We left the park a few hours ago and we didn't even spend a lot of time there. Epcot is just basically exhibits, displays and rides that poor Lyla isn't big enough to get on. We tried to take her on the Space Expedition ride but she was a few inches too short to get on it. She was really upset so Alex and I took her to a smoothie stand and got her a strawberry smoothie. It was clear that Epcot really isn't a park for children her age so instead of dragging her all around it, we just took her back to the hotel and took the opportunity to explore the hotel for entertainment. She was really upset about the fact that she was too little to get on the Space Expedition but when we looked around the hotel, that all went away. The hotel we're staying in is called the Beach Club Resort and there are a bunch of things to keep children entertained. They have something called the Sandcastle Club here at the hotel and it's basically like a daycare where parents drop their kids off to be alone for a few hours. It has toys, games, computers, everything. Alex and I tried to get Lyla to say there for an hour, not because the two of us wanted alone time but because we—or I, rather—thought it would be a good idea for Lyla to interact with children her age. She didn't want to go though, and we didn't force her. Instead, we went back to the hotel room and put a bathing suit on her. We went swimming in the outdoor pool instead and when she got tired of swimming, we tried out the arcade where Alex won her a little stuffed monkey from Aladdin. She got tired after a while, so we brought her back to the room and gave her a bath and took her down to the restaurant downstairs to eat and she passed out as soon as she laid down in bed.

She actually did meet someone her own age. There was a play area down at the pool and while Alex and I sat on a pair of beach chairs and talked, Lyla went to the play area. She was talking to another four year old named Chloe and the two of them were having fun discussing the princesses on Chloe's bathing suit. They played together for a little while and I thought that was sweet. She should be interacting with people other than her father and her grandparents and me. She should have friends her own age; friends that can invite her to their birthday parties, on playdates and things like that. She'll probably never see Chloe again after we leave here, but that's not the point. The point is that she actually spoke to someone and related to them on her own level today. She went pee on the potty twice, once with me at the park and once with Alex here in the hotel room. She tapped him on his shoulder and told him that she had to pee and he took her. She peed like a big girl today and she made a friend and I couldn't be prouder of my little baby. Okay, secretly…I've been calling her "my little baby" but only in my head. I wouldn't dare say it out loud because she's NOT my baby but I think of her as mine in my own little mind. She's my baby.

Since she's laying asleep on the bed next to me, I turn my head to the side a little and look at her. She's lying flat on her back with her head on my pillow. Her head is to the side, facing me and one of her hands is up by her face and the other is resting on her stomach. Her yellow t-shirt is rising up and her bellybutton is hanging out the bottom of her shirt. She's wearing a pink and white pull-up and her legs are spread open. She literally passed out when her head hit the pillow. She makes me smile and I don't want Alex to notice that I'm smiling at his daughter so I wipe it away. I wouldn't overstep any boundaries and I swear I'll always stay in my place, but nobody can tell me that she's not my baby. I put my fingertips at her temple and push her hair back so it's not lingering in her face. "…Do you have anything planned for tomorrow?" I lie on my side and prop myself up on my elbow so I can face him when I talk to him. "Anything special?" Tomorrow's actually her birthday. Tomorrow's the 15th and that's her birthday.

"Not really." He's laying down in the empty bed, sprawled out by himself since Lyla's in the bed with me. His hands are resting behind his head, his legs are taking up the entire space of the bed and he's watching whatever's playing on the TV. I think it's SportsCenter but I'm literally the last person anyone would want to ask about sports so I don't know for sure. "We're doing the Animal Kingdom tomorrow, so she should have fun with that. She likes animals." He sticks his hand in the bowl of peanuts he has on the bed next to him and eats a handful. "I'm gonna get her a cake. The kitchen downstairs will make a cake as long as you put the order in at least six hours before, so I'll put the order in tomorrow morning. I'll get her a cake and we can eat it here in the hotel room. But that's pretty much it. I could've saved the dinner with the princesses for her birthday but she wasn't going to have that. She wanted that right then and there." He eats another handful of peanuts. "Bringing her here is special enough, don't you think?" He actually turns his head and looks at me. I think he caught me smiling at Lyla this time but I play it off like it was nothing. I clear the smile off my face and act like I was about to yawn or something. I nod my head to answer his question and cover my mouth to really fake the yawn. "Tired?" He shifts his body so his position on the bed mirrors mine. He's propped up on his elbow and facing me as well. "It's not even 8:30 and you're tired?"

