Jaw tense, he rises from the bed. “Just get dressed,” he rumbles. “I need to be back by noon, and it’s already nine.”
My jaw drops. “Nine?” I ask. “In themorning?”
His brows furrow. “Yeah?”
My entire being protests this information. “Why are we up at 9:00 AM?” It registers suddenly that the man is not onlyup, butdressed. At nine. In the morning! “Why are youready for the dayat 9:00 AM?”
His head tilts. “Because it’s morning?”
Yuck. “Are you always up this early?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Uh, because the bar closes several hours after midnight? And you stay after close to do your whole owner schtick in the office before going home. You’re telling me you do that, staying up until atleastthree, then you sleep for… what, five hours? Before getting up?”
“I’m not seeing the issue,” he replies.
I can see that he’s not seeing, yes. Baby’s first intelligence does not extend very far, it seems.
I spell it out for him. “You’re getting five hours of sleep every single night, at most, on purpose, even though you could sleep a recommended eight hours, considering you don’t open the bar back up until one.”
“I can’t get eight hours,” he counters. “I do administrative work in the mornings and I have to be around to receive deliveries. Even if I didn’t, though, I wouldn’t be getting eight hours. That’s a lot of the day wasted.” He shudders, big, broad shoulders quaking at the thought. “I get up at eight. I experience the day.”
I stifle a yawn. “That sounds horrible.”
“What time do you normally get up?” he asks, already wincing.
A smile tugs at my lips as I consider lying just to stress him out. Then I realize that the plain truth will stress him out plenty. “I get up at about one thirty most working days.”
“One thirty,” he echoes, blinking furiously. “In the afternoon?”
I grin. “Yep!”
“You don’t see the morning sunat all?”
“Sometimes when I work the closing shift, I’ll stay up after work to see the sunrise,” I provide. “Does that count?”
He chokes on a protest, sputtering “Absolutely not!”
“Oh,” I reply. “Pity. I guess the answer is no, then!”
He runs a hand through his thick, dark hair, cringing. “The way you live your life is confounding to me,” he mutters. “How are you always so chipper when you get so little sun?”
Oh, that’s easy. “Iamthe sunshine,” I retort. “And it’s rude of you to imply otherwise.”
He has no reply to that, I suppose, unless one counts a scowl, a sigh, and turning on his heel to exit the roomwith hasteas a reply.
Magnanimously, I decide that Idocount that as a proper response. So generous, me. “Does this mean I can go back to bed?” I call after him with a yawn.
He hollers a negative response, popping his head back in the room to glare at me. “We have things to do, Poem. Things to do foryou, specifically. Get dressed. I’ll make breakfast, we’ll eat, and then we’ll go.”
He leaves, and I stick my tongue out at the doorframe. “Things to do foryou, kit,” I mock, nose scrunched. “Go, go, go. Early morning sun. Errands. Breakfast, a meal that we both definitely eat every day and so I’m not going toaskif you want anything, I’m just going toassumethat you do. Itty-bitty boy brain is running at full speed today. You’re welcome.”
“I can hear you!” he yells.
“That’s the point!” I yell back.
His displeasure whispers through the air, silent and thick.
