Overlap

Van

✨4 months earlier November 2021🌿

When I woke up that morning next to Nina I awoke with a hazy head, hazy but clear. I woke up determined, settled. Comfortable in bed beside her, my arm draped over her back as she slept. She was peaceful and I could see it on her pale expression, she needed the rest.

I could feel the slight threat of a hangover but I hadn't really drunk as heavily as I'd expected I would and so although I had that dry dehydrated feeling in my throat, a minor headache growing, I didn't feel all that bad.

The only real feeling I suffered was one of regret.

I should have kissed her, when we were watching little grace in her crib. We'd been so close, I'd wanted to reach for Ninas hand and hold it in mine, I'd wanted to pretend that we were a family again.

Id looked down at the locket I'd brought her for Christmas and smiled, knowing the picture which was kept safe inside it, close to her heart. To see her wearing it had warmed my soul, left me struggling to hide my smile.

She was gorgeous, I loved her.

Looking at her then, when I sat beside her on the bed, when she was lit with the dim glow of a bedside lamp, when she was weary and half asleep.
Looking at her now, when morning light washed over her, when her eyelashes were long and feathered, when her lips were slightly parted, a little chapped, one hand clutching the pillow, the other trapped beneath her hip.

I loved her. I knew last night and I knew it in the morning too, and the determination I'd awoken with was a clarity which had washed over me at some point in the night when I'd rolled over half asleep and looked upon her sleeping. The small smile on her lips when I took her hand in mine and played with her fingers.

It was a determination to tell her this time, to tell her everything id been meaning to for so long.

Even if it was doomed, even if there was no way we'd ever work. I had to try, I couldn't keep living with these emotions, this devotion I had to her and now to grace. I couldn't live with all that hidden, bottled up and repressed.

But I wouldn't tell her then. She was sleeping and she hadn't had long enough. She'd looked tired last night, even when I'd first arrived, when the sun wasn't even set. Bond had told me she'd been up late every night with Grace, barely sleeping and exhausting herself by refusing to sleep when Grace slept.

So when I looked at her then and saw her so peaceful, so serene in her sleep, I knew I couldn't wake her.

Instead I pushed myself up on my elbow, let my lips graze her forehead with a kiss, and slipped from the bed softly. My feet quiet as I crossed the floor to check on Grace who was awake, waiting patiently, eyes wide and looking up at the mobile above her cot, as if hypnotised by it, for her mum to come get her.

"Morning little one," I whispered, stroking her cheek with my finger carefully, looking down at her tenderly as she broke a little smile and yawned. When she yawned she was adorable, her little face scrunching up, her fists scrunching too. She yawned with her whole body and when she relaxed she stretched out and spread her fingers, letting out a tiny giggle.

I grinned, completely enamored with her.

"Shall we let mum get her beauty sleep ey? We'll go get breakfast?" I asked her, knowing that Nina wouldn't mind me taking Gracie downstairs.
Knowing that her brother and her parents and probably Sam and Laura and Mia too would all be glad she was getting to sleep in. Just getting some sleep at all.

When I reached down into her cot grace reached up for me, her little fingers making grabby hands at me. I picked her up and held her so that she could rest her head on my shoulder, bouncing her in my arms as I spoke to her in a whisper.