"Long day." I halfway shrug and pick up Lyla's hand. I think I might love this little girl. She kissed me on my cheek in the bathroom earlier and that was it for me, I think. All bets are off now. I love her and she's my little baby. I rub my thumb along her tiny fingers and bring her hand up to my mouth to kiss it. I glance over at Alex and find that he was watching me with the same look he's been giving me all day, ever since we kissed last night. I recognize that look but I don't really think Alex would look at me like that when he doesn't have a reason to. His eyes are all sparkly and his mouth has a half-grin shape to it. It's the look that a guy would give you if he was trying to figure out how to ask you out. It's a nervous look, with some hints of amazement in it and maybe even a touch of lust. It's the look Mark would give me after every time he told me that he loved me. I think that's the look Alex is giving me, but it makes no sense for him to be looking at me like that. "Alex…" I gingerly put Lyla's hand back on her stomach where I picked it up from and adjust her t-shirt so her bellybutton isn't hanging out anymore. "If something ever happens…between you and me…" I look him in his eyes so he knows that this is something serious. "A fallout or something…where we can't be friends anymore…" I stroke Lyla's baby soft cheek. "Please don't take her away from me. No matter what happens between me and you, I just…I want to be around her, you know? I wanna see her grow up. So just…don't take her away from me. That's all I ask."

He reaches over on the dresser and grabs his bottle of rootbeer before he even says anything. I'm not sure if he thinks that I have more to say, but for some reason he's still quiet. He circles his tongue around the spittle of the bottle before turning it up to his lips and taking a sip. "…You love her, Jo?" He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and softens a belch. I raise my eyebrows. He kind of just laid that all out there, didn't he? I wasn't expecting such forwardness. "You can tell me if you do, I'll get it. You don't have to be scared to admit it." He holds the bottle to his lips one more time. "I kind of already know the answer…" He mumbles.

"Well…yeah." I look down at Lyla again. Her perfectly shaped eyebrows, her pink little lips, her pug nose and her chubby cheeks…it all makes me melt. "How could I not? I take up a lot of time with her, Alex. It's kind of hard not to...that's my baby girl." I mumble that last part and sigh. "What does it matter anyway? I'm just asking you to just…not take her away from me. Even if I'm being a bitch and you're being an ass. Just put that aside and let me still see her. Can you do that for me?

"I wouldn't take you away from her. Not the other way around." He licks his lips and stares down at the bottle of rootbeer in his hand, as if he's reading the label or something. "She loves you too and you know…" He puts the rootbeer back on the nightstand. "No matter how amazing of a father I am, she's gonna need someone like you. To teach her about…boys and all that girly crap that I don't even want to think about right now." I roll my eyes at his need to over-compliment himself and smirk. He's such a douchebag but the worst part about it is that he's a closet douchebag. He's only a douchebag to people he knows and that's the worst kind. He tricks everyone else into thinking that he's all nice and gentlemanlike but for people like me that truly know him, he's an asshole. "You don't really have to worry about that though. I already thought that over."

