The first thing I do after my phone wakes me up, is sigh – this has been happening to me too much lately. Just when I fall asleep after a long day, in a comfortable bed, with another body comfortably against me, something has to happen. Now it's my phone, a few days ago it was Kirsten literally sitting on the doorbell of-

         Wait.

         Wait, wait, wait.

         Last thing I remember is bringing Conrad home- I don't remember going home myself.

         So this could only mean one thing.

         The body I got my arms firmly wrapped around isn't Delaney, and the person calling me on my phone isn't Kirsten – it may very well be the other way around.

         As soon as the thought sinks into my brain, making my heart try to beat its way out of my chest after skipping a beat or two, I sit up, getting myself in a kneeling position in panic. By the time my already clammy right hand gets my phone out of my pocket, Kirsten turns on her back, stretching out as she was sleeping too. I was right about it being the other way around- God, I hate that I'm right sometimes.

         "Hello?"

         "What is-" Kirsten's eyes widen, almost falling out of her head when I urgently place my free hand over her mouth, then crawl on top of her to straddle her waist when she tries fighting me; luckily, she's too shocked at my actions to even move, let alone make a sound. She's just lying there, both of her hands frozen around my wrist while we look at each other.

          If I'm still in the same position when I get off the phone with my girlfriend, the already uncomfortable situation will become ten times worse.

         "Harry?" Delaney says on the other line, and while I'm desperately hoping that she hadn't heard any of the rustling that happened on my side, I can't help but think – what in God's name did I do to deserve to be in this situation?

         "Hey, Del, uh... what's the time?" I frown, scared of her answer.

         "It's almost seven, I know you had to work past your shift but-"

         "I fell asleep," I blurt out the first thing that crosses my mind, "I-I, uh, fell asleep at my desk. Jesus."

         "...Want me to pick you up?"

         "No!" I yelp, accidentally, "No, I'll have a-a glass of water and then I'll be okay to drive. I promise."

         "Okay. Um... I made pizza." I close my eyes, already eating myself up on the inside for lying to her. "So hurry up before it gets cold."

         "I will, baby."

         I look down at Kirsten, feeling her warm hand wrap around my wrist, her eyes pleading me to let go of her face. I remove my palm, but leave my fingers on her lips, feeling her breath as she exhales the air I forced her to keep in her lungs for over half a minute. She's breathing a little heavily, but soon her breath hitches again when I slowly run my index and middle finger from one corner of her mouth to the other, and back.

         What are you doing. What are you doing. What are you doing?

         She continues breathing when my movements become continuous, but once I inattentively replace my fingers with my thumb, she puckers her lips to kiss the tip of it, looking me in the eyes the whole time; and that's when I blink, snapping out of the accidental, highly inappropriate daydream and becoming aware of everything around me again.

         Including my girlfriend that I'm on the phone with, who's probably called my name two or three times already.

         "Wha-what?" I raise my brows, still a little lost, "What?"

         Delaney giggles, "You fell asleep again, didn't you?"

         "...Yes," I reply, slowly and coherently, "I closed my eyes for a second. Sorry. I'll be home soon."

         "Okay. I love you."

         I close my eyes at her words, moving my hand away from Kirsten's face completely, "I love you too."

         She starts wriggling underneath me, until she's pulled herself up in a sitting position, against the headboard, her knees against her chest while I'm sitting opposite of her and looking at my phone. In a few months time, when all of this is settled, I'm going to be looking back at this moment and thinking about what a fool I was. What a fool I am.

         "Sorry about this." I look up at Kirsten as she speaks up in a scratchy voice, rubbing her face, "I didn't mean for it to happen."

         And the way her tired expression also holds a look of remorse, tells me she might as well be sorry about this. Even though she pretty much got me where she'd wanted me, more mentally than physically – I don't think I hate her as much as I thought I did. In addition, I hate myself more than I thought I did.

         "Doesn't matter," I sigh, crawling up to sit against the headboard next to her- literally what am I doing. What am I doing? Why am I testing my own luck so much? "She... believes everything I say."

         I notice Kirsten nod from the corner of my eye, "That just means you've always been good to her. Don't beat yourself up about it."

         "I feel like shit now, though."

         "Why?" I frown as I turn my head to her as she asks the question- is she for real? "You didn't do anything wrong."

         "Yeah, right, I was just spooning my ex girlfriend during an afternoon nap. She wouldn't be upset about that at all."

         "Well, if it ever got to her, at least you could say we never actually did anything."

         "I guess." I shrug my shoulders; I mean, she is right. I didn't sleep with her or anything. I didn't even kiss her. If nothing, I'll at least be able to sleep at night. "Where's Conrad?"

