Chapter 60 (11/5/16)

Guys, I am so sorry.  I wish I could explain to you how much work has been sucking the life out of me lately. My little random trip did wonders but it didn't take long to get back into the crazy.  I miss interacting with you all in the comments, I miss posting regularly (and on time!) and I miss enjoying writing.  I'm going to go back to just posting whenever I can for awhile.  I'm sorry.  I know so many blogs have been ending or disappearing, and I don't want to let you guys down.  Please follow me on Blogger or Bloglovin' so you know when I'm posting!  I'll do my best to get back to a spot where I can post on a schedule, but for now, this will be better than not being able to post when I say I will.  Thank you all for understanding and being patient!

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When my alarm went off in the morning, Ryan groaned and croaked, “Make it stop.” 

“Sorry,” I muttered sleepily, reaching for my phone.  I climbed over him to search for it in my purse on the floor.  On my way, I got my foot tangled in the blanket and tumbled off the side of the bed, landing on the floor with the blanket on top of me in a heap.

I laid on the floor laughing at myself while my alarm continued to chime from my purse, which was just out of reach.  Ryan’s sleepy face appeared over the edge of the bed, one eyebrow cocked.  “Are you serious?” he asked, grinning tiredly at me.  “You are almost 30 years old and you just fell out of bed.  Do you realize that?”

“Yes,” I said, giggling hopelessly.  “I’m laying on the floor tangled in a blanket, I’m pretty sure I realize exactly what happened.”

Ryan sat up, swung his legs over the edge, and leaned down.  In seconds he had untangled the blanket, pulled it off me, and drawn me to my feet.  “Now, turn that terrible thing off, please.”

“Aw, and here I thought you were just being helpful,” I said, pretending to pout as I dug my phone out of my purse and turned the alarm off. 

“I’m always helpful,” he mumbled, his face already pressed back into the pillow. 

I snorted and then noticed I had a text from my boss.  I frantically checked the time to make sure I wasn’t late.  It was only 7:30, I had plenty of time.  I opened the text.  “Water main break up the street from construction.  Our road is closed.  We’re closed today, but plan to work tomorrow regardless of if road is open or not.”

“Guess what?!” I said excitedly, bouncing back into bed and straddling Ryan’s hips. 

He cracked one eye open at me in half-asleep irritation.  “You’re far too loud and cheerful this morning,” he grumbled.  “What?”

“I don’t have to go to work today!” I told him, managing to lower my voice to a more reasonable morning volume.

“No?” he asked, perking up a little.  “That’s good news.  Get back in here and go back to sleep with me then.”  He tried to tug me off of him but I wriggled away.

“We can go back to sleep in a little while,” I said, wiggling my eyebrows and tugging the blanket down.  Ryan groaned again.  I thought I was a terrible morning person, but he was even worse.  He stopped groaning when I settled between his legs and started nibbling on his inner thigh.  “Should I stop?” I asked teasingly.

“No,” he replied, sounding much more awake.

After a round of languid sex, we settled under the blankets and fell back to sleep.  I awoke about an hour later to Ryan shifting and fidgeting.  “Are you a small child?” I asked him, shifting away from him as his knee bumped the back of my leg.

“Sorry,” he replied.  “I guess it’s time to get up.”  Now, after an hour-long nap, I was the one protesting being awake.  “C’mon,” he prodded me.  “I’ll buy you breakfast.” 

The promise of food perked me right up and I got up, showered quickly, and got dressed.  After breakfast, we walked around downtown, wandering in and out of the fun shops and galleries there.  Give our weird relationship so far (if you could even call it that), we really hadn’t done a lot of “dating” things, and it was fun spending the day with him in public. 

“So you’re finally publicly claiming me,” I teased him as we walked down the sidewalk hand-in-hand. 

“Finally?” he asked with a laugh.  “Want to call up some of my coworkers?  I claimed you long before you would have claimed me.  I can’t help it that you love my cooking so much you never want to go out.  Admit I, sex and my cooking is all you really want here.”

“Well…” I said, smirking.  Ryan growled in mock outrage and tried to pull his hand from mine.  I grinned and wrapped my arm around his.  “No, I guess I kind of like you.  Or something.”

Ryan started laughing and freed his arm so he could wrap it around my shoulders.  “Kind of?  Or something?  Considering the alternatives, I’ll take it.” 

I was about to respond when my phone started ringing, startling us both.  I pulled it out of my purse and frowned at it.  It was my mom.  “I should answer,” I told Ryan.  My mom didn’t often call me, and she never called me during the workday.  “Hello?”

“Oh, hi,” she responded, sounding surprised.  “I wasn’t expecting you to answer.”

“I have the day off,” I told her.  “What’s up?”

“Well, I was calling to leave you a voicemail full of motherly guilt.  You haven’t come to see us since Christmas, and we miss you.”

“Well, you’re right, and I miss you guys too.  But you know you’re always welcome to come up and see me, right?” I responded.

“Sure, and we want to plan a trip up soon.  But in the meantime, you should come down for your grandmother’s birthday.”

My mother’s guilt was something I could avoid without feeling too bad.  But my grandmother’s birthday?  That was hard to say no to, and my mom knew it.  “Next weekend?” I asked, after flipping through my mental calendar.

“Next weekend,” my mom replied.  “We’d love to see you, sweetheart.”

“I’ll be there!” 

We said goodbye and I looked up at Ryan, who was giving me an amused look.  “Successful parent guilt trip?” he asked. 

“Yes,” I groaned.  “I mean, don’t get me wrong.  Going down for my grandmother’s birthday is the right thing to do.  But I haven’t seen any of them since Christmas, and things got a little awkward then.”  I recounted the story of how my parents hadn’t actually filled in any of our extended family members and my grandma had asked where Kevin was.  “I had a bit of a tantrum and the whole rest of the evening was weird,” I admitted.  “I’m not proud of it.”

Ryan cringed sympathetically at the story and helpfully said, “Well, it can’t get much worse than that then, can it?”

“I sure hope not,” I replied.   But…could it?