It must have snowed all night. There's at least a foot of snow blanketing the garden when I wake up way too early and glance out of the window at the drifts of white illuminated by the neighbor's Christmas lights. Which goes to show how early it is – the sun isn't up yet, and neither is Laurel. She's fast asleep on her stomach, her face towards the space I just left. It's the first time we've ever slept together in the truest sense of the word, the first time I've watched her eyelids flicker as she dreams.

I don't know why I'm awake. I'm not an early riser and I don't tend to have problems sleeping in new places, and my bladder isn't urging me to pee, although I trudge to the bathroom anyway, just in case. It's only when I get back to the bedroom that I realize what has woken me more than two hours before sunrise. There's a baby monitor on the bedside table, a new addition since Ava got her own room, and it crackles quietly when Ava makes a noise.

I move as quietly as possible down the hallway so as not to disturb anyone else in the house and I slip into her room. She's sitting up in her crib, talking to herself, and her face brightens when she spots me; she pulls herself to her feet and reaches out to me.

"Hey, Avie. You're an early bird, huh?" I lift her out of her crib and when I feel the weight of her diaper, I change her on the mat on top of her chest of drawers. "I don't usually get up this early. What's the deal? Does your mommy get up with you or does she leave you to fend for yourself?'

"Ba."

"You want a banana? It's a bit early for breakfast, isn't it? You tell me, I'm honestly not sure." Once she's in a fresh diaper, I set her on the floor and find her something to wear today. Something pink, like I'm dressing up my own little mini-me.

"You like B-words, how about a book?" I take one off of her shelves and yawn as I sit in the armchair and give her a hand clambering onto my lap. "Let's have a story."

I read to her from a picture book and try not to fall asleep with her on my lap. We read three entire picture books – which isn't saying much when each one is about twenty pages – before Ava gets bored.

"I don't want to wake up your brother and sister by clattering about with that stair gate," I say. "We'll just stay in here for now, okay?"

"Kay."

"Good girl. Can you say Annie yet? Annie."

"Nana," she says after a moment of intense concentration.

"Hey!" I clap and beam at her. "That's pretty close!"

She grins at my encouragement and says it again, and when I open my arms, she cuddles me. Oh god. She's making me broody. I want one.

"You know, when your sister was a bit older than you, she thought her name was Nana. Your mommy always called her Banana, because it rhymes. Is that why you like bananas so much? Is it 'cause you love your big sister?"

"Nana," she says again, against my chest, and I snuggle her close.

"You're gonna have to learn how to say my name, you know. I'm your mommy's girlfriend now. I'm going to be around a lot more. At least, I hope I will," I say, stroking her soft hair. "Can I tell you a secret?"

Ava puts her finger to her lips and blows. Oh my god, she remembers. My heart grows three sizes.

"I love your mommy so much. She's the one, Avie, I know it. I've never felt this way about anyone," I say, as though that isn't obvious to anyone who takes a close look at me, at the way I look at Laurel. "Imagine if we hadn't been apart all this time?" I muse, and then I say, "Actually, let's not, because then you wouldn't be here and you're too precious. Yes you are, baby girl. I hope you like hanging out with me. I love hanging out with you, even though you do the stinkiest poops." I kiss her head and try not to drift off, though it's hard to keep my eyes open with Ava's comforting weight on me, the armchair cocooning my body.

Am I allowed to love someone else's child or is that weird? Is it okay if I'm dating said child's mom and would really like to stick around? I'm not sure. It doesn't stop me from snuggling Ava close and saying, "I love you, Avie."

I close my eyes briefly. Only for a few seconds. Maybe a minute, no longer. When I open them, the door's open and Laurel's standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame with her arms folded, the biggest smile on her face.

"Morning," she says. She's adorably sleep-ruffled, her always-perfect hair in need of a brush. "You're a natural."

"I like kids," I say.

