She had fallen asleep in her chair again.
They had this overstuffed chair and ottoman in the living room that she had somehow managed to claim as all her own, despite the fact that he had been the one to shell out the money for it. She loved to snuggle down into it on quiet evenings with whichever book she happened to be reading at the time.
That was the funny thing. She loved to read, but for some reason she had difficulty ever getting to the end of any of her books. There were little stacks of them all over the house with bookmarks stuck in them, reminding her that they were yet to be completed. Sometimes, if she forgot to bring one with her to the chair, she would just pick one up off of the closest stack and flip it open like it hadn't been sitting there for a month unattended.
On one such occasion, he asked her how she could still remember what was going on in the story. She barely glanced up at him as she shrugged and nonchalantly replied, "I can't," before turning her attention back to what he thought must have been a very confusing story if she couldn't remember the first half of it.
He stared incredulously at her for a second, wanting to question her further, but decided there was probably no possible way he would ever understand, and she obviously wasn't bothered by it, so he would leave her to it.
Almost as many times as she sat in the chair to read, she fell asleep there. He often joked with her that instead of calling it her reading chair, they should call it her sleeping chair. She would smile and roll her eyes at him, return to her reading, and fall asleep a little while later. He would mark her page, return the book to its requisite stack, and perhaps stand back for a moment – or two, or three – just so he could look at her, before carefully lifting her up into his arms and carrying her to bed.
Now he stood in the doorway separating the kitchen from the living room with a soft smile on his face. He leaned against the doorjamb and crossed his arms, eyes slowly drinking in the sight before him.
It was January, so she had a fluffy fleece throw tucked around her legs, one sock-clad foot poking out from the bottom. Her favorite gray knit cardigan was falling off of one shoulder, revealing the single strap of the camisole she wore beneath. Her silky, brown hair, which she had twisted into some haphazard sort of braid, was lying across her exposed shoulder, pieces sticking out in disarray against her skin. Even as he watched, she twitched, jerking her shoulder so that the braid slid down closer to her neck. Her book – this one she'd only had for a few days – lay open in her lap, turned to the last page.
She must have finished it, he mused.
He would have liked to congratulate her on her success, but she was just so beautiful when she was asleep that he didn't want to deny himself the pleasure.
After what wasn't nearly long enough, he tore his gaze away and glanced at the old wooden mantle clock. It was late. He stepped forward and lightly plucked up the book from her lap. Instead of placing it on one of the nearby stacks, he decided to give it a place of honor and walked over to slide it onto the shelf of the dark cherry bookcase recessed into the wall by the fireplace. She would be pleased when she noticed it the next morning.
As he passed by her chair again on the way to turn down their bed, he gave the cord on the antique reading lamp behind her a quick tug to extinguish the light. He quickly pulled the comforter and sheet down and arranged her pillow the way she liked it: tilted at an angle so she could rest her head on the top and wrap her arm around the bottom to cuddle.
When he walked back into the living room, she was listing to the side toward one of the wide, plush armrests. Gently he disentangled her from the blanket, folding it messily and tossing it down on the ottoman by her feet. He slipped an arm behind her back, redirecting her slumped figure to rest on his chest before sliding his other arm beneath her knees and standing.
She stirred briefly, drowsily lifting her head up an inch or two from his shoulder.
"Shh," he whispered. "Go back to sleep, baby."
He kissed her lightly on the temple and she smiled at him sleepily, her head dropping down again as sleep reclaimed her.
He placed her on their bed, smiling smugly when she automatically turned toward her pillow and wrapped her arm around it.
After making the rounds to make sure all of the lights were off and the doors locked, he settled contentedly into bed next to her. As much as he liked to tease her for falling asleep in that chair, he secretly loved it. He had discovered that he delighted in marking her page, fixing her pillow just so, and – most of all – the feel of her in his arms as he carried her to bed. It was becoming a ritual he looked forward to.
He couldn't wait until she fell asleep in her chair again.