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“Come back here,” he ordered gruffly when I hesitated too long.
I smiled and didn’t question it, diving back under his arm like it was my right to be there.
It took absolutely zero effort to go back to sleep, which was hilarious, seeing as it usually took me a prayer, counting to one thousand twice because I forgot what number I was on halfway through, laying the correct ear on the correct side of the pillow, and all my hopes and dreams to fall asleep.
Apparently, I just hadn’t found the correct formula for sleeping. That formula being my side snuggled into Kobe’s.
The next morning, when I woke up with nothing but sunlight shining in my eyes, and the soft fabric of a t-shirt-covered chest underneath me, I realized that I would never be able to sleep on my own again.
Not easily. Not now that I knew how the other half without sleeping problems did.
“You can watch television if that’s what you usually do, darlin’,” I heard Kobe’s massive chest rumble underneath me. “Turn it on. It won’t bother me.”
“Mama usually doesn’t care,” she snuggled into the small space between Kobe and the couch.
Kobe and I lay on the couch partially sideways. He had his right foot on the couch, but his left leg draped over the coffee table, and there was the smallest of gaps between my head which was cocooned in the crook of his arm, and Kobe’s head.
She took that gap, her toes wiggling in my hair, and snuggled into the both of us.
“She’s usually not like this,” I mumbled into his shirt, still not all the way awake. To say I wasn’t a morning person would be underexaggerating. “The last time she willingly went up to someone and took up their personal space was when she was inside of me.”
He chuckled, and I dozed, and I realized what it meant to have the perfect morning.
I’d never had one of those before.
Sure, all mornings with my girl were great. Any day that I woke up with my daughter and myself alive and healthy was a great day. But I didn’t think anything could quite compare to this—being in Kobe’s arms, knowing that no matter what, he would keep us safe.
Safety was a weird feeling. One that I hadn’t experienced much over the last ten years or so.
“What’s for breakfast?” I heard JP ask.
I hated making breakfast. They say it’s the most important meal of the day, but since I’d learned how to make my own eggs, I realized that cooking breakfast wasn’t for me. It didn’t matter what I was making—eggs, pancakes, breakfast tacos—they all ended up burned.
At the best of times, I was a subpar cook. But that only included all meals that came after eleven in the morning.
“What do you want for breakfast?” Kobe asked.
“Pancakes, sausage, biscuits, breakfast tacos and chocolate chip cookies,” JP answered her usual answer.
She knew that I wouldn’t—couldn’t—make all of that. But I would make sure she got something to eat. Usually, that included something in the form of cereal in a bowl with milk—if we had milk.
“I can make one carb source, one meat source, and one chocolate chip cookie source, but not all of that. It’s too much food. Choose,” Kobe offered.
JP must’ve chosen because before I was ready for him to leave, I was left alone on the couch and grumbly.
I didn’t get up until breakfast was finished—cookies and all.
CHAPTER 13
I support the right to keep and arm bears.
-T-shirt
KOBE
Cooking wasn’t my favorite thing in the world to do.
Honestly, it was about fourth on the list at the bottom.
