Fine

“But you got her to bed alright?” Henry asked as he let go off the paper, which Sarah had brought in from the hallway before he got home.

“Oh yes sir, we played on it so...”

“Good.”

“You want some coffee?” Natasha asked as she moved through the kitchen, noting that Sarah had placed a bowl and a glass for her as well, opposite to where Henry was sitting.

“Yes, please.” Henry replied before catching himself rubbing his left thumb against his ring finger in the wake of accidentally seeing Natasha’s panties. It was quite stupid, but back when Monica had still been alive, he had always rubbed his thumb against his wedding ring as a way of dealing with women that he found attractive, using it as a tool to remind himself, as Paul Newman had once put it so eloquently; “why go out for a burger when you’ve got a steak at home?”

He didn’t wear it since about eight months, when he had come so far that he could leave it on his nightstand.

“Coffee seems to be the only part of our breakfast that Sarah didn’t prepare.” Henry observed.

“I’m sorry about that sir.”

“It’s hardly your fault; Sarah would have done the same thing even if I was here.” Henry assured her. “And Natasha, haven’t I already asked you to please call me Henry?”

“Sorry sir… Henry.” Natasha fidgeted with the coffee filter. Of course, what she hadn’t told him yet about the previous night and what she wasn’t going to tell him was that Sarah had conveyed her decision, quite out of the blue, that she should be her new mommy. Natasha had tried to explain to her that things were a little bit more complicated than that, but the little girl had been adamant that that was how things would be from now on.

“Now that that’s settled, I hope that you could sleep alright tonight. I’ll make sure that your bed is fixed until next time.” The day before, the front legs of the bed in the guestroom had collapsed when Henry had supported his arm on it while hoovering the floor underneath it, and the crash had caused the bedstead to crack, leaving Natasha with no place to sleep.

It was an IKEA bed, and Henry had put it together a while back with the assistance of Sam, another workmate and personal friend, who worked as a surgeon at the Medical Centre. Sarah had also tried her best to help out, and so Henry had spent most of the time explaining how all the bits went together to her while Sam actually assembled the bed.

Naturally, the fact that the bed had ended up cracked and in bits had resulted in Henry giving Sam a few good-natured remarks about never wanting to have him as his surgeon.

“Its fine, Henry.” Natasha assured him, having found it very sweet of him to put new sheets on his bed so that she could sleep in it, although it felt quite strange to try and fall asleep while lying in his room. It wasn’t that she had a crush on him or anything, but more that he was kind of exactly the sort of man that she would like to end up married to at some point in the future: kind, gentle, handsome and extremely good with his daughter, being calm but firm on those rare occasions when she lost her temper and threw a tantrum.

Of course, the fact that some part of him seemed to be broken ever since the passing of his wife but that he ignored it for the sake of his daughter didn’t exactly make him any less attractive to Natasha. She remembered just after his wife had died, when she would see him bring Sarah to and from her kindergarten, and how in control of his emotions he had appeared, as though he had been determined to offer Sarah some sense of security despite what had happened to them.

Pressing her teeth against her lip, Natasha pushed those thoughts aside and switched on the coffeemaker.