Face Your Fears

Chapter 3

I came awake with a start, flying upright and almost rolling off the bed onto the floor. My heart was pounding rapidly against my chest and a sweat had broken out across my forehead.

That literally had been one of the most frightening dreams I'd ever had...except I couldn't remember what had happened.

Fantastic.

I let out a groan and flopped backwards onto a pillow, running my hands over my face. I remember crawling into bed last night with Hadley after I got back from Mom's and then...I must have fallen asleep.

What time was it now?

I scrambled around on the nightstand for my alarm clock and squinted at the bright green numbers with some difficulty.

It was just after seven in the morning. Way too early to be getting up, in my opinion.

I looked over towards Hadley's side of the bed and saw that she was still curled up underneath the blankets, her hair a mess.

As much as I didn't want to admit, something was unusual here. She would've been up already. She never slept this much.

I did my best to pull her back against me without waking her up, resting one of my arms across her waist.

"Mmmm."

She moved around in my arms and nuzzled against my chest.

"Are you awake?"

She sighed, blowing out a huff of air. "I've been awake for a while now."

"Well, you did fall asleep early," I reasoned.

She leaned back and stared up at me in confusion, frowning. "I did?"

I propped myself up on an elbow, the better to see her in the dim lighting of the room. "You were asleep when I got home from Mom's, and it was barely ten. And what the hell was the McDonald's food about? You hate McDonald's."

"Oh, you're right," she groaned, burying her face in my shoulder. "I despise McDonald's, but I just really wanted a hamburger last night. And French fries. And a chocolate shake."

I was stunned into silence for a moment. What was I supposed to say to that?

"Maybe you should take some time off work if you're this rundown and craving McDonald's," I suggested casually. "Might do you some good."

Really, she did work herself too hard. The time and effort she gave for each and every one of her patients was overwhelming. I never would have been able to handle it the way she did. She could stand for a break.

"I'm perfectly fine," she snapped. "So I got a little tired. Big deal. I'm okay. And eating McDonald's every now and then isn't going to kill me."

"If you say so."

"Oh, shut up."

I fought back laughter at the cross look that had taken over Hadley's face, but she quickly got rid of it and curled up closer to me.

"Did you have a good time last night?" she asked, her voice muffled by my chest.

"Yeah," I said. "It was fine."

And everything had been fine, except for Mom suddenly wanting to know if Hadley was pregnant. That kind of put a damper on the evening.

"Did you bring home any pizza?"

Shit.

"I forgot. Sorry."

"More like you ate it all."