requested by Sprinklesrawsome123

/ / /

It was a lazy Saturday afternoon, and you were spending it in your favorite place in the world right now. Ian's living room was quiet. The window behind the sofa was open and the gentle spring breeze blew in. The sunlight made the room a bright yellow.

Ian's arm was slung across your shoulders, his head leaned back against the sofa. He sighed as he felt your fingers slip in between his. You were holding his hand that had just been lazily tracing circles around your shoulder. 

"This is nice," he said.

"Mhm. It's quiet," you replied. You opened one of your eyes slightly to nudge your textbook off of the coffee table with your shoe. It hit the floor with a thud. "And I'm pretending we already did our biology homework..."

He snickered, shifting his legs to prop them up on the coffee table. You smiled and snuggled in closer to him. Your head rested just under his chin.

"We really should do our homework," he said. 

"No," you said. "Then we would be wasting time."

"Uh, I think one could argue that this is wasting time," he told you. 

"Maybe. But maybe that one doesn't know that we can only sit together like this when your family is out of the house." You lifted your head. Ian glanced at you through half-lidded eyes, his head still leaned against the back of the sofa. You searched his face and frowned. "Are you sure you don't want to tell them that we're together?"

"I'm one hundred percent sure that I don't want to," he said. 

You nodded and pulled your hand from his. His arm fell off of your shoulders as you moved off of him and scooted over. "You're embarrassed of me."

"What? Oh no," Ian said. He sat up quickly and put his arms back around you. "I'm not embarrassed of you, I'm not! Come here." 

You let him pull him back against his chest and hold you again. You closed your eyes as his hand rubbed up and down your arm. 

"If I told them that we were dating, I would get a lot of conversations that I don't want to have. That's it. But I could never be embarrassed of you. You're, like, the most amazing girl I've ever known. I'm lucky to be dating you. It's just them that I would be embarrassed of."

You smiled a little. "Ian, Ian, Ian," you said, mocking his stepfather, "don't you know that having a girlfriend is a load of responsibility? I'm not too sure that you're ready for that kind of commitment, you know. It's too much on your frail shoulders. Your mom and I waited a long time before we decided to take a shot at this whole relationship thing..."

"Okay, stop, stop," Ian laughed. "That's a really good Colt."

"Thanks," you said. "Much better than yours."

"Wha--- hey! That was rude." 

"I gotta be truthful with you, honey," you said, shrugging. 

"That's too truthful. But, uh, it's actually Barley that I'm most worried about."

"Aw, yeah?" you asked. 

"Yeah."

"Well, listen close. I can do a good Barley impression too. You wanna hear it?"

He tightened his grip around you. "Uh, no, no. We can pass on that one."

You laughed. "Okay, okay." 

Sometime in the middle of your conversation with Ian, you both managed to doze off. Your eyes closed and your body relaxed, and at some point your thoughts about how nice the breeze felt changed into good dreams that passed through your mind without sticking in any bit of your memory. 

An hour passed and neither of you woke up. 

You didn't wake up until Barley came home.

His cleared his throat loudly, his arms crossed over his chest. Ian jumped slightly at the sound and when he jumped, your body jerked in your sleep. You groaned and rubbed your eyes as Ian shifted and stretched out his arms and legs.

Barley gazed at the two of you with a smug look on his face. 

Ian rubbed his cheek. "W-What?" he mumbled. 

"Are you two dating?"

"Huh?" Ian asked. He dropped his hand and it landed back on your back. "Oh. Oh!" He shot up, pushing you off of him. You slipped off the couch and landed on the ground with a thud, still half asleep and super confused. Ian panicked and bent down and grabbed you by your upper arms. "Oh jeez! Honey, I'm so sorry. Are you okay?"

"Well, you called her honey," Barley said. Ian glared at him as he helped you back up. "So I will take that as a yes, we are dating. Why didn't you two tell me?" 

"Because Ian was waiting for the perfect opportunity to throw me on the floor," you said, sitting back down on the couch. 

"No, I-I wasn't," he said. He rubbed top of his head and pulled on his hair. "Ugh, yes we are dating. I just didn't want to tell you."

Barley nodded slowly. "How long?" 

"Huh?" 

"How long have you been dating?" he asked. 

"Uh, I don't know, like three weeks?" Ian shrugged. "Why?"

"Because you two are my closest friends and you didn't tell me! Why didn't you tell me, little brother?"

Ian sighed. "I didn't tell anyone, Barley. I just wanted it to be me and her, not the entire family and her."

Barley paused for a long moment and then nodded. He put his hands on his hips. "Okay, that is an acceptable response. Although it would've been nice to be there and help move you along on asking her out."

Ian nodded slowly, his lips pressed together tightly. "Uh-huh... sure. Sure."

Barley looked at you and laughed, "It would've been nice to see because, you know, he's had a crush on you for like two years and has been super annoying about asking me whether or not I know if you're dating that Peter guy from homeroom or not and I'm always like, I don't know, I graduated last year but of course he still asks me because I used to be friends with that guy back in eleventh grade. Hilarious."

Ian's face heated up and he buried it in his palms. 

"Aw," you said, nudging your boyfriend. "You liked me for two years?" 

Ian nodded, still hiding. Barley smiled.

"Well, I will leave you two lovebirds to it," he said. He bowed his head. "I am very happy for you both."

"Thank you, Barley," you said. He walked up the stairs and you stood up and grabbed Ian's elbow. "Honey, are you okay?"

"No," he said voice muffled by his palms. 

You laughed lightly. "That wasn't so bad, Ian." 

"Wasn't so bad?" He dropped his hands and looked at you. "That was embarrassing."

"Which part? The part where he told me that you had a crush on me for two years? I actually thought that was really romantic." You sighed and took his hands in yours. "Ian, I always had a crush on you. For, like, three years. So I got you beat on that one." 

"R-Really?" he asked. 

"Yeah. And the first person that I told was Barley." 

"What! Then why didn't he tease you about that? Why did he tease me---"

You rolled your eyes. "Because you're his little brother. He's always going to tease you, and you just gotta stop getting embarrassed by that. It's a brother thing." 

Ian sighed and smiled. "Yeah. You're right."

"Uh-huh." You pulled on his hands as you fell back on the couch. "Now come on, I want to take another nap." 

"Alright." He sat back down and put his feet on the coffee table. You scooted in and laid on his chest and he moved his arms around you. 

"Try not to wake me up by pushing me on the floor this time, got it?"

"Honey, I said I was sorry!"