Laurel shakes her head. "No, you love them." She gestures over her shoulder in the vague direction of her bedroom. "I woke up when you left." Nodding at the baby monitor, she says, "I heard every word."

Shit, I forgot about that thing. Oh god, she heard me being all sappy about how much I love her. "Good think I wasn't badmouthing you to your baby."

Her smile grows, crinkling her eyes, when she says, "I especially enjoyed your rendition of The Very Hungry Caterpillar."

"Maybe we should introduce storytime at the bookstore and I can try out all my best voices." I let Ava slide down my legs to the floor. She toddles across the room to her mom, her walking getting stronger every day.

"That's not a bad idea actually," Laurel says as she picks Ava up and kisses each of her cheeks, her nose, her forehead.

"I'm full of 'em." I get up and instantly bend double with the force of my yawn. It's not even seven yet, three hours before I need to be at Jacob's Ladder, and the temptation to crawl back into Laurel's bed is all too real. But I don't, because she's going downstairs to fix breakfast for Ava, and like a puppy trailing its owner, I can't help but follow in her wake.

*

When I drag myself to Jacob's Ladder for ten o'clock – at some points literally dragging myself through the snow, too deep for Laurel to drive through before the roads have been plowed – I'm met by only half of the people who I'm supposed to be working with today.

"Bobby can't make it in," Ruth says when she greets me with a sunny smile. My legs are soaked from the knee down thanks to the snowy sidewalks, turning a ten minute walk into a twenty minute slog, and for once I'm grateful that the heating is on high when I step into the toasty store.

"Is he okay?" I ask, wishing I'd brought a spare pair of pants with me because my legs are turning to icicles with all the snow clinging to my calves. I'm not ready to take off my coat or unwind my scarf yet.

"Something to do with a burst pipe," she says, "and he lives a mile away. He's stuck inside until the plows clear his road." She looks up, her eyes slightly narrowed, slightly sparkling. "Speaking of which, don't you also live a mile away? How did you get in on time? You didn't walk, did you?"

"Um, yeah, but only from Laurel's," I say. Now I unwind my scarf, if only for an excuse to obscure my face and get Ruth's beady eyes off of me. When I catch a glimpse of her face, she's giving me a knowing look.

"You stayed the night," she says, her eyebrows fighting the urge to rise.

"Yeah." Why am I blushing? We're adults; there's no secret; nothing even happened. We kissed and we cuddled and we fell asleep. End of story. Did I dream about her hands on my body? Sure. But that's nothing new.

"You know, I don't think anyone has stayed over at Laurel's since the night before her ex-husband moved out," Ruth says. I already knew that, but hearing it still sends a frisson of warmth through me, and I could use all the warmth I can get right now.

"I don't know if you heard, Ruth, but I'm a very special girl," I say with a grin, joining her behind the register. She chuckles to herself, shaking her head.

"I wasn't sure I'd see you today. Now that you're here, let's put you to work." She swivels the screen so I can see it better and says, "We've had quite a few online orders come through. Some are for pick-up here, some are for delivery. Could you sort them out?"

"I'm on it."

"I don't know how busy we'll be today. I'd have thought most people either won't want to leave the house or they won't be able to," Ruth says as she checks the stores emails and opens up Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, all logged in as jacobsladderbooks. Officially, at least on the sign outside, this place is Jacob's Ladder Books and Gifts, but that's a bit of a mouthful for a username.

"Once I've sorted the orders, I could take some photos for bookstagram," I offer, glancing at the page. Most of the pictures are of the shelves or featuring a single book that has recently won awards or been turned into a series. "People dig an aesthetic picture of a stack of books, or some themed recommendations."

"Be my guest, hon, knock yourself out. I've got some ordering to do. Do you want a drink?"

"Coffee would be perfection," I say.

"With about a half a gallon of hazelnut creamer?"

"I'm honored, Ruth, two shifts together and you already know me so well," I say, batting my lashes at her as I print out the list of online orders and take a basket from the front of the store to gather them up.

