Notting Hill in Manhattan [t. c]

part eleven

  Birds chirped outside of their window and all over the city. Tim opened his eyes slowly and breathed in deeply. When he exhaled, he felt an arm around his waist, gently tightening its grip around him.

  He looked down and found Annalise's relaxed face, eyes shut and eyelashes softly moving, indicating she was dreaming. She made a gentle nose scrunch that made Timothée smile at the ceiling.

  He moved her arm away very softly as to not wake her up, got up from their bed and grabbed his underwear from the ground. He put the clothes on as he walked out of the bedroom, not before making sure Lise was covered by the blankets.

  She was deep in her sleep, turned to the right and faced the window. He smiled to himself. Tim proceeded to make his way to the living room. He had woken up in the middle of the night to take the vinyl off the player and turned it off, as well as the lights, but the rest was still a mess. He tied up a little and proceeded to make breakfast.

  He prepared what they would've eaten at Lise's place if things hadn't blown out of proportion months ago. He made some pancakes, got some berries and placed them on the plates, and even served a bit of greek yogurt into a pair of cups.

  Not shortly after he started making the food, Annalise opened her eyes and smiled to herself as she remembered what happened last night and the whole ordeal that it was to get to that press conference in time. She got up, walked to the closet and grabbed a black hoodie. She threw it over her torso and grabbed her underwear from the ground to put it on a second later.

  She walked out of the room and down the hallway to find Tim taking out two mugs of coffee. Before he could prepare it, he focused on the pancake that was on the pan, getting burned. He cussed under his breath as Anna wrapped her arms around his naked torso. He jumped, this made them laugh.

"Hey." He said.

"Hi." He turned around and placed his palms on her cheeks, cupping her face, then, he leaned over to kiss her. She smiled into the kiss once again. "That pancake is burning." She said, pulling away as the smell of burned bread filled her nose.

"I'll save him, not to worry." She chuckled.

"I'll prepare coffee." He nodded and she started preparing the hot beverage. Once it was done, she also served some orange juice into two glasses.

  The second everything was ready, Timothée opened the glass gate of the terrace and they walked out with the plates and mugs to set their table outside and enjoy the cold morning breeze alongside the warm sunlight.

Both of them enjoyed a quiet breakfast, but the silence made them even more comfortable. Eventually, she had gone to find a book to read from his bookshelf: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Her childhood favourite. She sat down by the terrace where they were still.

  This has been their routine for the past weeks, sometimes they'd read out loud for each other or watch a movie or a show instead of reading and, as they watched, they'd come up with silly theories about what would happen next or why was happening what was happening.

  One morning after one of their at-home-movie-night, they stayed in bed until noon, neither of them wanted to get up or let go of their embrace. Lise looked up at him as he played with her hair.

"Can I stay a little bit longer?" He smiled.

"Stay forever." And now, they stayed together. Now, mo press was outside to take pictures and spread hurtful gossip. Now, if one of them opened the door, they were received by the golden daylight. She smiled and kissed him. Tim smiled into the kiss and kissed her back. That's when they knew this was where they were meant to be.