"Thank you." I sigh again and carefully slide off the bed. I'm very careful not to move too much and wake Lyla up. Since we're done talking, I softly pad over to the mini fridge and open it up. I had chicken, mashed potatoes and corn for dinner down at the hotel dining room but I only got a half-portion because I was still a little bit full from the Chinese food I had at Epcot. But I'm hungry now and I still have my fried rice so I'm gonna heat that up. I take the plastic container out of the fridge and take the plastic lid off the top. I stick it in the microwave for two minutes and sit down at the edge of Alex's bed since it's the closest one to the microwave. He's right back to watching TV and eating peanuts. Most of the time, it's as if neither one of us are even in the room; that's how much we ignore each other. He usually watches TV, I sit on my phone and/or play with Lyla and that's how we spend our time in the hotel. The only thing that's even slightly inconvenient is shower time around here. When I shower, I take everything in the bathroom with me. I take the clothes I plan on changing into, my towel, my facial cleanser, my hair stuff, everything. I shower, get out, dry off and change in the bathroom so we don't see each other naked. Alex occasionally comes out shirtless but that's the extent of it. It's a little inconvenient at times because I'll sweat like a pig because the bathroom is always still sweltering hot from my shower and then Alex bitches at me because I used all the hot water. Well…he only bitched at me tonight for using the hot water. But I had a lot to do in the shower tonight.

I had to wash my hair, which I haven't done since we've been here. I had to shave everything. My armpits, my legs, my areas. While we were at the park earlier, I just kept thinking about how we slept together last night and I was a big, hairy, gorilla mess. Since Mark passed, I usually forgo shaving as much as I used to. I used to shave my legs once a week, my armpits once a week and my areas every other day, since Mark was a huge fan of having me bald down where it counts. I kind of am a fan of that too, I guess. I just feel cleaner when I'm bald. No offense to the women that just let it grow out and flow free, no disrespect there. Do whatever you want. I just can't stand having hair between my legs. It makes me feel like an ape. Anyway, I slept in Alex's arms with hairy legs and hairy pits last night and although I doubt he noticed my prickly legs and my fuzzy pits, I'm a little mortified that there's a possibility that he did. It felt incredibly good to sleep in Alex's arms, by the way. I didn't realize that I was sleeping in his arms, that's how dreamlessly I slept. It was the best sleep I've had in a very, very long time. When I woke up in his arms this morning, I felt…weird, I guess. It was a good weird though. He was holding me around my torso and I was holding him around his waist and damn, it felt so good to know that I slept there all night. I could've stayed there all day, all week, all month, for the rest of forever. I could've died in his arms and I couldn't think of a better way to go. When I had to wake him up, there was a very large part of me that just wanted to hold onto the moment. I wanted to stay in his arms, listening to the beating of his heart, feeling his chest pump up and down and hearing his breath. I wanted to prolong it. But both of us knew that if Lyla had woken up before us and saw us laying together in bed, it would've been disastrous. And for that reason, he couldn't stay in my arms and I couldn't stay in his…no matter how badly we wanted to. Anyway, I highly doubt I'll ever sleep in Alex's arms again since it's basically forbidden, but it felt good anyway.

The microwave beeps to let me know that my food is done, so I open it up and take the plastic container of fried rice out. I grab a black plastic fork off the cup sitting on the counter next to the microwave and mix the rice around before I sit back down. I hold a forkful to my mouth and take a bite to test and see if it's hot enough. It's hot enough and it's delicious. I chew it and turn around to go back to my bed when I notice that Alex is looking at me and not the TV, which prompts me to hold my food away from my body and put my head down to look at myself. I don't know what he's looking at. I'm in a red camisole and a pair of fluffy black and white zebra print pajama pants. I even have socks on and I'm even wearing a bra, which is something I wouldn't be doing if I were at home and alone. "What?" I look at him, mouthful of rice. He's still looking at me, he's not hiding it and he made no effort to look away. "You want a bite?" He says nothing, just keeps staring. "Here." I walk over to his bed and climb onto it, right next to him. I hand him the container of rice. "Don't get your chewed up peanut crap all over my fork either."

