The Thunder Rolls...

I was sleeping on my back when I felt the mattress shift and moments later his arm wrapped its way around my waist. I smiled, turned over and put my arm around him, squeezing him tight. “Good morning,” I said, my words muffled against the shirt he was wearing.

He raised himself up on his elbow, his hand brushed against my cheek as he tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear. His fingers trailed softly down my jaw to my chin, he turned my face to his, his lips where soft and gentle on mine. His kiss felt different. Different? I pulled back, finally opening my eyes. “What the hell?” I pushed further away from him and hugged the blankets to me. “What are you doing in my bed Jordan?”

Jordan looked around the room and then turned back to me, “Are you sure it’s your bed?”

I didn’t even need to scan the room to know it was his, I could tell just by the sheets. “Why?”

Jordan shot me a naughty grin, “You need me to remind you about last night? I know I’m injured but I think I made a lasting impression.”

I hit his arm, “Shithead! I know that didn’t happen, I would’ve remembered that!” I looked around and recalled what happened as my gaze fell on Conner’s blanket. Around 2 last night, I woke up to Jordan shaking me gently to tell me that Conner had crawled into his bed and he asked that I get him out. When I went to take Conner out, he woke up and was hysterical, talking about monsters and not having his daddy there to protect him. With tears in his eyes, he looked up at Jordan and asked him to protect me and him from the monsters. “Where’s Conner?”

“Out in the living room, we were watching cartoons but we got hungry, so I came to wake you.” He smiled at me. “I think Conner should sleepover more often.”

I raised a brow at him as I got out of bed, “Oh? So you have an excuse to watch cartoons?”

He opened the door, letting me pass through it before he replied. “No, so I get to wake up next to you.”

Without looking back, I told him I was going to make French toast for breakfast. I didn’t know what to say to that, what could I say?

After breakfast was done and the dishes were put away, Conner and I packed up his stuff and went to my brother’s house. On the way there, it had started to lightly snow. Conner was talking a mile a minute in the back about all the things he does with Chad when it snows. “Daddy lets me shovel the steps; I have my own shovel Aunt Anna.” I glanced in the rear view mirror at him and smiled, I never seen someone so excited about shoveling before in my life. I knew it had more to do with the fact that he was did it with his dad and his sister didn’t, that made it so important to him.

I spent most of the afternoon at Zach’s; the snow had gotten worst as the afternoon went on. Chad was still going to go home, until he heard that the roads further out were almost impossible to drive on, according to the last report on the news, there were cars in the ditches everywhere the closer you go to his town.

When I went to leave to go into work, Zach kept telling me to drive safe, to come back if it was too bad and to call when I got to work. It was slow going as I drove into town, I couldn’t go any faster than 30kms for fear of going in the ditch. As I was driving, my cell phone rang a couple times but I didn’t even try to answer it, so when I finally got to work, after calling Zach and letting him know I was ok, I checked my messages.

The first one was from Josh. “Hey honey, I just wanted to apologize for the way I left last night, I wish I could’ve stayed there a little longer. I've been wondering about that question that you didn't get to ask me, maybe we can talk about that tonight? Jess had a great time with Conner, he was wondering if they could play together again soon. I told him I didn’t know because Conner was only visiting. I’ll call you later, bye Anna.”

The second, third and fourth were from Jordan.

“Babe, it’s snowing, be careful out there!”

“Babe, do we have anymore laundry soap? I can’t find it.” Pause. “Oh, wait never mind, I found it.”

“Hey it’s me again, I never thought to ask, did you need anything washed?” Rustling. “Hot damn! Babe, the purple lingerie, I like. Maybe you’d model them for me later?”

My face turned 10 shades of red as I listened to the last message. I quickly dialed my home number, Jordan answered on the second ring. “Hey girl, what’s up?”

“Stay the hell out of my room!” I yelled into the phone.

He chuckled, “Oh come on, you’ve been holding out on me, I insist you model that for me.”

“The hell I will, what were you doing going through my drawers anyway?”

“Come on, I’m a single, lonely guy with a hot roommate, what do you think I do when you aren’t home?” There was a hint of laughter in his voice.

“Jordan, stay out of my room.”

“Is there more revealing items in there that I haven’t found?”

“Jordan!”

“Ok babe, I’ll stay out of your room.” He chuckled, and then mumbled, “I have what I need in my hand already” before he hung up. I stood in the parking lot, staring at the phone as customers and snow whizzed by me. God, I hope he was kidding.

Work was slow due to the snow, not many people ventured out. Those that did, didn’t seem to be lingering around any departments for very long. With the exception of this one guy, who was wandering in and out of my department for a good 20 minutes talking to the little girl that he was pushing around in the cart. Every once in a while, he would stop and let her play with some of the toys, or he’d pick up something and look at it, only to put it back again.

I had been keeping an eye on his progress for a while; a couple times he caught my eye and smiled. Finally I decided to go see if he needed anything, his circling was making me nervous. “Hi there, is there anything I can help you with today?”

He shook his head, “No I’m just trying to kill time until my girlfriend gets off work.”

“Oh? She works here?” I ran through all the girls I knew that were working tonight and neither of them had a baby.

Again, he shook his head. “No, she works next door at Tim Horton’s, Jenna and I decided to come here and browse the baby section to see if we wanted anything.” He brushed hair out of the little girl’s eyes when he said that.

I glanced at the little girl as she looked up at me with a smile on her chubby little face. She had blond curly hair and bluish green eyes, there was something about her that seemed familiar but I couldn’t put my finger on it. She reached out her hand, and when I held out mine, she wrapped her fingers around my pinky and pulled my hand to her mouth. “Your daughter is so adorable.”

“She’s not my daughter.” He blurted out, and then shifted uncomfortably when I gave him a confused look. “She’s my girlfriend’s little girl. I’m sorry, I got crap from Jenna’s grandfather earlier for saying she was my daughter, I’m a little uneasy about it still. The old man doesn’t seem to like me but manages to hold her lying, cheating ex up on this pedestal.” He forced a smile, “I’m sorry, you don’t need to know my problems.” He held out his hand. “I’m Hank.”

“Anna.” I slipped my hand in his and shook it. “I guess you knew that already thought.” I laughed, pointing to my name badge.

“Well,” He glanced at his watch. “Jenna and I better go get her mom. It was nice meeting you Anna.” Turning the cart around, he pushed it out of the department. Jenna peeked around his arm, she held her hand out and waved ‘bye’. Grinning, I waved back.

I didn’t even have time to think about how weird it was that Hank just spilled his life story to me, well almost his life story. I turned around and came face to face with Carol.