Nicole was gone when I woke. I shucked the pajamas and pulled on underwear, shorts and a T-shirt as I always did. I went out to the living room where Nicole was reading baby books to Owen.
“I thought you were going to wake me when you got home?” Nicole asked.
“That’s what I intended, but I didn’t see the point when it came time to. The bed was big enough for both of us. I hope you didn’t mind me snuggling on you.”
“No, actually it was quite nice. Last night was the best night’s sleep I’ve had since I moved in.”
“If you want, you can sleep in my bed again tonight. No promises about not kicking you out.”
“That’d be great.”
For the next two nights, I slipped into bed when I got home and I always wound up snuggled next to Nicole. The next night I had off. I went to bed an hour after Nicole did. When I got into bed, Nicole rolled over and said, “Hey there.”
“I’m sorry to wake you.”
“It’s okay. I go back to sleep easily.”
I was in bed now, lying on my side facing her. Nicole backed up until her back side was lightly touching my front. I put my hand on Nicole’s thigh like I did unconsciously while asleep.
“Good night, Ryan.”
“Good night, Nicole.”
That was our sleeping routine from then on. Nothing overtly sexual, but perhaps romantic. Each night as I waited for sleep to overtake me, I had definitely unbrotherly thoughts about Nicole. She was what I fantasized about when I jerked off, but that was fantasy. Snuggled up next to her, I wondered if she had feelings for me as more than a brother. We had never been close growing up, but now I felt very close to her. The only woman I had felt this close to was Mandy. I told myself to enjoy the friendly companionship as that was all I would ever get.
* * * *
Owen was a huge part of my life now. He was crawling and loved to explore every nook and cranny of the apartment. Everything was new and interesting to him. We had to child-proof all of the kitchen cabinets and drawers and we kept the doors to the bedrooms closed. Baby toys were all over the living area. Owen would crawl to one, play with it for a few moments, toss it aside and crawl to the next. He was a hoot to watch.
One thing I didn’t do was change Owen’s poopie diapers. They smelled and were nasty, I didn’t want to get poop on me and I didn’t want to wipe Owen’s private parts. If Owen pooped while Nicole was working out, I would leave him in the poopie diaper. Nicole would seem disappointed when she came back, but she never said a word to me. However, it would throw things off as Owen would want to immediately nurse and Nicole would have to change his diaper first.
“You’ve changed so much,” I said one day. “Did you suddenly one day decide to be a different person?”
“In a way. Over a year ago, I was in the Dollar General with some friends. They wanted to shoplift some stuff to give to their girls for Valentine’s Day. I was supposed to distract the clerk while they hid the goods. The clerk was new and she seemed to know what we were up to. Out of the blue, she asks if I am Ashley Mueller. I said yes. She told me that she had gone to high school with Mom and that I looked just like her back then. Mom didn’t have the lip piercing or the nose rings, but she had multiple ear piercings and had dyed her hair a similar shade of purple. I don’t know if she was telling the truth or not, but she freaked me out. I wouldn’t wish being like Mom on my worst enemy.”