Narcolepsy (A Love Story)

12: Abby

Spice and musk mixed with cinnamon and cloves. Incredible warmth, all around me. Warm blanket under my fingers and a soft surface under my head — a pillow. My pillow. I could hear, faintly, the sound of Lucy complaining in the other room, telling Blake what a terrible mother I am. Damn ingrate cat.

He put me on my bed, pulled my fleece throw over me, and turned on the dim lamp on my dresser that gives off just enough light to stop me from tripping over things in the dark. Luckily I'm fairly neat, there were no embarrassing piles of dirty underwear on the floor and unless he went pawing through the bottom drawer of my nightstand, nothing incriminating.

I checked the clock. Only about 20 minutes had passed since we got out of the car. The bedroom door opened and Blake walked in staring at his phone screen, an open bottle of water in his other hand and a sealed one under his arm. Lucy came running in after him, clearly put out that he entered before her, and she immediately jumped on the bed and sat near my head, voicing complaints about our guest, my lateness, whatever happened during the day. She always had plenty of grievances to air. I let her talk, listening intently. It was the only way to get past the bitching and onto other things.

"You didn't pour her food right, she's supposed to have a scoop and a half for dinner."

Blake looked up, startled. "You understand her?"

"Just guessing. No one ever pours her food right, even me. She has a lot of rules only she understands. So I guess I do understand her." I sat up and stroked a line between her ears over her delicate skull. She closed her eyes in pleasure then jumped from the bed, padding out through the door to go find her substandard dinner. "Thanks for feeding her, there would have been hell to pay if you hadn't."

"Yeah," he said, sitting on the edge of the bed, "I can see that. She's definitely...vocal." I snorted. He had no idea. "So I'm reading up on narcolepsy — just Wikipedia so far — but I'm not seeing anything about not having kids to warrant your reaction. What gives?"

"Seriously? You think I owe you an explanation on something like that? We've only been civil with each other for about four hours, how about we save the deeply personal confessions for after dinner?"

"You're feeding me? Fair enough." He got up, shoving his phone in his pocket, and reached for my hand to help me up. I took it, and let him, but he didn't move back so I ended up clumsily bashing right into him as I stood up, which I guess was the point because he caught hold of me and kept me in place pressed up against him. I caught my breath, looking up into those impossibly blue eyes that were fixed on my eyes, my mouth. His hand that wasn't still holding mine cupped the side of my head and he ran his thumb down my cheek. "Later," he murmured. "Food now." He backed up a step but didn't release my hand. I took a moment to calm myself, fighting past the dueling impulses to crash back into him or crash back onto the bed and catch another nap, but I held on then led him out into the kitchen.

Lucy didn't even look up from her food dish.

"Pizza?" I asked, examining the dearth of food in my fridge. Not enough of anything to feed two people.

"Sure," he said, pulling out his phone again. "From where? And what do you like on it?"

"I got it," I said, clicking through a couple screens on my own phone. "40 minutes til it gets here."

He raised an eyebrow up and pursed his lips. "How do you know I'll eat it? You didn't even ask what I like."

"Quarterly sales meeting last week. And I quote: this pizza's okay but I really prefer Anthony's, the one with the sliced meatballs and peppers."

"Now who's the stalker?" He said, grinning.

"You're just really loud and opinionated. I'm sure the whole company knows exactly what you like and dislike."