Tuesday welcomed me inexplicably well-rested.

The primary feeling as I sat up on the couch was that of confusion. There was no need to check the time, frown at it, and turn around in hopes of continuing my slumber. I rubbed the sleep out of my eye as my other senses also began waking up, and a particularly loud clang! from the kitchen forced me into full alertness.

I pulled the blanket off of myself and picked up my phone from the floor to check it—barely nine in the morning. Rather than starting any of my morning rituals, my legs carried me through the white French doors separating me from the dining room, to see where the noise was coming from. The much stronger daylight seeping into the dining area would've been the one to blast me away, usually; this time, it was an entirely different sight that stopped me in my tracks.

"Hey, morning. Hope I didn't wake you."

Blue eyes merely glanced at me over his shoulder, before he returned to his task. I tilted my head as I watched Harry, clad in a loose shirt and sweatpants, washing the dishes in all his domestic glory. "What are you doing?"

"Had some breakfast, so I'm cleaning up. I made an omelet, hope that's alright. I'll buy a carton of eggs later today."

"Yeah, all good, but you..." I scratched the side of my head as I sauntered over to the kitchen, to lean against a counter a foot from him. "Really don't have to do the dishes."

"Nah, there wasn't a lot," He spoke with a small sigh as he set the pan he'd just rinsed in the dishrack. Only my eyes moved to follow his actions as he continued, "Just the pan, plate, and this cutlery. Besides, I clean after myself."

"That's also nice, but it's not what I meant." Royally, I reached for the counter separating the one I was leaning on and the sink where Harry stood, and opened it. There weren't a lot of things that could beat waking up well-rested, but one of them was the look on his face when he realized he'd been doing the dishes while standing right next to a dishwasher. In his defense, it was built-in.

Watching a man come to a realization that made him invent new stages of grief was remarkable. Harry's face was frozen for a second, then fell into disappointment, and then he placed the fork he was washing back in the sink; the sight was straight out of a cartoon scene where a character's head would turn into a lollipop to symbolize that they'd been had. He rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand, before slapping his hands against the edge of the sink to lean onto it, finally looking at me. "Why the hell do you even have a sink in the kitchen?"

Interesting approach—acting defensive, and failing at it as he unsuccessfully tried curbing the smile on his face. I just shrugged at his question and played along, "Beats me, I just run myself in the dishwasher when I'm thirsty."

"Very funny."

"What's next? You gonna sweep the floor around the vacuum cleaner?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Harry looked up from his new task of wiping the water around the sink with a paper towel, brows curiously raised, "Actually, not a bad idea, I like to clean. But I'm going to class first, so if you know a good bus stop where I could go and then keep walking to school, that'd be nice."

While I appreciated the sportsmanship in going along with making fun of himself, I was too baffled by his words to think of another example. "Wh- you're going to class? Why are you going to class?"

He blinked, "Because I'm a student?"

"Yeah, but you also eat shit every time you try to take your shoes off."

"Ate shit." He pointed a finger at me in emphasis. "I tend to eat shit for a few days after therapy. I'm a new man as of today."

I was still processing his plan when he approached the counters across the sink, and poured himself a cup of coffee I hadn't noticed he'd made. Some small corner of my brain registered him asking me if I wanted one, but a response was years away as the rest of my brain fought the sudden panic that struck me.

"Evie?"

"No. I mean, yeah, I want coffee, but listen, Harry, I..." I gathered myself, "Don't really feel good about that."

"What, drinking coffee?" He was too busy going through our cupboards to notice I wasn't replying—a few quiet seconds passed before he let out a triumphant 'aha!' when he found the sugar, proceeding to brag about how he remembered how I liked my coffee. When he didn't get a reply to that either, he turned his head to me and his soft, amused expression dissipated and was replaced by a soft, empathetic expression. "Come on, Ev, I can handle an hour-long lecture, this isn't my first rodeo."

"It is your first rodeo in my care."

"I can't just not go to class." My anxiety-poisoned brain wished it was an actual possibility he was ready to consider. "Besides, shouldn't you, as my caretaker, recognize that I'm fine?"

I chewed on my bottom lip and just watched him for a minute while he made me coffee. Not entirely in the wrong, I had to admit—he looked fine. No longer pale, no bags under his eyes, pretty energetic considering it was only nine in the morning. Hypothetical situations that could go wrong piled up in my head, and truthfully, there weren't many dangers I could think of that I considered valid. The university was just a fifteen-minute walk from my apartment, the weather seemed nice, and he had friends he sat with in lectures. It wasn't like he was going to be alone, which would've been an entirely–

That's it!

"Harry?" I took a deep breath, the best idea I'd ever had bringing me back to life, "What time do you have to be there?"

"Uh, ten."

