Beautifully Knight (Jordan Knight Fanfic, Liadan #5)

Reality and Rest

-LOGAN-

A trickle of sweat coursed down my back as my pulse raced and my lungs felt like they were on the verge of exploding. The echo of banging metal sounded with my every step and I cursed under my breath profusely as I finally reached my floor and pushed the door open with my shoulder.

"Say 'Daddy, you left me all alone and shivering'."

I placed my hands on my waist and sucked in a deep breath the second my eyes landed on Hailey standing outside of my apartment door with a bundled towel in her arms.

"Not funny."

"It's a little funny," she giggled as she cradled Finn in one hand while the other held the handle of a rolling crate and she dragged it behind her while heading in my direction. "I heard a whine about five minutes after you left and I realized you'd forgotten him and the books."

"I got so focused on getting Jem and Finch bathed and ready to go back to my parents' that he completely slipped my mind. I'm a horrible pet parent," I sighed as I reached for him and she laughed again.

"He was totally fine. I think he's the only puppy on the planet that actually likes baths. I finished him up and packed his things in the crate along with your mom's law books. You forgot those too," she nodded her head downwards towards the crate and her messy bun bounced on her head.

"You're a lifesaver, Hail, thanks," I smiled as I dodged Finn's kisses that he peppered my face with as if he was trying to assure me he still loved me.

"It's the least I can do after crashing your place," she cleared her throat. "I actually was just texting Pattie she said there'll be a new room opening up at the hotel again this weekend because the business conference they were hosting is over. I can move back out on Friday."

"You can or you're going to?" I lifted my eyes from Finn and placed them back on her.

The past two weeks had been a whirlwind, to say the least. During our brunch date that wasn't a date, we'd found ourselves sharing more details about our professions. She explained her current research on child marriage laws in Massachusetts and the broader United States from a gender discrimination lens. I hadn't known that was even a thing—I thought you had to be eighteen to get married nowadays, but she'd informed me that it was indeed a thing as long as a judge approved it and hundreds of girls within our state had found themselves married to adult men while they were still high school-aged. It was disturbing and intriguing all at once and I never got tired of watching the fire dance in her eyes as she talked so passionately about the work she was doing to try to get the state law changed. In between her activism, the conversation consistently turned to my projects and when the rain finally stopped, I'd taken her on an excursion around Boston to re-see all of her favorite landmarks through the eyes of an architect.

It was supposed to just be an evening outing, but then we'd ended up sitting down for dinner at the old burger joint where my Dad had occasionally taken me and my siblings as kids and she'd scribbled down a long list of other buildings she wanted me to take her to see around the city. I'd told her it would take us a week at least to cover them all if we ventured out on our lunch breaks from the office and to my surprise, she'd agreed.

So we'd done exactly that for all of our lunch breaks for the entire next week. We picked up some meal to go that we ate while we walked and talked or I drove and she navigated. It became the highlight of my workdays and as soon as we scratched off too many buildings on our list, I added to it.

The more I spent time with Hailey, the more I liked her and thought about her when she wasn't around.

I found myself doing silly things—going back to the same restaurant we'd gone to for lunch at dinner time and ordering the meal that she'd had just so I could see what it tasted like, spending hours staring at photos of the buildings I'd taken her to and replaying her commentary over and over in my head to try to remember how the world looked through a non-architect's eyes, making up reasons to stop by my mom's office a little too often to "check on things in her absence".