Mon Amour | 𝑪.𝑳

Part 23

Lyla found herself lying awake on the mattress in the guest room of Charles' apartment with her hands drumming against the skin of her stomach, staring at the ceiling.

She found herself going over the different things she could remember from her life - mostly old memories that she shared with her boys, the LeClerc family, her own family, Jules and the rest of the Bianchi family, her godparents and her formula one family. She didn't even realise that she had been smiling until her cheeks started to hurt and she sat up.

Lyla runs a hand down her face, shuffling herself back so that she could rest comfortably against the headboard, grabbing her phone from the bedside table where it was charging.

Realistically, she should be asleep. The clock had just hit 11pm but the air inside the room and the apartment as a whole was to stuffy and humid for Lyla to even think about going to closing her eyes.

Her gaze was pulled away from her phone screen and over to the door when she heard it creak - she had been telling Charles for ages that the hinges needed oiling but he had kept telling her that it was fine - her gaze landing on the half-asleep Monegasque who stood on the other side of the door rubbing his eyes and yawning, body and face lit up only by the small lamp that Lyla had on next to the bed so she wasn't in the pitch black whilst she was okay.

"Can't sleep?" Lyla questions Charles, tilting her head to the side.

He shakes his head, walking through the doorway and closing the door behind him. Lyla placed her phone back on the bedside table before looking back up to see him making grabby hands towards her.

"Come on," She pats the bed next to her. "I think cuddles are in order, huh?"

Charles nodded softly, smiling like a child who had wheedled his way into sleeping with his parents for the night as he padded across the bedroom and crawled onto the bed next to her.

He cuddled up into her side and Lyla's fingers automatically travelled to mess with his hair as she grabbed her phone once again and unlocked the device before turning the brightness down. The only sound that could be heard in the room was the two of them breathing - Charles lay across the mattress next to Lyla, his body close to hers, head resting on her chest and arm draped over her abdomen with his fingers drawing circles on the exposed skin of her hip out of habit.

Lyla was absentmindedly scrolling through Twitter on her phone, knowing that Charles was also looking at the screen until she felt his hand still and the shapes stop being drawn on her skin.

She swipes out of Twitter and opens up her camera app, smiling when she saw him completely knocked out. She made sure to snap a few photos - purely because she thought he looked adorable and she needed more photos with him - before exiting the app and opening another.

Lyla herself didn't truly know when she fell asleep. All she knew was that she awoke again at 3am to her phone still open on Instagram in her hand and Charles in the same position he had fallen asleep in. Lyla struggled to plug her phone back into her charger without moving to much, not wanting awake the sleeping man because it already seemed like he was having a rough nights sleep. She glanced down at him again, smiling softly as she gently pushed the hair from his face before reaching to flick the light off and trying to catch some more shut eye.

Charles awoke first in the morning, eyes fluttering open and blinking a few times at the sudden light he was forced to endure despite the blinds being closed. He knew almost immediately that he had spent the night using his 'best friend' as a pillow and after rubbing the sleep from his eyes and sitting up, he turned around to see her sleeping peacefully next to him. Charles sat back against the headboard - much like Lyla had been doing the night before. His movement on the bed made her stir but she didn't wake, instead rolling onto her side which allowed Charles to easily pull her closer. The minute her body felt the heat radiating from his she let herself sink into him, cuddling closer and resting her head on his chest.