"Great! I'll go with you."

"You- what?" He almost missed my cup and fed our countertop some milk.

"Just give me a minute to get ready."

"Evelyn-"

But I was already out of the kitchen.

○○○

Turns out, I liked being a fake sports analytics major.

We sat pretty far up in the lecture hall, and I pretended my copy of Normal People was my textbook. With the professor's soothing voice and the occasional soft chatting around me, it almost felt like a library. It was academia without the academic pressure.

Or any kind of pressure, really, seeing as the child I'd forced into being babysat was right next to me, giving me the peace of mind I craved. He went between taking notes, staring at or right through his professor, looking at his phone, and talking to his friends who sat to his left. Doing just fine. Doing significantly better than when he was at my apartment, out of place and tense after the three long, long days he'd had, but I was comforted by the fact that they would've been even longer had he been on his own.

As I flipped a page, a loud sigh to my left got my attention; a true testament to how invested he was in this class, the child lay his head on his textbook, facing my side. Harry's eyes were half-lidded, but he caught me mouthing 'you good?' and replied with 'bored'. I gave a compassionate smile while he shrugged, and closed his eyes.

I had every intention to return to my book. I wasn't sure why or how I continued staring at his face; it started with taking note of the features that might stir up worry, but instead of the bags under his eyes I was focused on how straight his nose was, and instead of chapped lips that could indicate a fever I was concentrated on his Cupid's bow. Something was drawing my eyes to observe this particular face– not that I generally cared to stare at anyone's features and oh, God, now he's looking at me!

Organically stupid, I jerked my head to look back at my novel so hard that something in my neck cracked, and a strand of hair fell from behind my ear. Maybe it was my guardian angel shielding me from the teasing I'd receive for blushing like an idiot later on. Nevertheless, I tucked it back behind my ear, opting to pretend nothing happened. Because that's exactly what happened. Nothing. Not like he caught me gawking at him.

Not like I glanced at him again, and did a double take when I realized he was still staring back at me.

Harry wasn't as shy and skittish as I was—he kept that eye contact. His eyes were opened wide enough that I could tell he wasn't looking through me. They darted over my face and I suddenly felt immense regret for not letting my hair hide me, as my face reacted to shyness and skittishness by heating up to the boiling point. I blinked at him and he blinked back at me, expression indifferent.

Some seven seconds later—that were eight seconds too long—he looked away and raised his head from his textbook, acting as an alarm for my brain. I took a deep breath and brought my attention back to my book, hitting the snooze button on cringing at whatever the hell had just happened.

But, to no avail. My eyes were drawn to Harry's hands as soon as I saw him moving beside me; he'd pulled the sleeves of his beige sweatshirt up to his elbows, and had taken his notebook to write something down. Another attempt to keep my eyes at bay failed, this time with justifiable reason, when he slid his notebook over to me. I leaned forward to get a better look.

A tic-tac-toe grid. An X was marked in the upper left corner. Harry was offering me his pen.

I looked at him and back at his notebook a couple of times before I took the pen from his hand. The metal was still warm as I marked my O, and his fingers touched mine when he took the pen to play. When it was my turn, he lay his hand flat on the notebook, palm up, and didn't move it after I picked the pen up; it stayed right there while I played, too, a mere half of an inch from mine, where it was in my sight as much as the grid. I could count the veins in his palm, but instead put my mind to not letting him win.

When the game ended with a draw, he took a deep breath and sat up, hastily drawing another grid next to the old one. For the second game, I was X, and he was entirely too close to me. His temple was barely but surely touching my hair as he watched me play, and his elbow was an inch off of grazing my left boob. I wasn't sure if this was some sort of tactic to make me nervous so he could win, but it didn't work—I knew the combination to win as X. And I did.

And he was displeased in the most endearing way.

Another loud sigh came from his nose as he dropped his head down to his textbook, his forehead making a dull thud with the impact. Smiling from ear to ear, I took the opportunity to write out the tiniest letters below the grid–

Evie won here :)

By the time I finished enhancing my smiley face, Harry's head was up, and he was looking at what I was doing; he plucked the pen from my hand and corrected something in my writing, and I could see it only after he dropped the pen in front of me.

Evil won here :)

The glare I aimed at him didn't work as he deliberately ignored me. I sighed in defeat and wrote a reply.

:(

I finally leaned back and returned to my novel. Harry shifted in his seat and his face was pointed at the notebook again, and a few moments passed before I noticed him writing something down. When he set the pen down, I leaned forward again, just to check if it had anything to do with our game–

MY WIFE WON HERE =)

From his aggressive handwriting to the wording, the whole thing made me feel warm, and I chose to label that warmth as my shyness that was bubbling to the surface. I didn't leave it without a response, though.

:)