coffee, one of which I offered to Jonas.

  “Alright!” he exclaimed with an eager expression when I held out the cup to him.

  “I know Ana hasn’t been letting you have any lately, but I thought you’d like some. Just don’t tell her I gave it to you,” I warned him. “Maybe tomorrow morning I can get your favorite Starbucks and sneak it in to you even. Kara usually goes to pick some coffee up there for herself and Alaric every morning anyway. I could probably tag along.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t go out,” Jonas let me know.

  “It’s just Starbucks Jonas, no big deal,” I assured him.

  “Yeah, tomorrow,” he agreed. “But yesterday it was the mall,” he reminded me. “I guess my point is that if you keep going out all the time, our luck is bound to run out,” he surmised. “I know Alaric is extremely cocky and thinks that you’re safe virtually anywhere as long as you’re with him, but you simply aren’t. I don’t want the past almost year to have all been for nothing just because he couldn’t keep you safe while the two of you were out somewhere together.”

  I nodded reluctantly. “You’re right,” I admitted to him. “Alaric is slightly too cocky for his own good. However, setting that aside, I owe it to you after what you went through because of me to be smart and not take a bunch of unnecessary risks.”

  “So you’ll avoid going out then?” he questioned me, setting aside his now empty plate and looking at me over the rim of his coffee cup while he sipped from it.

  “Yes,” I promised him. “But, I’ll still try to get Kara to pick you up some contraband when she goes out tomorrow,” I added with a wink.

  “She could pick some up this morning,” he suggested, taking a final swig before setting aside the empty cup next to his plate.

  “Oh no,” I negated. “One cup is enough for one morning. We have a hard enough time keeping you resting without the addition of a ton of sugar and caffeine in you,” I laughed.

  “Oh alright then,” he caved, “I suppose I can wait until tomorrow.”

  “Good,” I responded. Having finished my own coffee and waffles, I got up and took care of our dishes, rinsing them and putting them into the dishwasher. After I was done, I glanced up at the clock on the wall and, seeing that it was already ten in the morning, decided to get Jonas’ medications from Ana to make sure that he got them, since she was sleeping in surprisingly late for her.

  I told Jonas that I’d be right back and not to move, then dashed up the stairs to my bedroom. I went in and Ana turned towards me and opened her eyes. She gave me a wide, mischievous grin.

  “Good morning Britt,” she greeted me sweetly. “How did you sleep last night?” I could feel the heat rush into my cheeks. I had momentarily forgotten Jonas and I had just spent the night together on the sofa. Great, I told myself, inwardly groaning. Just because nothing happened, didn’t mean that we wouldn’t be teased for at least all day today, if not tomorrow and the next day too, knowing Alaric.

  “Fine,” I answered, “you should have woken me up though, even if Alaric and Kara didn’t agree with you.”

  “How did you know that?” she asked me with surprise.

  “Because your darling brother wasn’t truly sleeping, he was only pretending. He listened to every word you said, and then told me this morning,” I informed her, willingly ratting Jonas out.

  “I should have known,” she mumbled to herself. “The scamp!”

  “Anyway, I came up to get Jonas’ meds from you,” I explained to her, then updated her on Jonas’ dizziness and fall earlier.

  Ana shook her head disparagingly. “Sounds like our Jonas,” she remarked after I had relayed the morning’s events, or, at least the events that involved Jonas’ fall. I wasn’t about to tell her about the taboo coffee or any of the rest of it.

  She got up and proceeded to give me all of the bottles of the pills that she’d been having Jonas take, explaining how frequently he needed to take each one, what they were for, and how big the doses were for all of them.

  “I might as well put you in charge of making sure he gets them now, since I’ll be leaving tomorrow and since he’s already being difficult about it,” she commented after she had finished telling me about each of the different medications.

  “I think that this morning put him in his place,” I observed aloud. “Of course, he’ll probably be claiming he doesn’t need anything anymore in a few more days,” I predicted with a laugh, which Ana joined me in.

  “Well don’t let him stop taking any of it until it’s all gone,” she ordered me. “Have Alaric shove it down his throat if he refuses to take it. In fact, in case you guys think he needs more of anything, I’m going to write up some prescriptions for more of everything, just in case. He’s doing fantastic for now, but there’s always a chance that he’ll relapse, especially of he pushes himself too much to get better.”