"Shut up." He picks up the fork and takes a heaping bite of my fried rice. "Mmm…damn, that is good. Hmmm." He swallows his bite and takes another. I don't really care much, he can eat whatever he wants because if I don't get enough of it and I end up still hungry, he's the one that's gonna pay the room service bill when I order something. I sigh and wait for him to give it back whenever he's done. I turn around and look at the TV so it's not awkward if I watch him eat. My favorite Hershey's chocolate commercial is on, so I softly sing the lyrics to the song that's on the commercial. I love his commercial but it's not long before it's over. "Hey Jo…" He swallows his third bite and hands the container back to me. I turn my head back to him and take it. "What song was just playing?"

"Worth It, Fifth Harmony." I scoop up some rice on my fork.

"Yeah…let them sing it." He cracks a joke and since my mouth is full, I just narrow my eyes at him. He starts laughing. "You set yourself up…" I squint my eyes harder. "Are you mad at me?" I clench my jaw. "Sorry Jo….you just set yourself up." He's still cracking up laughing. "Sorry."

"No, fuck you bitch." I mumble to him after I swallow my food and his eyes widen by about ten sizes. He wasn't expecting me to cuss at him like that, I can tell. I shake my head at him. "You're such an ass. How do you live with yourself?" I scrape up some more rice and shovel it into my mouth. "You want the rest?" I offer it to him and he reaches out to take it but I snatch it away. "Too bad!" I switch the wad of rice to the side of my mouth and continue to chew it. He literally dives forward at me and almost makes me spill my rice all over the place. "Alex!" I fall backwards onto the end of the bed and hold my rice up so it doesn't fall. He's climbing all over the bed to get the container off of me but I roll around so he can't. "Stop it! You're gonna wake her up…" I glance over at Lyla who's still out cold. He's hovering over my body and reaching for the container. "Quit! It's mine!"

"No, you think it's cute to mess with me." He snatches the container off of me and sits down on my legs, which hurts but I don't to tell him. I don't want him to feel like he hurt me when all we're doing is playing around. It's not his fault my legs hurt. Plus, I told him that I don't hurt at all. He asked me earlier at the park and I lied because I didn't want him to think that he had to make special accommodations for me and my messed up hips. He told me that he was a doctor and he knows how much pain broken pelvises cause patients and he asked me if I was alright to actually be walking around the park. I told him that I don't hurt and I was fine. "Here." He picks up the fork inside the container and scoops some up on it. He holds it by my mouth but I'm a little bit skeptical. He might take it away at the last minute, dump it down my shirt, eat it himself…he's not going to be this nice to me. "You gonna eat it or not?" Warily, I lean my head forward slowly at first. I open my mouth, cautious of what he might do. He gently pushes the fork forward and actually feeds me. I chew it, looking at him like I'm still uncertain of his motives. "More?" I raise an eyebrow. "Okay then." He feeds himself a bite and when he's done, he offers me another. "Either you eat it or I'll eat it all." I roll my eyes and open my mouth. He gives me the last bite of rice and puts the container on the bed next to us but still doesn't get off of my legs. He does, however, move. He lunges forward like he's trying to get up but the fact that he has socks on and the quilt on top of the bed is silky…well socks and silk don't mesh well. He slips and we end up butting heads.

"Owww!" I bring my hand up and hold the side of my head where they collided. I start laughing, mostly at the fact that he slipped and fell like that. He laughs too and it's not until he starts laughing that I realize our exact position. He's between my legs and laying flat against my body and when he laughs, the jolt of his laughter hurts my hips just a little. "…You're crushing me." I make my voice sound like I'm stuck under ten tons of pressure.

"I'm not that heavy, am I?" Still laughing, he shifts all his weight off of my body and onto his elbow as he turns on his side but still manages to hover over me and stay between my legs. He holds the part of his head that hurts too. "You have a hard head."

