LHM

I woke to my name on Edward's lips and my kid sleep talking again.

"You're here." I rubbed my face, super-confused.

"You texted me."

"I did?"

"Yeah. At four-friggin'-thirty. What in the hell were you doing up so early?"

I rubbed my face. "My brain is broken. It wouldn't shut off. What did I say?"

He gave me that sideways grin. "Come back."

Jacy mumbled and snuggled impossibly closer to me, molding herself against my back. Even as a toddler, she'd always been all up in my space, feet and hands and diapered butt in my personal bubble all night long. She didn't sleep sideways anymore, but she still multiplied in heat capacity by about twelve million degrees, and she instantly gained four hundred pounds, heavy and hot and whispering nonsense in my ear. She also still loved to cuddle.

Some mornings, if I pretended hard enough, she was two again.

Edward watched her settle back to sleep against my shoulder before he looked at me.

"Want some coffee?"

"Oh, my god, yes." I struggled out from under Jacy and cupped the mug he offered, thinking, wondering, worrying about what he planned to say to me, if I should go first. "How did you get in?"

"I've had Jack's key for a while now; you need to get that girl a brick to keep attached to it. She loses it all the damn time. But maybe you want it back now?"

"Want it back?"

"My mother thinks I've ruined it, that I moved too fast and you're done with me. She's heartbroken..."

"Heartbroken?" What?

"Yeah and my dad is pissed."

She's heartbroken? He's pissed? What was happening right now?

"You told them about me?"

"Well, yeah… about both of you. Forever ago. Mom doesn't even ask about me anymore. It's all 'How's Jack,' and 'I hope you bought Bella flowers this week.'"

That explained the flowers.

"So… they know about us."

"Of course they do. Probably more than you want them to, but she's my mom, and I'm her only kid. She has this weird way of getting me to spill everything all the time."

"And your dad is mad?"

"At me." He lowered his voice, impersonating the older, stately version I imagined his father would be. "You fucked up a good thing, son." He reached out and picked up the ring, staring at it. "Did I fuck it up?"

"No," I said. "I'm not scared."

"Bullshit."

"I'm not. I'm a mess, remember?"

"A hot mess." He grinned.

"A mess. You're gonna have to get used to that."

"Also bullshit. You're fun. And spunky. And snarky and sexy as fuck. I like it when you talk back to me. And I like it when you smile at me and when you roll your eyes at me and when you wash those fucking dishes. I like it when you walk around your house half naked." He got that devilish grin, the one he used whenever we were alone but not for long. Like he was on a mission with a time limit. "Come do that at my house, ok? The naked part and all the other stuff too. Forever."

AN

Y'all.

I have feelings.

Most of them are for HH.

xo

HBM