Sasha

There’s a very annoying sound coming from somewhere near my chest. When I try to move, it only gets louder and more annoying. “What the hell is that horrible…” I try to roll over, but a warm lump groans from behind me.

Someone walks across the room. “Your alarm’s going off. You shouldn’t sleep with your phone in the bed, It can catch on fire, you know.” It’s Xander, and he is annoyingly chipper. I glance toward the window where the sun is nowhere close to coming up.

“What time is it?”

“It is 4:30 a.m., rise and shine.” He’s sitting down in an accent chair across the room tying his running shoes.

“I can’t rise and shine when the sun isn’t shining yet.”

“Well, you’ll need to get used to it eventually, but since you’re in bed with Tori, I don’t see any reason for you to get up. Unless, of course, you have an uncontrollable urge to come down and make me some coffee in an hour when I get back from my run.” He waggles his eyebrows suggestively, and I snort.

“Oh, yes, I live only to make you the perfect cup of coffee,” I mumble into the pillow as I roll over and shut off the alarm on my phone.

“Great, glad to hear it. I’ll be back in a bit.” I listen to him get up and cross the room. I hold as still as possible silently praying he leaves without another word, but I’m too late. I feel his warm hand moving my hair off of my shoulders gathering it to one side, and a kiss pressed against my neck makes me moan.

“Oh, now that’s not nice. How am I going to run like this?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Have a great run, bye.” I pull the covers over my head and listen to him leave the room. What am I doing? I’m going to have to sit down and talk to him when he gets back from running. We cannot keep flirting like this. It’ll end one of two ways—I get my heart stomped on, or Victoria gets hers broken. Either way, it spells disaster, and I am not interested.

“Sasha?” a muffled voice says next to me.

“Yeah?”

“You’re still here?”

“Yep, we don’t have to get up yet, though.”

“We don’t?”

“Nope, when you have a sleepover, you get to sleep in.”

“You do?”

“Uh-huh. And then when you get up, you make big, sticky cinnamon rolls for breakfast and hang out in your jammies and watch movies all day.”

The covers are torn from my back when she sits up in bed.

“Can we do sleepovers every night?”

“Well, then it wouldn’t be special. If you do it every night, then it’s no fun anymore.”

“Can we get up and make rolls now?”

“And skip the most important part of a sleepover?”

“What’s that?”

“The sleeping in part. We can’t get up yet. It’s dark outside.”

“It’s always dark when we get up.”

“Well, that’s going to change now that I’m here. We sleep until the sun is up like God intended.”

She shrugs and snuggles in next to me. I wrap my arms around her and pull her in close to spoon. “I’m the little spoon,” she giggles.

“Yep, and I’m the big spoon, and the big spoon is super tired, so let’s sleep.”

“Okay, night, Sasha big spoon.”

“Goodnight, Tori tiny spoon.”

“Victoria,” she says in a stern tone.

“What?” I ask confused.

“You always call me Victoria.”

“Yes, I guess you’re right, I do.”

“You don’t like my name, Sasha?”

I prop up on my elbow behind her. “I love your name, that’s why I call you by it instead of a nickname.”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Liking my name.”

“Of course. Do you like my name?”

“Uh-huh. Do you have two like me?”

“I do. My middle name is Liana. That’s my mom’s name.”

“It’s pretty. Where is your mommy?”

“She’s back in Minneapolis where I used to live.”

“Is it far?”

“Yes, very far.”

“My mommy is far away, too. She was bad, and she had to go far away. Is that what happened with your mommy?”

“No, just far away.” I don’t want to press her about her mother. I’m curious, but I’m not sure I want to know what happened when her mom tried to kidnap her.

“I pretend Zion’s my mommy. I love her, and she loves me, too.” She looks down at her nightie picking at the lace on the hem.

“You know, a mommy is the person who loves you and cares for you. Mommies don’t have to be the person who carried you in their belly. There are a lot of different kinds of mommies. I think it’s great that Zion’s been a mommy to you. She must be a very cool person if she helped raise you.”

