Fakely HIS

Chapter 35

Who knew moving in with someone – someone who I wasn't even in love with – was such a tiring task. I didn't own a lot of things to begin with and had completed all my packing in just two days, but the move itself had drained me off all my energy. Two weeks ago, when I'd agreed to Nicholas' request to move in with him, I hadn't realized that it was going to be this tiring.

Calling Nicholas, I left it on speaker on the kitchen island as I picked up the rag-towel, cleaning the kitchen island for the twelfth time since moving into this house three hours ago – and that was exactly how long it has been since Nicholas stepped out of the house. He'd gotten an emergency meeting call and had to run somewhere. He'd said it wouldn't take him more than one hour – and it's been three.

"Hayley?" he said the moment he picked up my call, "I'm sorry the meeting ran over. I'm on the way and will be home in the next twenty minutes."

"Right," I said, rolling my eyes at him even if he can't actually see me, "So, if you say twenty minutes, it's going to be one hour – got it."

Nicholas laughed, the kind of laugh that made my belly turn and my heart flutter, "I said I'm sorry."

"Sorry doesn't cut it, Nick," I snipped at him playfully, "You better make up for leaving me home alone without a warning – for three hours."

"I didn't actually leave you home alone, Archer and Bryce are both there."

As if on cue, I heard a baby screaming for attention. I checked the time and realized that it'd been almost two hours since I put them both to sleep and there was no way I could bargain for more with them. "And one of them is awake. See you when I see you. Bye."

"Bye, Hayley."

I shut off the call and ran my way to the nursery, thankful to the stars above when I noticed that only Bryce had woken up, and Archer was still drooling in his crib, fast asleep.

"Hello, Bryce," I cooed, picking him up from his crib, holding him close to my chest as I rocked him. Checking his diaper, I noticed that it needed a change. "Okay, you dirty, dirty boy, I'll change your diaper, but tell me this how come you soil your diaper every few hours?"

Not understanding what I was asking him, Bryce continued to wail, the sound of his wail going a little high pitched for a while, before going a little low. Once I'd changed his diaper though, he whined only for some more time, but then went silent in my arms, playing with my nose the majority of the time. Laughing, I walked to the couch in the living room, making weird sounds at him every time he caught hold of my nose.

Bryce let out a gurgle once every few seconds, either enjoying the attention that he was getting, or actually enjoying playing with me. Considering that he was Nicholas' son, I'm going to go with the former.

It hadn't even been ten minutes since I'd sat on the couch with Bryce standing over me, that the front door opened and in walked Nicholas. Nick took one look at me and his son, his smile widening, "Hello, there. Look who we got here."

Bryce let out an unintelligible gurgle as Nick pulled him off of me and into his arms, gently bumping him, letting out a happy laugh every time he squealed. Nicholas softly sat on the couch beside me, blowing a raspberry into Bryce's stomach, keeping up his laughter as he pulled him closer to his body. I watched the entire exchange with a big smile plastered to my face, enjoying this other side of Nicholas that I'd had the privilege of seeing.

"We need to get packing," he said, turning to me, giving me a sheepish smile, the same smile, I realized he always gave me every time he was going to throw something big on me, "Mom has invited us to the weekend for the weekend. I should probably warn you, she's pretty excited about us moving in together."