  I nodded with a solemn expression on my face, knowing she was dead right. Jonas would probably push himself too far if we didn’t watch him closely enough, and end up backsliding in his progress.

  “Well, I’m going to go back down there, before he decides to come looking for me,” I told Ana, heading for the door, drugs in hand.

  “Alright,” Ana said. “Oh, and Britney?” I stopped and turned back to her as I stood in the doorway, holding the doorknob, preparing to close the door. “Don’t give Jonas too much coffee,” she cautioned me.

  I stood gaping at her, not sure what to say. Finally, I found my voice.

  “How did you know?” I wondered aloud.

  “Hun, Jonas has a way of getting pretty much anything he wants from you, especially given the shape he’s in,” laughed Ana in response. “I assume he’s had at least one cup of coffee already?”

  “Only one,” I admitted to her.

  “Ok, just don’t give him any more,” regulated Ana. I nodded and then closed the door and hurried back down the stairs to be with Jonas again.

  When I got back to him, Jonas was piling through the pile of his art supplies next to the sofa, which included both things from his apartment as well as the new supplies we had bought him for his birthday. The TV was on with a hockey game being covered, which surprised me until I saw that Alaric was sitting next to Jonas on the sofa now. Then, the fact that they were sitting so close together was what astonished me. As far as I knew, they’d never been that close together before, except for necessary times like when Alaric had had to carry Jonas when he’d been unable to walk at all. I pitied Alaric however. Apparently, he didn’t know yet that Jonas was not a sports guy by any means.

  Alaric looked up at me, his face giving way to his obvious pleasure that he was actually able to sit next to his younger brother, thinking they were having a great bonding time. He motioned me over and generously made room between himself and Jonas on the sofa for me to sit down.

  “I’ll be right back,” I announced, going to grab a bottle of water from the refrigerator so that Jonas could take his pills. When I got back, I sat down between them, handed Jonas the bottle of water, and began getting out his pills for this round of doses. He took them obediently without a single complaint. Most likely because he didn’t want any arguments that had the chance of bringing up his fall this morning that he probably didn’t want his brother to know about.

  “So, did you two have a nice night?” Alaric asked us suggestively after Jonas had finished taking all his meds for now.

  Amazingly, Jonas gave Alaric a rare conspiratorial look. “It was great. She doesn’t snore or anything. Not to mention, she has a way of snuggling up closer in her sleep, or, at least, I assume she was doing it unconscientiously,” Jonas relayed to his brother in an unusual spirit of comradery. I blushed once again, and I was sure that this had to be a record for the number of times I’d blushed in one morning.

  “I promise you I wasn’t awake,” I quickly clarified for them.

  “So, did you have a good night too, Britt?” Alaric asked me. Though I was frustrated by it, I found myself blushing and looking down at my hands in my lap.

  “It was...surprising to wake up down here,” I noted.

  “Surprising?” Alaric restated, shaking his head with a deep chuckle, clearly amused by my response. “You, my little brother, have a keeper here. They don’t come much more innocent than her,” he observed.

  Jonas leaned towards me, put his arm around my shoulder, and pulled me to lean up against his side.

  “She’s perfect,” Jonas announced. “I wouldn’t want her any other way.”

  “For the record, I did try to get her to buy something a bit more special for your birthday that would, well, let’s just say keep your eyes riveted to her while she wore it, but she would have none of it,” Alaric said. Another blush, this time a million shades deeper red. I jammed my elbow deep into Alaric’s side, right into his kidney. Alaric jumped, partly from pain and partly from shock, evidently not having expected any physical retaliation from me. However, one thing I remembered well from both Steve and Jonas was how vulnerable the kidneys were.

  “Ouch!” he exclaimed loudly. “Geez, Britt! I was only having a little fun.” He rubbed his “injured” side as he resettled in his seat. From the corner of my eye, I noticed Jonas smirking, clearly pleased. Although, I wasn’t sure if he was pleased because I’d gotten his brother or because I’d remembered and put into practice something he’d taught me without really thinking about it or being prompted. It was possible it was even both. I turned in order to give Jonas my full attention.