"And you're still crushing me." I rub my head for a few moments before I take my hand away. I tilt my head slightly so I can look him in his eyes better. Damn, his eyes…his eyes. They're brown, almost green and they're so soft. I can see pain behind his eyes…pain but the fact that he wants to be happy. He wants to be happy but there's still pain behind his eyes. He has beautiful eyes, I could get lost in them. When he looks me in my eyes, I swear I feel like I'm lost. How can eye contact do that to a person? That never even happened with Mark. But when I'm looking into Alex's eyes, I feel like I'm floating off into space; like there's not a single person around and I have not a single care. And his lips…dear god, his lips. I've thought about those lips for the last 24 hours, from the curvature of them down to every last split in them. My fingers twitch for a brief moment before I bring myself back down to earth long enough to lift my hand and rest it on his cheek. He catches my drift, because he rolls back over so that he's completely hovered over me and our faces slowly, oh so slowly, center in on one another. I close my eyes and so does he and our noses are touching. The both of us pause a moment before our lips touch, wanting to preserve this magic moment for as long as possible. The only thing better than kissing Alex is the moments leading up to it. I open my mouth and he opens his.

Just as our lips are about to meet, someone knocks on the door and breaks all our concentration, our tension, our magic, our moment. He pulls back away from my face with quickness but he hovers over me for a moment longer, just looking at me with the exact same look he's been giving me all day. I know the look know, and I was wrong about what I thought it was before. This look was him wanting to do it again. This look dissolves and quickly fades into a look of disappointment, probably because we got interrupted and the both of us know that our kisses are sacred, precious and too far and few between for us to resume where we left off whenever he answers the door. We're not picking up where we left off and we're not going to kiss. He bites his bottom lip and peels his eyes away from mine as the knocking on the door starts again. Swiftly, he gets up off the bed and hurries over to the door.

I sit up on the bed and fix myself. I adjust my tank top, my hair and start to clean up the rice container that's still on the bed. I roll my eyes up to the ceiling and sigh. Really? You couldn't have just held on for a moment longer? The door HAD to be knocked on at that very moment? If this is the big man upstairs trying to punish me again for acting like I want to move on from my head husband, then sincerely, fuck you. Love, Jo. I grumble and get up off the bed so I can throw away the container. I take a peek over at the door to see who it was that knocked. It's Alex's dad and his girlfriend. Their plane must've landed a little early because they weren't supposed to be here until around 10:00. I look at the clock on the cable box. It's 9:01. They're an hour early and an hour early to interrupt me and Alex's kiss. "It's only 9:00, what do you mean she's sleeping?" I hear Alex's dad exclaim as he's dragging bags into the room. At first glance, I had a half a mind to freak out and yell at Alex because he didn't tell me that they're sharing a room with us and two beds. But when I really look, I see that the bags he's dragging in are various shades of pink, purple and yellow. They're gifts for Lyla.

"She had a long day, pop." Alex helps his dad and his dad's girlfriend carry the bags inside. They really went all out, it looks like. There has to be about five or six bags. "Me and Jo are about to head to bed too…sorry you came at a bad time." He sticks all the bags in the corner.

"Hey Jo." Alex's dad greets me.

"Hello, sir." I put a fake smile on and act like I'm busy with getting ready for bed just so I can back Alex up. I walk over to Lyla and pick her up. Her breathing hiccups for a moment when I pick her up but it steadies again and she puts her head on my shoulder. I bend down and use a free hand to pull the covers back. "Here we go baby girl." I whisper in her ear and lie her back down on the pillow. I tuck her in real snug and shut off the light that's directly next to her side of the bed. I probably shouldn't, but I lean down and kiss her on her cheek anyway. I really have to tell myself that she's not actually my baby. "Alex, she's all tucked in." I smile again and put my hands on my hips to make a good impression.