Victoria smiles wide and scoots back under the covers snuggling up with me. I find it unusual that she’s so comfortable with me knowing how she feels about strangers. It’s also odd that I am this comfortable with her. It’s the same kind of connected feeling I have with Xander—like we are old friends, or we knew each other in another life.

“Let’s have a sleepover, my Sasha.” I smile. My Sasha, somehow it feels like being her anything is something special.

The next time I open my eyes feels much more like morning. The sun is streaming in through the windows, and I feel rested and awake. I’m flat on my stomach with my arms and legs splayed out and tangled in the sheets. Victoria is lying on her stomach, her head turned toward me as if she’s been watching for signs of life.

“Is it morning now?” she asks as soon as my eyes flutter open.

“Yes. This is what I call morning.”

“Can we eat cinnamon rolls in our jammies and watch Dallas now?”

Wow, kids don’t forget anything, do they? “Has your daddy gone to work?”

“Uh-huh. He told me not to leave the bed until you wake up unless I have to pee. He said no bed wetting.”

“Then yes, I think sleepover plans shall commence now.” I roll over to the edge of the bed, and she scrambles along with me.

“What’s commence?”

“To start.” I have to remember to speak kid talk, whatever that is.

“What does shall mean?”

“It’s an old-fashioned word for will, do you like it?”

“Uh-huh, it’s fancy.”

“Perfect, then I shall use it more often.”

“You’re silly.”

“I am?” I say pointing my finger at myself. She nods her head.

“Zion’s not silly, she follows rules.”

Hmm, I don’t know how to take that bit of information. Being silly makes her smile, but I know kids need rules, too, and she loves Zion.

“I follow rules, too, just not stupid ones.” Her eyes pop, and her neck jerks back.

“Like getting up in the dark?”

“Yes, exactly. Now come on, let’s go downstairs and make the house smell like cinnamon.”

Since I don’t have my belongings here, I ask Victoria to show me where her daddy’s shorts are, and I put on a pair that are several sizes too big along with my sleep shirt. I can’t get dressed because it’s sleepover day, but I also can’t run around in my panties—it wouldn’t be appropriate.

Downstairs, we make a giant mess baking cinnamon rolls from scratch. It takes forever because I’m unfamiliar with the kitchen. By the time we’re done, I’m acclimated to the Sullivan kitchen.

“Mmm, these are good,” she says with a mouth full of cinnamon goodness.

“I told you, sleepover cinnamon rolls are the best.”

I’m working on cleaning the kitchen while Victoria sits at one of the islands eating her breakfast that technically is now brunch when my phone rings.

It’s Xander, must be checking up on us. “Hello?”

“I’m going to assume since you answered on the second ring and there are no sirens in the background that you haven’t burned my house down yet.”

“Oh no, we’re at the hospital in the ER. It’s quiet here. The house is a pile of ashes, though, sorry. I hope you have good insurance.”

“Nice, no really, what are you two up to?”

“Well, we got up about an hour and a half ago, and we have been baking homemade cinnamon rolls in our pajamas, and now we are about to go lounge around and watch Dallas for a while. Jealous?”

“Indeed,” he says with a deep longing in his voice.

“I was thinking about going to my house and picking up my things later on. Do you have a car I can drive or should I call an Uber?”

“I told you a car was part of the job. Keys are on the counter in the silver bowl, and the car is in the garage next to where I parked mine yesterday.”

“Thanks. What time will you be home tonight?”

“I’m supposed to be off at five, but I’m on call tonight. If something comes up, I’ll let you know.”

“Okay, so dinner? Me? Cooking or what?”

“Can you cook?”

I hold the phone up. “Victoria, can I cook?” I ask wiggling the phone in the air.

“Yes!” she yells still chewing a big bite of roll.

“That answer your question?” I ask putting the phone back to my ear.

“Since she sounds like she’s currently eating something that you’ve cooked for her, and she’s happy, yes, I will take your word for it. I like Mexican, can you make something spicy for me?”

“Spicy chicken tacos sound good?”

“Perfect. I’ll see you both in a few hours. I’m going to make a quick stop at the hospital on the way home and check in on Zion, but don’t say anything to Tori, or she’ll want to come, and I don’t have time today.”

