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I moved it, gulping air in as Nathan continued to sleep as if he hadn’t just tried to kill his mother in his sleep.
The early morning light was peeking through his blinds. I reached across the bed to snatch my phone from his bedside table, squinting at it.
It was just after six.
We had time to get showered, fed and dressed for school and work. I’d have to put some extra effort into my makeup to try and cover the angry bruise on my face. It throbbed dully after sleeping with it pressed against a pillow in Nathan’s small bed.
I’d snuck in here after tossing and turning in my own bed, my pillow soaked in tears that had swallowed my fractured sobs.
After I’d drained myself dry, I decided I couldn’t sleep in that bed, even with Nathan only next door, not with the memories of the day before still so close.
I snuck into his room, not before I chanced a peek into the living room, where I saw a large shape on our sofa. The urge to move closer to get a good look at a sleeping Lance was squashed when the shape moved, as if sensing me—I wouldn’t put it past him to sense being stared at in his sleep—and I darted into Nathan’s room.
As it was, I didn’t get much sleep even with my warm, safe and healthy little boy beside me. Not just because he hogged the bed. And not just because I was torturing myself with all the other ways this could have gone wrong, or worrying about how in the heck I was even going to start a payment plan to Keltan. Money was the main thing that had me staring at the ceiling with a pounding heart and overarching sense of panic routinely. Despite my strict budget that accounted for every cent of my earnings and expenses, I still went over it all, terrified I was missing some expense, worrying about the future, figuring out how the heck I was going to keep going like this.
In the morning, it all seemed manageable. It all seemed okay. Nighttime was the worst, that’s when the darkness coaxed all your worst fears out and tortured you with them.
That took up a good chunk of the hours creeping toward midnight.
Then there was Robert. The fear of him coming back, but for some reason, I didn’t hold onto that fear as I should have. Keltan had taken that from me. Though it was terrible of me to dump that on a stranger, to rely on one to protect me from things I should have been taking care of myself, I couldn’t bring myself to dwell on it.
The thing that had me moving past midnight, no closer to sleep was not a thing at all.
It was a man under my roof, on my sofa, sleeping under a Barney blanket.
How could I sleep knowing how close he was?
I troubled myself with his stare, with his flat voice for far too long. They were thoughts that I wasn’t entitled to, since Lance had given me no reason to dwell on him. No signs to show me that he even thought of me beyond anything other than a job.
No, he’d explicitly said that’s exactly what I was to him.
Still, he kept me up.
Until there was nothing, not even money troubles, an abusive husband, and a really hot dude could do to keep my tired eyes awake.
I’d probably got about three hours of sleep all together.
Not ideal, considering the fact I got none the night before. But I was a mom, sleep wasn’t something considered essential to our productivity. It didn’t matter how little you had, if you had a hungry kid up at five, there was no one else to feed him, you figured it out.
I’d operated off less.
No amount of sleep could prepare me for what awaited me after I’d snuggled with Nathan for a little longer then dragged myself toward the kitchen in the direction of caffeine.
Lance.
Shirtless.
Naked, actually.
Well, apart from the towel wrapped around his waist.
His hair was dripping.
Droplets of water trailed down his abs.
His six-pack.
No, I counted. Eight.
Eight abs. I didn’t even know people actually had the ability to acquire eight abs.
But here it was, evidence. And the ‘V’. I could see it all, because the towel was slung low. Way low.
Then I realized what I was doing.
Staring at Lance’s junk at six in the morning, likely with a mess of hair, wearing an old Ramones tee that only just covered my ass.
Fuck.
My eyes snapped up.
Met his.
Red bloomed in my cheeks and suddenly I didn’t need coffee right now. Or ever again. I was pretty sure that I was alert enough to go the whole day. And the next three hundred and sixty-five after this.
“I-um-the coffee…” I pointed down the hall. “I was going to get the coffee. I didn’t mean to… ah.” I cleared my throat. “Well, I’ll let you get naked… I mean dressed. I’m going to go to my room. And close the door. I’ll count to two hundred. Then I’ll go and get coffee and I will pretend this never happened.”