"I'll come get you guys before we go down for breakfast tomorrow morning. I have a rental…we're going to the Animal Kingdom tomorrow and then we're probably just gonna come back here do cake, ice cream, presents…that's all. Are you guys coming with us to the park tomorrow or do you two want the day to settle in? Do you just wanna do cake and ice cream with us?" Alex finishes lining the gift bags up nicely. His dad and his girlfriend stand near the door like they're getting ready to leave. I don't know if Alex can tell, but I can…I can tell that the two of them are definitely screwing. It's just the way they look at each other. They look like they screw. I crack a smile and have to look away just thinking about Alex's dad getting his swerve on. "Alright dad, see you guys. And thanks for coming again." I tuned out too early to hear if they're coming or not. Alex shuts the door behind the two of them and locks it back up.

"…Are they in the room directly next to us?" I walk to the side of my bed that Lyla's not laying on and pull the covers back so I can get ready to go to sleep too. Alex sighs, nods and starts getting ready for bed too. "…Yeah, we'd better hurry up and go to sleep then…before we start hearing the headboard smacking against the wall." I sit down in the bed and untie the drawstrings on my pants. I'll only take my pants off when I'm sitting down because even though I've kissed Alex and almost kissed him and slept with him with no pants on, I still don't want to freely let him see me with no pants on. It's still a little inappropriate and I should still be private about that.

"That's not freaking funny." He pulls his t-shirt over his head and tosses it at the end of his bed. Without a care in the world about me seeing him in his underpants, he takes off his pajama pants and piles them on top of his shirt. For some reason, I don't think it's quite as inappropriate for him to be in his underwear around me as it is for me to be in mine around him. His underwear are a pair of shorts whilst mine are lacy and sexy and it's just not the same thing. "My old man gets more play than me…that's not funny." He climbs in his bed and shuts the lights off. I do the same. "He asked me for a condom the other day. I almost slapped him."

I start to laugh. "Yeah, that sucks." He turns off the TV since he has the remote. "But what ever happened to Mr. 'I-can-have-sex-whenever-I-want-to?" I fluff up my pillow. "Not the case anymore?"

"Not necessarily." He chuckles. "I could still get so much tail. I could've had sex about ten different times on this trip with eleven different women. Don't doubt my skills."

"Then why don't you?" I roll my eyes at him even though he can't see.

"…Just because I can doesn't mean I want to, Jo." His tone isn't playful anymore; he's serious. "I'm a grown up…I'm not gonna do it with someone that I don't care about and certainly not someone that's not my significant other." I smile softly. He's not such an asshole. He's really sweet for that. Most guys aren't like that. Most guys are gonna have sex with everything they can stick their pipes into. "Which is why I'm asking Stacy out. I'll bone her on the first date, wanna bet?" Of course, he has to let a bit of the douchebaggery slip in.

"…No. I don't want to bet." I feel like a pot of boiling water. I feel the anger seeping up out of nowhere and it's rising up and eventually it's going to boil over. I don't want to hear about her. I don't even want to hear her name, let alone about him wanting to boink her. "If you fuck her on your first date, I swear to god. You should at least know if the bitch has STDs or if she's got—"

"Whoa Jo, chill out. I was just joking, no need to do all of that. Put your claws away." He diffuses the situation before I gets way out of hand and I appreciate that because I was about to escalate. I don't want to even think about him with her. Look, I guess I'm jealous but whatever, I don't want to freaking hear about that. I'll snap out and go on a rampage in this hotel. How is he just going to almost kiss me and then go straight to talking about humping another female? Not that I want it to be me that he's talking about/considering humping, I'm just saying. I don't want to have sex with Alex, I'm quite content with the kisses and the stares and the caresses. But how disre-fucking-spectful of him to do that to me? I take a deep breath. I need to calm down. Maybe I have no business feeling like this when Alex really isn't even my property to begin with but still. I just…ugh. Just fuck Stacy. Seething, I flop down on my pillow, turn my back and settle in to go to sleep for the night. "…I won't ask Stacy out if you don't want me to." He whispers. I stay silent, still trying to cool down. I get so angry so fast and it's so hard for me to calm down. "Jo? d'ya hear me?" He tries again. "I didn't know it bothered you…"

"It doesn't bother me. Can we just drop it?" I mumble. "Goodnight."

