Separately Together

Chapter Twelve: Nightmare's 1/2

He seems to be running the idea in his head before he settles back down beside me, I'm sure to keep my hands to myself this time. I didn't want to scare him off again, I didn't know what I was trying to accomplish anyways.

He pulls me back down to his chest and an I relax into his embrace. "Thank you."

He didn't have to wake me up, but he did. He didn't have to stay here to comfort me, but he did.

A part of me says that this is what friends are for but the smarter, more observant part, knows that just a second ago Harley was ready to take me then and there if I hadn't stopped.

Knowing that lit a fire on the inside, tempting me to edge deeper into that lake, his lake.

It didn't take long after listening to his heartbeat that I could feel myself going back to sleep.

~.~.~.~.~

"You open it," Harley says as he hands the envelope over to me. We had made a trip early in the morning to go get the paper that told us whether we had a niece or a nephew.

The apartment had been cleaned since the break-in and I grabbed enough stuff to stay for a few weeks. I didn't know how long it was going to take me to figure out another option, but I knew this couldn't be permanent.

The tingles would eat me alive, not bothering to leave any crumbs left.

My nerves had been on end while we were there as if someone was watching us the whole time but unlike the last visit, there weren't any Forefather members waiting to ambush us. I chopped it up to me being paranoid.

I had to go to work tomorrow, my worries have started to play out situations where he would kidnap me from up there. Harley insured that he was going to send one of his bodyguards to watch over the place while I was there.

It did make me feel a little better, but I knew the Forefathers had a lot of men, if they wanted to get me bad enough, they would. Whatever Harley's tattoo stood for has scared them enough to leave me alone temporarily.

He still hasn't come clean about what it means, and I knew he wasn't going to anytime soon.

"No, you open it up, Uncle Harley." He shot me a look with furrowed eyebrows telling me to never call him that again.

I thought it was cute, he was going to be a great uncle ai could feel it. He pulls the letter up closer to him and reads something from it.

"Well, it's a girl." He says emotionlessly, but I see the corners of his mouth turning up. He liked the idea of Finnic having a girl.

I shriek a little, not being able to hold in my excitement. I was going to have a niece soon. I was one of them, the kid that always wanted a younger sibling to look after, just like I do want kids later on in life. I love kids.

"So, what are we going to do for the gender reveal?" Harley asks me, we seem to have gotten back to our normal, despite the incident last night. I think we were both under the impression not to bring it up, ever.

It was kind of ironic because the only thing I was thinking about was what I could talk about. I kept catching myself watching the way his mouth forms words and letting my imagination run while with how those lips would feel on my skin.

I know I was crazy this was Harley, Harley walker. I needed to chase those thoughts away before they got me in trouble. I didn't want to hurt this friendship that we'd created, because even if the relationship was partonic, while my body thought it was more, I liked having him around.

I would burn in these thoughts before I voiced them out loud and risked freaking him out.

So, from here on out my thoughts were my own, but my words were guarded. My actions were restricted.