mine {h.s.} | {b3}

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

— CHAPTER EIGHTEEN —

november, year two.

I wake up to a text that Harry had sent me late last night when he was returning home from his shift. By the time that he had sent it, I was already long asleep, sprawled out in bed, "hogging" all of the blankets. This is a claim Harry makes every morning in the colder months, though I'm yet to see any sort of tangible proof leaning one way or the other. As such, I am not inclined to believe him. Besides, I know he doesn't really mind. It just gives him an additional excuse to press his body tightly against mine.

The message contained a picture that was taken with the lights dimmed in our bathroom to the lowest setting. No matter how many times I assure him that I am a heavy enough sleeper to sleep through him turning the lights on in our room when he gets home from work—a year as an intern and then four years of residency will do that to a person's sleeping habits—he still refuses. Typically, he'll feel his way through the bedroom and in the bathroom he'll usually rely on the flashlight on his phone or watch.

Included in this poorly lit photo is a picture of our toothpaste and Harry's hand. Stretched towards me is his proud middle finger. A long time ago, Harry left that cocky façade in the background. It had been a part of his old, guarded personality when he was scared to let anyone into his life. Cockiness had been a defense mechanism; but now he has nothing to defend himself from.

Beneath this picture were six simple words: "Good luck, kid. You'll need it."

Domestic bliss is a concept that I didn't really understand until I was married and settled down with Harry; not in its entirety. There were aspects of it that appealed to me throughout my friendship with Harry. The routine of it all spurred back when it was just the two of us living together. We grew used to the company of the other and found ways to entertain the other. As our friends continued to develop their lives while we were alone in ours, we even began to adapt our own sort of routines that approached the domestic front.

That being said, things took a new turn once we married. Once we brought our little human into this world and we started life as a family. That sort of routine changed everything.

Now, we find new ways to entertain ourselves. We have to: we don't get out and about the same way that we used to. I can't even remember the last time I spent a night wasting away at a barstool at the Fat Monk. So much of our life is dependent now on the schedule of our babysitter—something that neither of us foresaw. We'd based our observations on Ruth. She was the first of us to have a kid. The rest of us were relatively available and we therefore assumed that same energy would be in place for us. Of course, we didn't account that would not be the case considering all of our friends went and had kids at the same time. Save from Fitzy who still has no children, but he cannot possibly take care of all of ours at once.

To the point: our games now take place around the house. For example: these past few days, we have taken the passive aggressive route with our toothpaste. Waking up now, I check my phone on instinct. I make sure first that Heidi hadn't texted me anything important that I had missed over the course of the night. After that, I skim through the texts from my husband.

He'd gotten in late from work last night. Both Edie and I were already down and out. Once in the course of the night I'd woken up with her but Harry hadn't returned yet at that point. Waking up in the morning, he is laying on his stomach and one arm is wrapped around me, his shoulder covering my back like he belongs there. The weight of him is welcome and familiar and I do little to move out of it, especially when it is so cold as it is when you leave the window open in November.

When Harry had returned home, he went straight to the bathroom to get ready for bed. Our recent game for self-entertainment as been petty in origin. Harry and I are not without our faults. There are little things that the other does that gets on the other's nerves: when he forgets to put the toilet seat down or when I forget to change the toilet paper once the roll is finished and there isn't one right in my immediate vicinity. Things like that. Usually, we'll go about and fix the other's mistake.