Free Good Morning Heartache by Audrey Dacey

static electricity drew the
ends of the little hairs on her arms to brush gently against his body.
    The pantry next to the stove
held the dog chow, and when she opened the door, she saw two large, plastic containers
marked “Sam's Food” followed by the week in which she was supposed to give it
to him. There was also an envelope with Alexis's name on it. She opened it
quickly to find what she expected: detailed instructions on how to take care of
a dog. Sometimes she wondered if her best friend took her for an absolute
idiot. Sure, she didn’t have a dog of her own, but she could keep one alive and
happy for a couple of weeks. Alexis knew she wasn't a beacon of responsibility,
and it took Caitlyn a lot of guts—guts she wasn't renowned for—to give someone
else any responsibility that she considered her own.
    Alexis scanned the
directions. Feed the dog. Walk him. Pick up his crap. Occasionally she would
glance up from the handful of papers and at the handsome architect who showed
no interest in her. One final instruction was at the bottom of the long,
over-detailed letter. “I want the addition to be done when we get back. Leave
the workers alone.” Too late for that.
    In reading those words,
Alexis became very aware of her desire to have Ryan all over again. Usually she
was a “been-there-done-that” girl, but his current aloofness drove her mad, and
she wanted to push the blueprints aside and throw him down on the table. She
had waited the necessary amount of time for it to be reasonable.
    Alexis bit her lip hard to
push down the urge. Caitlyn would kill her if she found out that Alexis had sex
on her kitchen table. She couldn’t just wipe it down with a disinfecting wipe
like a sane person; she would have to buy a new one. From Alexis's understanding
of Caitlyn, which was limited to what she was told, sex was full of romantic
notions of sunshine and monogamy, and Michael was willing to indulge her. Sex
on a table with a virtual stranger was not acceptable, especially if Caitlyn
wasn’t the receiving party, and under no circumstances was it acceptable if
there was any chance that Caitlyn would eventually have to eat off of that
table.
    Alexis closed her eyes and
took a deep breath. When she opened them again, Ryan continued to ignore her.
As cold as he was to her right now, she doubted Caitlyn’s suggested kibosh was
all that far-fetched. Of course, he was more of a planner than a worker.
    She turned back to the
pantry, frustrated with herself as much as with him. She grabbed the heavy bin
from the shelf, but the weight was more than she expected, and the bin hit the
floor with a smack. Alexis was startled by the loud noise and jumped back with
a squeal. It was far too girly for her taste, but she couldn't help it. Her
eyes were wide with shock, as she turned to see if the statue in the room had
been moved by her performance.
    His eyes shot to her, and
she was hit with his annoyance, but within a few moments he was laughing.
Alexis looked around the room wondering where this was coming from, but she was
dissatisfied with the answer. How could he go from warm to cold to angry to
laughing?
    Oh, God. He's insane. It was
the only rational explanation. Alexis shook it off and turned back to the
container and lifted it by the sides. The fall had caused the bin to crack on
the bottom, and as she lifted, dog food poured out of the crack and onto the
tile floor.
    A roar of laughter rose
behind her, and she heard Ryan sit down in a squeaky, wheeled dining chair and
roll a short way across the floor.
    “You have got to be kidding
me!” she demanded of the dog food. She glared at week two's bin. If there had
been no one around, she would have taken that bin into the backyard and beat
the crap out of it with one of Michael’s baseball bats, but the continuous
laughter in the background kept her from being rash.
    Sam munched on some food,
and Alexis excused herself through the sliding door and onto the small deck off
the