“All right, see you later.”

“Sasha?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen when you sleep.”

I wasn’t expecting that. I figured he might be upset that we didn’t get up while he was out running this morning. He comes off as the type of man who likes his schedules and doesn’t appreciate others veering from them.

“Uh, thanks, but we should talk about the kissing and sleeping in the same bed when you get…”

“I have to go… my next appointment just came in. I’ll see you tonight. Tell Tori I love her.” The phone goes dead.

“Hello? Xander?” Shit, he’s never going to listen to a word I have to say about us and the fact that there cannot be an us. I’m just going to have to be strong and keep as far away from him as possible until this job is done, and Zion is home.

“Time for Dallas?” Victoria asks with sticky hands and face.

“As soon as you wash your hands and face.” She hops off the stool and races to the bathroom to wash up while I flop down on the living room couch and grab the remote. Where would one watch a television show that hasn’t been on for twenty-five years? I have no idea, so I text Twyla.

Me: Hey, I got a job babysitting the doctor’s daughter. I’ll be staying here for a couple of weeks. Sorry I didn’t text sooner. Where can I watch that old TV show Dallas?

Twyla: YOU’RE LIVING WITH THE HOT DOCTOR?

Me: Yeah, it’s a job. I got fired at Macy’s, and this came up. Dallas?

Twyla: We are going to talk not text about this, but I’m workin at the flower shop right now, and why are you tryin to watch that old-ass show anyway?

Me: Victoria loves it, and we had a sleepover last night, so today is lounge around and watch TV day.

Twyla: Victoria, his kid?

Me: Yes.

Twyla: Look on Amazon, they got all kinds of old shit there.

Amazon, of course, why didn’t I think of that?

Me: Thanks, I owe you one.

Twyla: You owe me more than one. Text me his address so I can look up his swanky-ass house later.

Me: You’re nuts.

Twyla: Text it.

I roll my eyes and send her his address. Then I get busy figuring out the remote control. When Victoria returns to the room sparkling clean, except for the cinnamon on her nightgown, I’ve found Dallas on Amazon.

“What season are you on?”

“Five,” she says settling in next to me on the couch.

“Wow, five? You’re going to have to help me catch up. It’s been a long time since I’ve watched this show.”

Her look is one of a person about to take on a very serious assignment as she begins to catch me up. As we watch, it all begins coming back to me—J.R. Ewing and his arrogant backstabbing ways, Sue Ellen and her powerful ways of persuasion, and the drama that comes with the entire cast of the show. The more we watch, the more I can’t understand why a five-year-old is so interested in a show like this.

“Victoria, why do you like this show so much?”

She answers without hesitating a beat. “Because they got a big family,” she says with stars in her eyes. Ah, now I get it.

“Do you wish you had a big family?”

“Uh-huh. I got lots of uncles, but we never get to see them. On Dallas, they all live in the same house. It’s so cool.”

“How many uncles do you have?”

“Four.”

“Wow, that is a lot of uncles. Do they live close by?”

“No, far away, like Mommy but not cuz they’re bad.”

“Do you get together on holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving?”

“No.” She snuggles closer, and I take that as a hint she doesn’t want to talk about her absent uncles anymore. “Sasha?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think my uncles will ever move here and live in a big house together with me and my daddy and Zion and you?”

Now that’s a loaded question. First of all, I can’t imagine why Xander has four brothers that he never sees. Second, I can’t say what’s going to happen with Zion and her health. Third, I’m starting to worry that Victoria thinks I’m staying forever, and I’m not.

“I don’t know, that’s a big dream ya got there.”

“Dream big or go home. That’s what Daddy says.”

“Well, your daddy is a smart man so if that’s your dream, I say you can make it happen.”

“Cool.” She smiles, and I bite the inside of my cheek. I hope encouraging her wasn’t a mistake. I know nothing about their family’s history. Maybe there’s a good reason why they don’t see her uncles. And maybe I just opened a big can of worms.

Sometimes I should just shut my mouth.