We work for a couple hours, taking it in turns to ring up the occasional customer. We're busier than I thought we'd be – business is doing well because people can't get to the city, so they're braving the streets of Deer Pines for their shopping fix, and Jacob's Ladder just happens to be the best place to find, well, pretty much anything. From a book for a sibling to a card for a grandparent; from a toy for a child to a game for a family, Laurel stocks it all.

Right as I'm thinking about her, missing her, wishing I was with her and her kids decorating the house at last, Laurel appears. She brings a flurry of snow into the store with her when she bustles in backwards, her hands full.

"I thought you could do with some fuel," she says to Ruth and me, holding up a paper bag and a cardboard cup holder with a couple takeout coffees. "Buns from Betty's; coffee from Cowboy."

"Oh my god, you're amazing," I say with a groan as she takes two boxes out of the bag, each one holding a giant cinnamon bun.

"Thank you, boss," Ruth says. "You didn't have to. What're you doing out in this weather? Where's your little limpet?"

Laurel chuckles and says, "The little limpet is home with the two less little limpets. I just popped out to test the roads before I take all three of them to get a tree. Figured I'd treat two of my favorite staff members."

"How are they? The roads?" I ask, already biting into a cinnamon bun and trying not to let out an orgasmic moan.

"Nothing I can't handle now that they've been cleared," she says. She taps one of the takeout coffees and says, "This one's the peppermint mocha."

"You're a godsend." I pop off the top and inhale deeply, closing my eyes to heighten my sense of smell. The mix of mint and coffee and chocolate is pure heaven. When I look up, Laurel's eyes are fixed on me, a starry-eyed smile on her face.

"How is it here?" she asks when she snaps out of it, but before I can say that it's going great and I've hand-sold three of her recommendations, Ruth jumps in.

"Nuh-uh, Laurel, it's your day off. No work chatter. You've told me as much yourself, and not that long ago," she says. "The fuel is much appreciated but you should go be with your kids."

"I'm going, I'm going," Laurel says, making no move to go anywhere, watching me take my first sip of my much appreciated peppermint mocha. Ruth heads to the back to wash her hands before she eats her bun. When Laurel does turn to leave, I don't want her to go.

"Hey, I was thinking," I start, with no idea where the sentence is going. It stops Laurel from leaving, though.

"Mmm?"

I'm pretty good at thinking on my feet, and after the briefest of pauses, I say, "Seeing as Tuesday's your manic day and I'm not working, how about I do the school run again? I could get Otto and Hannah and maybe stay over, seeing as we're both here on Wednesday?"

Laurel raises her eyebrows. "After last week's carnage, you're volunteering to do it again?"

"Well, I figure they've hit me with their best shot already. I can't think of many more tricky questions the little devils can ask me," I say, though it's a lie. Last week was awkward, sure, but I bet I can come up with many worse questions Otto and Hannah could have sprung on me.

"Are you sure?" Laurel leans ever so slightly towards me as she asks, her wide eyes saying please be sure.

"Of course. If you'll let me stay over again?"

Her smile tugs upwards. "I think that can be arranged."

"Then I guess I'll see you tomorrow."

"I guess you will."

I watch her leave, my eyes trailing her until I can't see her anymore, and then I watch the space she left with a smile on my face, my coffee keeping both of my hands warm. I don't notice Ruth has returned until she is right next to me, letting out a wistful sigh.

"I used to look at my husband like that," she says. "You must be head over heels."

"I am," I say. And then, when I twig into what she just said, I ask, "Used to? He doesn't do it for you anymore?"

"He died ten years ago," Ruth says.

Oh, fuck. "I'm so sorry, Ruth. I had no idea. How long were you together?"

She takes a sip of whatever drink Laurel bought for her and rolls her lips together. "Thirty-eight years."

"Shit. That's a long time. I'm sorry."

She shrugs and smiles and says, "When you find someone who has you looking like that, you don't let them go."

*

 idk ruth i don't think annie has any intention of letting laurel go