  “So are you going to draw something?” I asked him. Yesterday, I had been slightly worried that Jonas would be less than pleased with his gift. However, if he had been, he was good at pretending he was. Last night when he had opened his gifts, he had seemed truly grateful for the distraction from his current condition and had carefully looked over the supplies we had brought from his apartment and bought for him.

  “I have something you can base a picture off of,” announced Alaric. He reached into his back pocket and withdrew a couple photos, the picture sides facing each other to protect them from becoming scratched by the material of his worn jeans pocket. He handed one to Jonas and one to me.

  “They’re both copies of the same thing,” he told us. “I took the photo this morning when I came down to go on a coffee run while you were both still sleeping. You two were so innocent and cute, all cuddled up together, I just couldn’t help myself,” he chuckled.

  I looked at the photo he had handed to me and immediately understood what he meant. At the time he had taken the picture, both Jonas and I were facing out away from the sofa. Jonas’ arms were wrapped around me and my head was tucked underneath his five o’clock shadowed chin. I had one arm pillowing my head and the other was holding the hand of Jonas’ arm that was wrapped over the top of my side. What I loved the most about the picture though, was that I was indeed snuggled up closely to Jonas with a trusting and innocent look on my sleeping face, while Jonas’ own face held a look of pure contentment with having me in his arms.

  “I can’t believe I slept through you taking this picture and going in and out,” Jonas commented aloud, clearly displeased with himself.

  “You were tired,” Alaric pointed out to his brother.

  “Thanks, Alaric, it’s a good picture. I think I will use it,” Jonas thanked his brother.

  “It’s perfect,” I agreed. “I’ll have to get a frame for it sometime soon.”  Jonas gave me a look that reminded me of my promise to him about avoiding going out and I added, “I think I might be able to find something for it on Amazon or something. That would be easier than wandering around a lot of stores, and Jonas and I can pick something out together that way, since he can’t go out right now.” Alaric nodded, seeming pleased at our responses to his gifts to us. He turned his attention back to the hockey game, and Jonas began to study the picture, appearing to be trying to decide just how he wanted to try to capture the already captured moment on paper in a new way.  Deciding to leave him alone so he could concentrate on that since I was eager to see his handiwork, I turned to the hockey game.

  “Looks like a good game,” I observed, seeing that only a few goals had been scored by each team and they were neck-in-neck with each other. I winced when a really big player slammed into a significantly smaller guy, banging him against the wall.

  “You like hockey?” Alaric asked with no little surprise. He looked me up and down, taking in my petite form and blond, naturally slightly curly hair. Seeing my low-waist, boot-cut jeans, slightly wrinkled dark blue blouse, and bare feet. A first rate girly-girl from all appearances, and to be honest, though Jonas had taken great measures to toughen me up, that’s what I essentially was. Mentally, I made a note to change my clothes soon, since I had slept in them all night.

  “As a matter of fact, I do. Steve used to play hockey and taught me all about the game. He even played some one on one with me, though he never let me actually play real hockey, just figure skating.”

  “Probably a good thing,” Alaric muttered. “You’d probably be crushed you’re so tiny.”

  “HEY!”

  “He does have a point, Britt,” Jonas tossed in without looking up from what he was doing. “You have a rather fragile build, love.”

  I sniffed and raised my chin defiantly to show my disgust at their lack of faith in my abilities. “I would not,” I refuted fervently. “I’m not as fragile and helpless as everyone makes me out to be. I could take on any of those hockey players,” I announced, motioning to the TV screen.

  Alaric coughed scornfully into his elbow, not believing me for even a moment. Jonas, now wearing his thin-rimmed, rectangular glasses, just continued his rough sketch of the picture with a faint smile.

  “That’s my little tigress,” he voiced.

  Alaric shook his head. “Those guys would leave you as a little pile of dust on the ice.”

  “Heart of a tiger, build and look of a kitten,” agreed Jonas.

  My only response was a barely audible growl before I stood up somewhat suddenly.

  “I’m taking a shower. If you two want to be mean, you can pick on each other,” I pronounced. Without another word, I went upstairs to do just that.

 

 

Reviews

[Zachary_James]

So is Jonas and Britney a couple now? How romantic!!!! Love it