         "...He got up before we woke up, I guess."

         "Do you think he saw us... sleeping?"

         "Well, yeah, why you ask?"

         I shrug again, looking down at my hands; however, I move my eyes toward Kirsten as much as I can without moving my head, when I see her shifting toward me, just the slightest, but still noticeably decreasing the space between our bodies.

         "I just thought..." I trail off for a second, staring at her hand that's flat against the quilt beneath us; in some other, alternative universe, I'm reaching down and taking her hand and holding it. Not this one, though. "It'd be weird for him to see something like that. I mean, I had my arms around you, and he doesn't even know who I am."

         "Yet."

         This time I turn my head to her, looking at her with what I feel is a sad expression, while her eyes are giving me a warm look, also somewhat sad. Why are we sad? "I got a question."

         Kirsten holds back a snort at my flat, sleepy voice, for now only replying with a tight smile. "What is it?"

         "Why'd you pick him?"

         "...Are you serious right now?"

         "No, listen," I shake my head, before she could flip out at my question or something, "You... you found out you were pregnant. And you were scared and confused and I get all of that, but... ultimately... if you'd already decided to marry someone because of it, why him?"

         After concluding I've put my inquiry the way I'd wanted to, I look at her again; she's staring right in front of herself, might have been the whole time I was talking, and she's chewing on her lower lip. I can't read the look on her face, or anything. Maybe I should turn on the light, it's getting dark in here.

         "I..." She opens her mouth but pauses right after, seeming almost shy to say what's on her mind. "I-I don't know how to explain it."

         "With words," I stupidly respond, making her let out a short, breathy laugh. "Please."

         "Okay, well..." First she shakes her head for a few seconds, then shrugs when she realizes there's probably no easy way to say what she has to say. "When I thought about it... it's kinda cruel, but I realized living with myself would be more tolerable if I was with Eric and the baby turned out to be yours, than being with you and having his child."

         I start nodding even before I've fully understood what she's just said, and when I do, her reasoning turns out to be more considerate than I thought it'd be. Okay, maybe considerate isn't the word, but it's not as heartless as I expected.

         "So, basically..." I lick my lips, "You picked him because hurting him would've been more bearable than hurting me."

         "...Yeah. Basically."

         I nod to myself, keeping my eyes on her; now I think it's safe to say her reason was considerate. On some level. "Was that why you... let me find out on my own?"

         "Yeah," She replies quietly, now looking down at her own hands. "I made sure you found out. Because I know how impulsive you are when you're angry, and I knew you would've broken up with me on the spot, so-"

         "You got everything you wanted," I smile, a bit humorously as I think about it; she really had a whole lot of things going on at the time. "I broke up with you, you married Eric- I've another question."

         Unlike earlier, I can read the look on her face now – why the questions, Harry, why?. "Why... in the name of God... did you invite me to the wedding?"

         She sighs, going back to look at her hands again- okay, I already know the reason is less than considerate this time because, I mean... it just isn't. "I-I thought I could use it as one last chance to explain myself, but I didn't realize it was impossible until I... saw you there."

         "Yeah," I nod firmly, agreeing, "I was quite the sight, wasn't I?"

         "Not just that, I... it was just too late. I'd fucked up too much for anything to be done about it, and I wasn't aware of it until you were standing in front of me, minutes before I walked down the aisle toward another man-"

         "Now you sound like my brain the first few months," I interrupt her before she could go on, and this turned to be way more depressing than needed. "Actually, it still sounds like that, but I've gotten used to it at this point."

         I look at Kirsten; she doesn't look as humored by the entire conversation as I am. Although I'm probably more relaxed because I did nothing wrong, while she has quite a lot on her plate.

         "Harry?"

         "Hm?"

         "I'm... I'm sorry. I know I sound stupid and desperate by now, but I want you to know I really..."

         She trails off, sounding more tired than before, and I widen my eyes and hold my breath when she leans her head on my shoulder; her actions are pretty scream-worthy in my opinion, but then again, we already napped together. And I am kind of comforting her right now, ironically. How worse could this get?

         "I know." I awkwardly lift my arm to put it around her shoulder, not really knowing what to do.

         "And I don't expect you to ever forgive me, but-"

         "You never know," I cut her off, squeezing her arm, which makes her look up at me, "We have a child together. He might... soften me up."

         She lifts her head from my shoulder, but doesn't pull away completely, letting her straightened hair tickle my neck and the side of my face; her face is actually that close to mine, while she's doing nothing. Just sitting there like that, leaned toward me more than I'd like, staring into my eyes. I can't wait to hear what's on her mind.

