One Day At A Time - Revised Edition

Warm sunlight peaks through the curtains the next morning.

Ava can see light behind her eyelids, which stirs her awake.

She cranes her neck, looking over her shoulder with her eyes still adjusting to the morning light.

Lilly is pressed against her back.

She feels quite comfortable like this, but she also wants to roll over. Though, she also doesn't want to wake Lilly up.

Ava waits a little while, counting off minutes in her head.

When she gets to five minutes, she slowly rolls over.
She faces Lilly, who slowly opens her eyes a moment later.
Damnit, she'd woken her up.

But before worry can even start to pool, Lilly looks at her with a faint, tired smile that makes Ava's heart swell.

"Hey." Lilly's voice is soft.
"Hi." Ava replies, looking at Lilly while her mind spins and spins.

Lilly is beautiful (tousled bed-hair, sleep in her eyes and all), laying here with Ava, who can't help the tiny smile that tugs at her lips.

Beautiful, that's what Lilly is, that's what she has always been.
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!

It's a word that is stuck in her mind. The perfect word to describe Lilly in any context, but especially this context of them waking up together.

Lilly rolls over to lay on her back and stretch.
Ava watches her with a very stupidly persistent thought in her mind.

Her mind is fuzzy from sleep but sharp with persistence. She doesn't think before she acts right this moment and she feels overheated.

Lilly's head turns back to face her at just the right time, because Ava's hand is on her cheek and she kisses her so quickly and pulls back that Lilly can't register it right away.

"What was that for?" Lilly looks at her, her mind fuzzy and still sleepy, while her heart jumps ten feet into the air.

Ava looks back at her, a little puzzled.
"I don't- I don't really know." (She knows somewhat, at least she thinks she knows somewhat.)

Lilly's jumping heart doesn't know what to do with the fact that Ava's first thought this morning was to kiss her.

Though, truth be told, she will take any of the recent chances she can to kiss Ava. Any chance to be close with her like she's wanted for so long. (She's started to assume things and make her own guesses as to why Ava has wanted this kind of closeness, but she keeps that to herself.)

"That's alright." She says sincerely; Ava's hand retracts from her face, but her face softens, looks less puzzled.

"I do know that I like that. Kissing and stuff." Ava admits, sure of herself.
"You do?"

Lilly is squinting at her slightly, sunlight streaking across her face in lines the shape of the window's blinds.

"Mhm..." is all she answers, trying to put the memory of Lilly painted in sunlight into her mind.

Ava's answer adds another thing to Lilly's mental pile of ideas and assumptions. But she keeps her thoughts to herself.

For a long while, the two of them lay in bed. It's warm and comfortable and so are they.

The new year starts off with a kiss, it starts off quite well.