He felt a weight on his chest. Fingers were running through his hair.
He tried to move but found his limbs entwined with someone else's.
One eye slowly opened. Then the other.
A tangle of honey-blonde curls fanned out over his chest, connected to a set of limbs sprawled over his body.
Michelle.
He swore. Quietly. He still had no idea how to extricate her from the situation.
Okay, situation was something of an understatement.
Slowly, so as not to rouse her, he checked his watch which fortunately was on his right wrist. Eight-thirty, they were way behind schedule.
"Michelle," he tried to whisper into his ear. "Michelle, wake up. We have to go." He could smell her hair. She must have changed shampoo. It smelled different than he remembered.
With the speed of honey dripping from a spoon, her head slowly raised. She rested her chin on his chest, and she smiled sleepily.
Danny had developed quite a catalogue of Michelle's smiles in the time she had been in his life. There was the smile she would give him when he took her to Cubs games in the summer, hot dog in one hand and lemonade in the other. There was the smile she would give him ripping off the packaging at Christmas in front of her family, and the even more dazzling one she would give him on Christmas nights. There was perhaps his favorite Michelle smile, the one she would give him as she squeezed his hand when they drove home together at night after dinner. He had memorized all the memorialized smiles in the Bauer photo albums with Aunt Meta's help, even the ones in pictures Michelle had objected to. And he had always particularly enjoyed discovering new Michelle smiles.
He was intimately familiar with this smile. He'd woken up too many Saturday mornings to this smile, and he had always been late to his morning squash game no matter how early they'd woken up.
He could already feeling his insides going soft and the rest of his body, well... it had missed Michelle as much as the rest of him.
"Hmmmm," her voice was a good half-octave huskier than usual in the crisp Northern England, morning air.
He tried to prop himself up on the pillows away from her, but since she was still resting her body upon his own, he was only managing to rub his body against hers. "Michelle," his voice was cracking, worse than when he had been thirteen, "We have to go," he repeated, trying to steady himself.
She pulled herself closer to him, until they were nose-to-nose. "Hmmmmm."
He was fast losing the battle. His right hand was already starting to work its way under her sweater, ready to begin stroking her back. And if her face came any closer....
There was only one thing to do. His right arm tightened around her waist and he began to roll her...
Off the bed, they tumbled.
"Ow!" She shook her head from side to side and blinked. "I'm awake," she announced.
Thank God, he said to himself silently.
"We have to go."