         "You know..." Kirsten starts, her minty breath on my face making me blink, "I-I don't expect us to live like a family or anything, but I'd love for Conrad to have both of us in his life. Both of us at the same time."

         "How?" I raise my brows, not even trying to create some distance between us, "You two live in Florida, and I'm here."

         "Well, about that-"

         Just as she starts talking about the part that interested me the absolute most, we both flinch at the sound of the door opening; a second later, there he is, Seth, leaned against the door frame, with his coffee mug in his hand and a smirk on his face.

         "Morning."

         Kirsten gets out of the bed- out of my face, more importantly, and is marching toward Seth; while I'm still sitting in my spot, calm, confused about the way he's greeted us.

         "If you bring this up, I'll cut off your ear."

         "Wait, Kirs- thanks a lot." I don't even know what happened – one moment I was sitting in bed with her, our faces inches apart and now I'm chasing her out of this lunatic's son's room. What has my life become?

         "Listen, you..." Her hands are in her hair, and her eyes are closed by the time I reach her in the hallway- what's with the wild reaction all of a sudden? "You should leave. I'll call you to tell you about Conrad staying here."

         "I'm staying here?"

         And, of course, there he is, standing at the doorway of the living room, with his big green eyes widened in excitement. "Is that true, mom? I'm staying here?"

         "He's staying here?" Seth frowns, confused as he watches us from his spot, but loses the expression and starts nodding when he takes one look at me- is it that obvious that I'm the reason for this? "Oh, I get it, I get it, no worries. He can stay here."

         "Really?" The boy and I accidentally say in unison, my mouth spreading into a grin while he runs toward Seth to hug him. Alright, we've never been that close – especially since he slept with that 18 year old girl whose teacher he was a couple years ago, got caught, lost his teaching license because of it, and, quite inconveniently, I was the girl's lawyer in that whole mess – but I could also hug him right now.

         "Yeah, sure, what the looney tunes," He says, grinning at Conrad as he picks him up, their expressions identical. "We all like having you around, plus, you're a big boy now, you don't need your mom with you all the time anymore."

         "Seth."

         "I'm kidding, you definitely need your mom with you all the time."

         "Yeah, even he needs his mom all the time," Kirsten comments as she walks over to them, taking Conrad from his hands, and walking over to me. Wait, me? Why me?

         "Would you like to see Harry again, baby?"

         Oh. That's why me.

         "Um..." He hums, looking at me with his big eyes still holding excitement and delight and- God, I could eat him up. "Yes! He buys pie."

         He only likes me for the pies.

         "Okay, well..." Kirsten looks up at me, her now fully awake eyes looking at me half worried, half indecisive. "If that's what you all want..."

         In some way, I think I understand her. She's been with him ever since he was born, and even when she wasn't, it wasn't because of something like this. It definitely requires some getting used to, from my side too. Who knows, if we keep this up, I won't be just accidentally spending time with her.

         "Okay, I'm gonna do you guys a favor and leave," Seth startles me a little as he claps his hands together, pointing at me as he walks toward the living room- "Even though I'm working as Niall's secretary because of you now."

         "Hey, don't blame me, I'm not the one who-"

         "Harry." I look down at her, as she places the clueless little guy on the ground, having him run off after Seth. "Watch your language around him, can you do that?"

         "Yeah. Yeah, sure," I nod, rubbing my clammy hands against my pants. Okay, I got Conrad to be allowed to stay – what now?

         "...I'll talk to Kassidy and we'll see how you're gonna be seeing him, since I'm assuming you can't take him to your place yet."

         "Yeah. Okay."

         "You'll probably be able to come here after work or something, if you have time."

         "Okay."

         "And... since you'll be getting your results in a few days, I'm expecting you to do something about it. You wanted this, anyway."

         "Of course," I nod immediately, making her sigh, but with her crossed arms I can tell she's still a little tense about how things are going to be. Hell, even I am. "Of course. Of course."

         "Is that all you're gonna say?"

         "I mean it."

         I need to start having less serious, dramatic, touching moments with her. And those moments seem to be all we've been having since we met at her husband's wake. "I'll call you."

         "Okay."

         "Okay. Well, bye, Harry."

         "Bye."

         One more thing I need to figure out – if I feel like I'm leaving a part of me inside that apartment because I'm leaving my son, or because I'm leaving his mother.

*

hiiiiiiiiiii sorry for needing a million years to update but hey i'm really excited about the next part and you should be too :D :D

please vote and comment what you think (or just tell me about your day if you feel like it, i want to hear about your day xxxxx)