BLOOM • awsten knight

105

SEPTEMBER 2019

By the time the afternoon has firmly rolled around, Elle and Awsten return to their hotel room for a little while, wanting to make the most of their time left together.

She flops down onto the bed as soon as they enter the room, head first, with her face buried in the comforter.

Awsten watches her lay there for a moment, before taking a deep breath.

"I need to tell you what I was thinking about this morning," he blurts.

Elle rolls onto her back and looks back at him, raising an eyebrow, before sitting up. "Okay," she nods, ushering him to come over and sit beside her.

She kicks her shoes off and pulls her legs up to cross beneath her, turning to face Awsten as he sits on the edge of the bed.

Mindlessly, Elle begins twisting her ring around her finger; she can practically feel Awsten's nerves, which seems to be rubbing off on her, and she suddenly has these loud anxious thoughts about what he's going to say.

"Technically, I wasn't lying when I said I was thinking about you," he starts, unsure of whether to look at her, or avoid eye contact. "But, it's a little more than that. I was just thinking that we—"

"You want to stop this, don't you?" Elle cuts him off, squeezing her eyes shut; her heart is beating stupidly fast, and her stomach is doing flips, while her brain is practically screaming 'I told you so.' "Have I been too much? Like, with the past couple of days and— I don't know, I'm sorry—"

"What?" Awsten blinks, finally turning to look at her, and his heart aches at her braced expression. "What? Elle, no," he shakes his head, quickly, shuffling himself closer to her, quickly noticing the the mark that's been left around her finger, from the way she's vicariously fiddled with her ring.

Gently, Awsten takes her hand, to which Elle finally opens her eyes, as if she hasn't been able to hear anything he was saying until now.

"Hey, look at me," he touches her face, softly. "That's not the conversation I'm trying to have with you," Awsten laughs, lightly.

"Oh my god," Elle lets out a long, relieved sigh, leaning forward to rest her head against his chest. "I'm sorry. I don't know why my head went there first, I'm sorry, I just freaked—" she begins to rant, but he shushes her after a moment.

"It's okay," he plants a kiss on her temple, nudging her shoulders so that she sits up again to look at him. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound so— serious, or whatever. That's not what I'm about to say, okay?"

"Okay, yeah, I'm sorry," Elle nods, now feeling a little embarrassed.

Awsten ignores any instinct to be hurt by the fact that she thought he was trying to end things between them, because he simply reminds himself it's not her fault that her mind can jump to those conclusions. It wouldn't do anyone any good for him to get upset about it, and he knows it would only be hypocritical of him.

"You, uh—" He begins again, his voice a little shaky, so he clears his throat. "We've been on a few dates now, and it's been over a month since we started all this, and I was just—" Awsten pauses again, letting out a short sigh. "Fuck, this isn't how I wanna do this," he mumbles, mostly to himself.

"What?" Elle asks, her eyebrows dipping together.

Instead of replying straight away, Awsten looks around the room.

"How mad would you be if I had to go somewhere right now?" He questions, cautiously.

"Uh—"

"And I promise I will be back in like, five minutes tops," Awsten adds, quickly. "Like, I'll be so fast."