Thursday

3:42 am

Hayden’s hand settled lightly on her hip, urging her closer to his chest. She was perched comfortably on his lap, her left arm curled around his shoulders as they together flipped through a booklet of flower arrangements. To Alex, they all looked like a ridiculously elaborate waste of money.

“That one’s nice,” he observed when she hesitated on page forty-nine. The centrepiece to which he referred was, indeed, one of the nicer ones they’d seen. But it seemed overdone to her. Too large and attention-grabbing.

“This is stupid,” she responded, sighing and leaning into him. Her head dropped to his shoulder, and he stroked her hair back from her face. “We should just elope.”

“We have to have a big wedding. It’s what Mum wants, and I’m her only child.” The blonde drew back to look at him, confusion fluttering across her face.

“Your mother’s dead, Hayden.” He nodded, wide-eyed.

“She’s coming to the wedding,” he assured. “Don’t worry, sugar. She’ll love you just as much as I do.” He kissed her then, and she felt all her worry melt away. Let him dictate the wedding plans. She’d do whatever he wanted as long as he never left her.

The dream melted away when, from across her bedroom, her infant daughter whimpered in her bassinet. Groaning tiredly, Alex brought her hand up to rub the sleep from her eyes, not bothering to stifle the yawn that escaped. She blinked her eyes open, stretching, and memories of the dream she’d just had flashed through her mind. Irritation drew a frown on her lips.

“Damn it,” she cursed, and when she took too long to whisk Alena out of the cradle, the almost seven-week-old baby gave another agitated whine. Hoping to stifle an outright wail before it happened, Alex jumped from the comfort of her bed and hurried over to the cradle, withdrawing her baby. “Sorry, kiddo,” she murmured. “Mummy just had a bit of a nightmare.” The infant seemed pacified, and so lay contentedly against her mother’s chest, knowing instinctively that there would soon be a bottle of milk for her.

Alex breathed deeply and padded barefoot across the room toward the door. She opened it quietly, hoping to avoid disturbing Hayden, who, for the past seven weeks, had been sleeping on her living room couch. But once she stepped into the hallway, and her gaze unconsciously fell on said couch, she found it was vacant, a comforter pushed up along the back of it. Her brow furrowed. The bathroom light was off too. The only light in the apartment trickled in from the street, through the window. But then, from the kitchen around the corner, the refrigerator door opened and doused the room briefly in warm yellow light.

She pressed her back against the wall of the hallway, hiding, and then immediately rolled her eyes at her own ridiculousness. For the better part of two months, she’d been living with Hayden, and she still couldn’t be in the same room with him without preparing herself for it first. She couldn’t accommodate spontaneity, and therefore needed a few minutes to adjust her plan to include him.

She got up every night around three-thirty to feed Alena, and he’d never once seemed to notice the pattern. She tried not to wake him, but it was inevitable that occasionally the baby would squeak a little too loudly, and rouse her father. He accepted it as it happened, and didn’t seem to have a problem with it, but Alex hadn’t realized he’d recognized that there was a common element between those occurrences in their time.

She didn’t want to talk to him right now. Not after that dream. She needed a few hours to properly steel herself against any snide remarks he might make about the size of her apartment. She needed more sleep, so that she’d function on the higher levels. This wasn’t going to work out well.

Restlessly, Alena squirmed in her arms, impatient for her midnight snack. Alex bounced the baby gently in her arms, her lips brushing against the silky dark hair that covered the infant’s head. Not to be so easily consoled this time, Alena let out an intolerant sob that promised much worse to come should she not be fed promptly. The noise pierced the silence and caused Alex’s head to fall back against the wall. She barely managed to swallow the curse that rose to her lips.

Hearing the noise, Hayden appeared around the corner, his eyebrow arched in unimpressed inquiry. He knew she was hiding, and he wasn’t amused. She gave him a ‘don’t push it’ glare and strode around him into the kitchen area, murmuring an unenthusiastic “Hi.”

“I warmed up her bottle,” he said by way of greeting, and she turned to face him, gaze falling on the cylinder he held in his hand. Her irritation slipped slightly, her expression softening. The late hour and the snugly dream she’d had were making her, perhaps, more receptive to his little contributions, more appreciative than her peace of mind dictated she should have been.

“Thank you,” she breathed, and reached out her free hand to take it from him. Rather than hand it over, he eased his hand between her body and Alena’s, pulling the baby into his arms.

“I’ll feed her,” Hayden offered. “You go back to sleep.” And have Hayden sneak into her bedroom to put Alena back in her cradle while she was laying vulnerably in her bed? Yeah, right.

She shook her head, her lips quirking up in an almost-but-not-really smile. “I couldn’t if I tried.” She felt his eyes narrow on her in curiosity, and turned away from him in response, lifting her arms to the cupboard, fingers searching for a coffee filter.

“Rough night?” he inquired, and Alex hesitated with her reply.

“Something like that.”

She didn’t want to have this conversation with Hayden. It was too… intimate. He shouldn’t know how well she slept, especially when how well she slept was dictated entirely by her dreams of him. She didn’t want him sensing weakness, or thinking they were friends, or any number of the other things she’d spent the last few weeks attempting to avoid.

“Why don’t you make some tea?” he suggested.

Because tea was soothing, and she wanted to be tense.

“I think I’m just going to make some coffee.” As if that wasn’t made obvious by the fact that she was already pouring the necessary water into the brewer. “Do you mind if I watch TV while you feed her?”

“That’s fine.” At his assent, she poured herself a cup of coffee – black with two sugars – and moved into the living area of her relatively open apartment. No doors separated the kitchen from the living room, the rooms just melded into each other, and so it was with great ease that she settled down on the couch, leaning against the pillow still indented from where he’d lay on it earlier that night.

Taking up the remote in her free hand, she clicked on the television and pulled her feet up underneath her. Carefully, she sipped at the coffee, careful not to burn herself on the scalding liquid, and, deciding it was still too hot, she lay it on the table in front of the sofa. Using her thumb to push the channel pad, she flicked through repeated infomercials until she came upon a promising image. It was a familiar black and white movie, and it only too her a few seconds to determine it was “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir” on one of the classic movie channels she subscribed to.

Forgetting for the moment that Hayden was standing in her kitchen feeding their infant daughter, she squirmed down into the cushions to get more comfortable, and absently noted that they smelled pleasantly like the man who’d been sleeping on them. She lay her head on her hand, watching the images move on screen. As the scenes changed, she noticed Hayden finishing up Alena’s feeding, but didn’t pay much attention. Her mind was hazy from lack of sleep, and she couldn’t currently handle thought more complicated than “stare at the screen.” She did, however, offer a murmured, “Sorry. I’ll just be a few more minutes.”

A soft “Take your time” was the response she received. She barely noticed when he disappeared into her bedroom to put their daughter back to sleep, and when he returned again, Alex was fast asleep on the couch, her coffee forgotten.