I have been lucky by managing to stay at Heaths house another day. Of course with several messages form my dad telling me to 'be safe' and not have 'too much fun', regular dad stuff.

I feel Heaths hand trail up my bare leg as I straddled his lap. I should've known by now that every time he tells me to 'cuddle' he means let's make out. I'm not complaining though, his kisses start getting more rough as he places his other hand under my jaw.

"Fuck, Thalia." He grunts and his lips start lowering down to my neck just how he would always manage to do. My heart starts racing at each kiss.

I regret it later because my neck will look like I got sucked on by Dracula or something. But as of right now, I didn't have a care in the world.

He sucks a spot on my neck and I let out a whimper at the feeling of his mouth.

This is not non freak behavior.

"Heath..." I groan lightly and put my hands on his shoulders, forcing myself to push him away.

I don't know what would happen if I never stop him this far. Would I like to find out? Yes. But not right now.

His hands remain on my bare legs, the shirt I was wearing reached up mid thigh for me, considering it was one of his. I wrap my arms around his neck and lay my head on his shoulder.

"My hearts beating fast. Feel it." I back away slightly for him to feel.

He reaches out and slyly puts a hand on my boob.

"Hey.. that's not my heart." I furrow my brows at him and take his hand, placing it over my heart, hopefully he could feel the pounding.

"My heart beats faster when I'm with you." I told him as his hand was still over my heart, his eyes switched to mine and they twinkled when I told him.

"Let me feel yours." I hold my hand out and place it gently over where his heart should be.

I could feel the slight rapid pace of something, that's his heart alright. It had a rough pounding but the pace was slow.

"Nope. Mine is still faster. I win." I smile in triumph and put my hand down. He puts his down once I put mine.

"I guess you affect me more than I affect you." I tell him but he shakes his head.

"You affect me." He lets me know.

"How?" I ask, wanting to hear this.

"You just do." I guess I didn't expect him to go into too much detail. That's just how he was.

"Well I'll tell you how you affect me." I wrap my arms around his neck once again, getting comfortable.

" You make me get butterflies and my heart beats faster when you're around. Plus, you make me feel things that aren't so holy, if y'know what I mean." A smirk appears on his face at the last part.

"Do you get butterflies too?" I ask because he's more likely to answer a question than tell me himself.

"What are butterflies?" He asks me and I'm honored to explain to him.

"It's when you're around someone and a tingly feeling starts appearing in your stomach. Like nervous in a good way." I explain to him, he traces circles around my leg as he listened.

"Are you trying to explain to me that you feel wet when you see me?" He says seriously with a smirk on his face. This man.

"No! That's not what I'm talking about." I groan in embarrassment. How did he get that from my explanation?

" It's like you feel queazy around your crush or something." I try to explain in a more simple matter.

"Oh." He nods in an understanding way.

I lean in to him and place a kiss on his check and hug him in my arms. He's so perfect, I just want to protect him all the time.

"Heath, I love you so much." I express and feel him physically tense under me. He backs away until I'm facing him face to face directly.

He reaches for a strand of my hair and twirls it around his finger, almost like he wanted to try to focus on something other than what he was thinking.

"I'm sorry." He randomly says and my brows furrow in confusion. He starts playing with my hair and focusing on that instead of my face.

"For what? You didn't do anything wrong." I assure him. He rolls his tongue over his teeth and I notice his jaw clench a little.

"For not being able to say it back." He explains and I feel some sort of sadness when he says that.

"It's okay. I know it might still be early for you but it's okay. I'm not upset about that, I just want you to know. Because I do love you." I put both my hands on his cheeks.

"If you don't love me, I still love you." I assured and his deep blue eyes focused on mine.

"I don't know how to know if I love you." He tells me which just softens my heart even more.

"I've never said it to anyone." Heaths eyes stay on mine and I can't help but feel my heart ache at that.

"Why not?" I blurt before I could even stop to think about how he might take it.

"My dad is dead and my mom was in jail. I didn't have anyone." His eyes retreat back to his lap and I hold out my hand for him to take, resting it on his lap.

"I'm sorry Heath." I squeeze him tightly into a hug. He's never mentioned his past this much, so I know it was hard for him to tell me.

"You don't have to tell me but who did you grow up with if you didn't have any parents?" I couldn't help but ask, but I didn't want to push him.

"Foster parents. But they were assholes, they didn't treat us like kids should be treated." His voice is stern and I can tell this topic angered him by how he would clench his jaw.

"They knew we couldn't do anything because we were only fucking kids, they took that to their advantage. You can imagine what two drunk adults would do to kids." He tells me and sadly, I have an idea of the things he was talking about.

"I finally moved out when I was eighteen and lived in my car. Until I could get a job." He fidgets with the bracelet on his wrists and I knew this time it was my turn to listen to him.

"I'm proud of you Heath for being strong." I give him a genuine smile despite all that was wrong in his childhood, he turned out to be strong and he's perfect the way he is.

"I love you." I whisper to him and kiss him on the cheek. I would make sure to tell him as many times as I could for him to believe it himself.

"You have me now. I won't hurt you, I promise." I hold up my pinky for him, he slightly smiles before attaching his pinky with mine.

"I promise I won't hurt you either." He promises and leans in to kiss me on the cheek gently.

"I know you won't. You deserve all the happiness in the world. You shouldn't have went through all the pain you did. I promise I'll make you happy." I hug him again and close my eyes shut.

"You already do." He says quietly and runs his fingers through my hair.

"Can we actually cuddle now? I'm kinda tired." I tell him as I dramatically yawn, leaning back to get off of his lap.

"Fine." He agrees as I hop off the bed to grab something.

"Here, take Murphy." I hand him the gorilla and him being stubborn, doesn't take it.

"Just take it." I shove it in his hands and he holds it.

"Now you can cuddle with that while I'll cuddle Beau." I turn back around and head to the door to open it for Beau who sat there.

He walks to the bed in a rush and makes himself comfortable under the blankets. He really loves this bed.

"Thalia." Heath warns like always. Party pooper.

"He can sleep here. Please?" I remember to ask because it's not my house. But I know I could convince him to say yes.

"Fine just come." He rolls his eyes, giving me attitude but I don't say anything about it.

"Come? Come where?" I said in a dirty way. I need that vacuum to suck these unholy thoughts away.

"Just fucking come here already." I giggle at him and get in the bed to sleep with him. And I mean that literally.

I lay down, my back facing him and I scratch Beau on his neck as he falls asleep. Poor Murphy was thrown on the ground, because of Heath. His arm was draped over my stomach, I feel his shallow breaths on my neck as he tries to sleep.

"My birthday's tomorrow." I mutter, feeling excited as I remember.

"I know." He mumbled tiredly. The thought of my birthday made me restless. I just wanted to get up and inspect every inch of this house until I found a present of some sort.

"I just wanted to remind you." I tell him and try to focus on sleeping.

My eyes shut forcefully and I knew after today I would no longer be eighteen, which kind of makes me sad but I'm just one year closer to twenty.

I turn around quickly to face Heath and watch him sleeping already.

"I love you." I whisper to him and turn my back to him again as I try to sleep for a short nap.

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A/N

So here was finally some info about Heaths childhood.

Hope u enjoyed 🫶🏼

8/9/22