When Scott Met Annie

Chapter 14: Gone Fishing

The thing that surprised Scott most of all was how quickly he had fallen into a normal routine with Annie. He woke up before she did, kissed her forehead, headed off to the library, spent the day shelving books, and came home to find Annie trying out some new recipe, humming old country songs.

If someone had told him that he would be doing this with his life, he would have laughed them off. But here he was, working a day shift, learning how to make sweet tea exactly the way Annie liked it, losing horribly in Yahtzee every time he played Annie and accusing her of somehow rigging the game — though of course, that just wasn't possible from her.

But today was a Saturday, and that meant he was sleeping in — the library opened early, after all, and with a weekly schedule, his weekends wouldn't require a pre-dawn wakeup call. He had always been a morning person, but he and Annie had been up late the night before, out to a late-night movie before they came back home — and they'd been up later than that afterward.

He still woke up before Annie did, though since he didn't have anywhere to be, he didn't move except to pull the covers up a little more around both him and Annie.

She always slept on the very edge of the bed, curled up practically in the corner, even though she had an entire queen to herself before he showed up. So when he'd started to share a bed with her, that cocooning behavior meant that he often didn't have any blankets halfway through the night.

It didn't bother him, especially not when it was still the end of the summer, but Annie was embarrassed enough by it that there was a blanket folded at the end of the bed in case he got cold — and he knew he would once the winter really got rolling.

He still couldn't believe he was thinking ahead to staying that long. Or that he wanted to.

The blanket was still folded at the end of the bed, but Annie hadn't stolen all of the blankets that night — it was probably too warm. Whatever the case, he was able to pull the covers over his shoulders and settle in behind her. She was still sound asleep, her mouth partly open and her hair absolutely everywhere, her knees curled up almost to her chest as always.

Annie was a morning person, too — so it wasn't long before she started to stir awake, though she was also not in any mood to move anywhere as she leaned back into Scott. And now that he knew she was awake, he shifted so that his arm was draped over her and pulled her just a little bit closer.

She turned so that she was facing him instead of facing the very, very edge of the bed and rested her forehead against his bare chest, smiling as she wrapped her arms around him.

"G'morning," she mumbled tiredly.

He grinned. "Morning."

"Shouldn't you be at work?"

"It's Saturday."

"Right."

He couldn't help smiling at her. Even though she liked being up in the morning so that she could get things done, that didn't mean she was necessarily as fast to wake up as he was. Once he was awake, he was awake. Annie... took her time.

But she was that way about just about everything.

He still couldn't believe how easy this was. The routine. The normalcy of it all. He couldn't believe that he had a job that he could just... be done with when he came home. There were no emergency calls, no late nights...

He missed it, obviously. He missed the challenge of a good problem to solve. He missed feeling like he was part of something ... well. Bigger than a local library. He missed the purpose.