Little Secrets by Megan Hart

*
    Gasping, Ginny woke again coated in sweat, again with her throat burning from reflux. Mexican food. She’d stayed up too late trying to make sure she didn’t go to bed with her stomach too full, and she’d even managed a long, relaxing bath, which was a pleasant surprise considering the water heater’s sporadic offerings. Yet still her body rebelled against the spicy food and here she was, sitting straight up in bed with her eyes wide and the dream of all her bones breaking still vivid enough to keep her from wanting to go back to sleep.
    â€œYou okay?”
    â€œYeah. Go back to sleep.”
    â€œWhat time is it?” Sean pressed the button on his clock radio and bathed the room in cold white light. “Shit. Late.”
    It felt like she’d gone to bed hours ago, but it had only been about forty-five minutes since she’d slipped under the covers beside him. Ginny yawned with her hand over her mouth, hoping nothing else came up and out. The light from Sean’s clock dimmed, then went out, but not before she caught a flash of something in the hall. Something bright, reflective. Something like eyes.
    â€œTurn that light on,” she whispered.
    Sean had already fallen back to sleep, or mostly, and he let out a muffled “hmmph?”
    Ginny rolled over to turn her bedside light on, which made Sean grunt and throw an arm over his face. “I saw something in the hallway.”
    Sean sat up at once. “What?”
    Her pumped-up heartbeat wasn’t helping the reflux. “I saw something like…eyes.”
    â€œThe cat.”
    â€œNo,” she said. “Unless Noodles is now the size of a Great Dane and standing on her back legs on a box.”
    Sean got up and went to the half-open door and pulled it all the way to show the empty hallway. “Nothing there. Probably something reflecting off of something. Or the window at the end of the hall. Or the night-light, maybe it was that.”
    She knew he was right, of course he was. The quick, bright flash might’ve even been her imagination or a quirk of the shadows. It could’ve been some light coming in through the window, splitting shadows she hadn’t yet come to know.
    Sean’s warm hand on her back reminded her of how chilly she was, and Ginny turned off her light to snuggle back under the blankets. The reflux was fading with every swallow, just like the memories of her dream. She rolled to face her husband, who was sprawled on his back with one arm flung over his head. His slow, even breaths soothed her. She put a hand on his belly, first on top of the soft T-shirt, then slipped her fingers underneath to lay them on the warm skin beneath. Then, lower.
    â€œOh yeah?” Sean sounded sleepy, but amused. Beneath her fingers, he responded.
    â€œYeah,” Ginny said. “Definitely.”
    She moved to pull him on top of her, but Sean resisted, rolling her on top of him instead. “Don’t want to squish…you.”
    The baby. He meant the baby. Ginny sighed, straddling him. It felt awkward now. Unwieldy, when she’d simply wanted him to move inside her, but now she had to do some sort of gymnastics routine to get things going. She kissed him when he pulled her down to his mouth, but all at once she couldn’t stop thinking about the landscape from her dream and the inconsistent amount of hot water and the errands they needed to do the next day, which would come way too early the longer they were awake.
    â€œNo?” Sean murmured into her ear, his breath warm. He pushed a hand between them, but the position wasn’t quite right and the pressure against her was more pain than pleasure. “I thought you wanted to.”
    But it was lost, and she didn’t want to tell him so because she’d been the one to start this. It would be unfair to back out now. So she took him in her hand and shifted to slide him inside her, and she moved the way she knew he liked her to