The Way We Feel

Chapter 12

Sweat trickled down my spine and temple, burning my eyes as it caught in my lashes. I blinked quickly to try and clear them, chest heaving from exertion as I walked on wobbly legs back over to my seat.

Chris was running us ragged. At least it felt like the scene—one during which I spent most of the time fighting and running like mad in this stiff, itchy suit—was coming together. But when I finally sat down, all my muscles quivered into rest with an ache. I could already tell that my entire body would hurt tomorrow morning, and I was dreading the hours of training we'd have to go through to start the day.

Cillian collapsed into the seat next to me, panting as hard as I was, and two runners brought us bottles of water and towels with which to mop up our sweat.

"Good work, man," Cillian muttered to me between panting breaths. He tossed his towel over his shoulder and cracked open his water bottle.

"You too," I said, not having enough energy to say anything more. I didn't know how I was going to do anything else, and we still had a few hours left of the day.

I ran the towel over my head before remembering that I shouldn't mess up my hair. We only had a ten minute break. But I didn't care at the same time. It felt good to ruffle my hair. It relaxed me and woke me up all at once.

Last night had been nothing short of hell. Lila had woken up what felt like dozens of times, even though it had only been about three. And she'd been sleeping better these last couple of weeks, so aside from hunger (which she'd satisfied the first time) and a wet diaper (which we'd taken care of the second time), we didn't know what was up. She'd been fussier than usual yesterday as well, but we were hoping it was just because she hadn't been sleeping well.

Mads and I hadn't been sleeping well either as a result.

I'd woken up late this morning because of it—didn't even hear my alarm when it went off. But Lila did. Mads gasping awake beside me to tend to her was what finally startled me awake.

We'd both jumped up. I started racing around the room to get ready while Mads hurried to Lila, whose little face was beet red from her tears. But I couldn't stick around to make sure she was okay. Only hurried into the bathroom, sure that Mads would calm her down soon enough.

And she had, and though we were both exhausted from our sleepless night, we smiled a little into the kiss we shared before I left, leaving my girls still in their pajamas, cuddled together and calm on the couch in the living room.

Things had been fine between Mads and I these last couple of weeks. Since our date, we hadn't really fought again. But that didn't mean things were better. Or rather, it didn't mean things were the way they were before.

We were still exhausted. We were still too eager to go to sleep to even think about having sex. We were still spending most of our time apart. And when we were together, we were still too tired to talk much beyond how we spent our days and whether Lila had had a good or bad one.

And we still bickered. And we still got frustrated with each other. And there still weren't enough hours in the day. But we also still kissed each other before going to sleep, and in the morning before I headed out to work. We were still wordlessly there for each other—I took over baby duty as much as I could when I returned home, changing diapers and calming Lila down when she was upset. And Mads rubbed my back while I sat on the floor with Lila to play—worked the muscles that had tensed over the course of the day with her small, but strong hands. Things like that might have meant very little in the grand scheme of things, but they meant the entire world in the midst of our evolving relationship.