Life in the Wind

40

"Camden, your cousin can sleep through the night and you're 2 weeks older," Jay sighed, lifting the fussy baby from his crib at 3:27 AM. He sat in the rocking chair, holding his son against him as he opened Facebook. He immediately noticed the green dot by his sister's name. "Come on Lacey, it's 3:30,"

He made a mental note of it and the next morning at work, he snuck out of intelligence and to Narcotics.

"He in there?"

"Yeah," Garrett nodded, as Jay knocked and headed in.

"Hey," Ryan looked up, giving Jay a questioning look.

"Is Lace sleeping?"

"As far as I know. I play with her hair for a while and she stays pretty still, pretty even breathing, why?"

"I got up with Cam last night and noticed she was on Facebook,"

"What time?"

"3:30," he sighed, "and she's drinking a ton of coffee. Sometimes 4 a day,"

Ryan got his phone out and looked over their bank account, noticing that she'd stopped at Starbucks on her way into the district. "She's been stopping in the morning too. Explains why she's been asking me to take the girls in,"

"I don't think she's been sleeping. And if she is, it's not for long,"

"Yeah. I got it," he nodded, rubbing the back of his neck, "I knew there was a reason she wasn't waking me up with nightmares. She's not having them because she's refusing to sleep,"

Jay nodded, "let me know,"

"Yep," Ryan sighed, preparing himself for a long night awake with Lacey.

——————

"Girls asleep?" Lacey asked, tossing pillows to the side as Ryan came back in.

"Yep, you ready for bed?"

"Yeah, today was so exhausting," she mumbled, crawling into the covers.

"Come here you," he smiled, getting in bed with her and giving her more than one kiss, "I love you. And I'm here,"

"I know. And I love you too,"

Ryan kissed her head one more time before both of them settled in for the night. Ryan faked falling asleep, noticing how Lacey immediately went back to her normal self and got right online. She'd started going over camera footage of that day, trying to figure out how this person got into their home without her noticing.

Ryan waited a few more minutes before he rolled over to face her. "Thought you were sleeping?"

She just sighed and set her phone down, rolling onto her side to face him. "Lately, I can't,"

"I know. You've been faking so I'd sleep?"

"Maybe,"

"Jay caught onto your coffee habits. And saw you online at 3:30 this morning. Brought me into it," he told her, "I'm gonna call Will in the morning. See what we can do about some sleeping meds,"