"You wanna sleep over here?" He's offering me an olive branch.

"Can't. Lyla'll wake up and see." I stare at the wall. I want to sleep with him so badly. I want to go over there, crawl in the bed with him and have the exact same sleep I had last night. Even though he pissed me off to no extent, I still want to sleep with him.

"…I'll set an alarm to wake me up at 8:30. She shouldn't be up before then. I'll get up, go get in the bed with her and that'll be that. If you want me to, that is." He clears his throat. "Do you want me to?"

"…Yeah."

Alex's Point of View.

"Alex?" She whispers my name in the darkness, finally breaking the silence between us. We both understand that the other isn't necessarily asleep, we're just being quiet and enjoying the moment. I know she's not asleep by the way I can feel her eyelashes tickling my chest every time she blinks. Tonight's position is only slightly different from last night's. She's lying smack in the middle of my chest tonight and her arms aren't around my waist. One of her arms is up underneath of my back and the other one is draped across my chest just like her leg is draped across my waist. We've been laying like this for no longer than ten minutes and for the entire ten minutes, we've been silent. She climbed in the bed with me, got comfortable and hasn't said one word until a second ago. I'm busy playing with my hair and listening to her breathing. There's a piece of me that wants to lie her down flat in the bed and just…rub her. Not sexually, in a more caressing kind of way. She told me at the park earlier that her body doesn't hurt but I find that really hard to believe. She suffered a broken pelvis. Those things take a while to heal and even when they do heal, the pain is excruciating at times. I've dealt with broken pelvises before. It's arguably the most painful thing that can happen to a person. And she's walking around Disney World like she's okay? I know she's not. "Alex?"

"Huh?" I trace my fingers along her shoulders. Her legs feel like silk against mine. In fact, every inch of her skin is soft. She asked me if I'm happy earlier at the park and I didn't know how to respond at that moment in time. If I had to respond now, the answer would be yes. Yes, I'm happy. I've got a sexy woman in my arms, I'm on vacation with her and my daughter…what's there not to be happy about? I can't stop stroking my fingers along her velvety skin. Don't get me wrong, I loved my wife to death. I loved Jenna with everything in me, every ounce of my being. But when I touch Jo, it's a feeling I never had, even with Jenna. Touching Jo is like touching a flower, soft and delicate but so sweet. Something about this woman is special. I know this, because I don't think about sex with her. I don't think about throwing her legs over my shoulders. I think about this right here…holding her and caressing her and letting her know that she's something to me. And if I were to have sex with her, I wouldn't have sex with her. I'd make sweet, sweet love to her. I don't desire Jo like I desire other women though. I don't picture her naked, I don't dream of hearing her moan my name. I picture her in my arms, I picture her on my chest and I dream of hearing her laugh. She's so very different.

"…Just making sure you're still awake." She whispers. "Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Shh." She puts her finger to my lips. I pucker my lips and kiss it. "That…" It's silent in the room again so I listen for whatever she wants me to listen for. I hear it and I immediately wish I hadn't. It's faint, but it's there. It's light tapping against the wall. I suck my teeth and she starts to laugh. I really could've lived my entire life without hearing my dad bang a chick I work with. I really could've died without hearing this I would be perfectly fine. I roll my eyes and shake my head. "I told you we should go to bed before it starts…" There is a bright side to hearing my dad banging his girlfriend though…a silver lining. A small one. Very small. My dad screwing Nurse Michelle could give me a little bit of hope. I mean, he's clearly over my mom now, right? And if my dad can get over my mom when he was so deeply in love with her and desperately wanted her back, maybe I could get over Jenna.

That's some mad, mad hope though.