9.

I stand there, just staring at the two of them for so long that my legs start to go numb below me.

Ben must be feeling it too by the way he finally starts to shuffle his feet a little beneath him, shifting Elizabeth in his arms, pulling her closer to his chest.

Ben cuts his eyes over at me below his mess of curls and then quickly averts his eyes again, staring intently back down at the baby in his arms.

It's at this exact moment that I realize I am in fact just standing in this man's living room staring at him and my niece while I'm wearing nothing but my jeans and bra.

"Oh shit." I curse, quietly, but urgently.

I spin around, covering myself as I search for where I had discarded my shirt. I find it on the floor and quickly yank it back over my head and pull it down over my body.

My cheeks are fire hot and I can't turn back around and face him. It was one thing when there was the chaos of Elizabeth screaming and the urgency to calm her, but now that she's snoozing hard, being half naked in front of Ben just feels wrong.

It's not like I'm a prude or anything, and really, my bra covers more than my bikini tops usually do, but still. It's too intimate. Not only because he's the father of my sister's baby, but because he doesn't know I already know who he is.

I stare at the wall in front of me, searching for something to say. My eyes catch on a picture in one of those large frames that holds like a dozen photos at once.

I step in closer, leaning over the couch to get a better look.

"You've been sky diving?" I ask, lightly touching the dusty glass covering with my finger tips.

He laughs a little. "Yeah, it was the most exhilarating thing I've ever done." He says. "Have you ever been?"

I turn around to scrutinize his face. "Of course not." I shake my head quickly. "As if being up in a metal man made flying death trap up in the air isn't bad enough, you actually willingly chose to just jump out of it?"

He furrows his brows at me. "It was fun." He shrugs one shoulder lightly. "I take it you're not a fan of flying then."

I scrunch my face. "I just don't trust it." I say, sitting down on the edge of the couch. "So many things can go wrong. The whole thing is barely held together by, again, man made things, that all have to work exactly right or the entire thing just falls out of the sky." I explain. "But I guess you wouldn't care since you apparently like falling."

"It doesn't even feel like falling." He says. "Seriously, it's like, you step out and it just feels like wind blowing in your face. You only free fall for a short amount of time anyway. Then once they pull the parachute you are just gliding and can see for miles and the place I went there was this river and mountains and I swear to god I've never been so in awe of just seeing land than I was then."

"What if your parachute didn't open?" I ask. "Or what if it does open, but there is a hole in it, then you're just free falling the entire time knowing you're about to eat dirt and die right there. Like you're just waiting for the moment you slam into the ground."

"Well." He says seriously. "My parachute did in fact open. Without holes." He laughs a little. "I actually got to watch the instructor I jumped with fold up our parachute and pack it into the bag. The wild thing is, this man had on no shoes." He laughs a little more. "Just walking around on the plane barefoot and strapping us in. If there is anyone I trust to jump with it is a man so confident in what he's doing that he's doing it all barefoot."

"See, to me, that would be a sign that the man is obviously unhinged." I point out. "Who jumps out of a plane barefoot? What if y'all landed somewhere with rocks or something and his feet and ankles just get gashed open and he just bleeds out. That sounds like poor planning to me."

"We landed in a perfectly safe field."

"Then what? He just walks you back barefoot?"

He nods. "Yeah." He says. "Then he goes and gets on another plane and does the whole thing again."

I ponder on this for a moment.

I cannot physically imagine myself ever jumping out of a plane, but you have to wonder about the types of people who can. The ones who sign away their lives and just go for it without any fears.

Even more, the people who do it over and over.

"Do you think it gets boring?"

"What?" Ben asks, walking over to carefully lay Elizabeth down on her pillow bedside me on the couch.

"The instructor." I explain. "Do you think it's even exciting for him anymore? Or do you think he's done it so many times now that jumping out of a plane just feels like collecting a paycheck?"

Ben shakes his head. "Nah," he sighs. "He said every single jump feels just as good as the very first one. He said that's why he does it. Said he likes getting to do something he loves to do while experiencing it with people who are doing it all for the very first time."

"I'd barf." I say, lifting my chin. "All over the place. We would both be covered in it by the time we landed." I picture the whole ordeal in my head before I stop, turning sharply to look at Ben. "Wait, do you think you even can?" I ask. "I've seen the videos and how everyone's mouths are just open and cheeks blowing back. If you tried to throw up like that wouldn't all your puke just keep getting forced back into your mouth? Would you literally choke on it on the way down?"

Ben narrows his eyes at me. "You're kinda weird, huh?"

I tilt my head back and forth. "Kinda." I shrug, toying with a lose string on the hem of my jeans.

"You don't ever just go with the flow, do you?" He asks and I turn and look at him again.

"I have no problem with going with the flow." I object. "I love the flow." I say, then smile. "I just want to know exactly what time the flowing starts and what all will be happening during the flow I am going with and what time the flow ends and where all of the emergency exits are during the said flow."

At this Ben tilts his head back and laughs. "You can't plan out the flow." He says. "That's sort of the whole point of it. It's not an adventure if it comes with an itinerary."

"But if you have an itinerary, there is less room for accidents that turn your adventure into a nightmare."

I'm ready to further debate my point, already organizing a list of examples in my head to win over this argument when Ben changes the direction of the conversation.

"Did you tell me your name?" He asks, brushing his hair out of his eyes. "If you did, I missed it with all of the craziness going on."

"Already getting that foggy new daddy brain?" I tease.

I turn my head at the sounds of a little bell.

In the doorway into the kitchen a cat sticks her head around the corner. The big greenish yellow eyes locking on me.

"Hey, girl, come on." Ben sits up on the couch, leaning over holding out his hand. "It's ok, you can come out now."

"Oh no." I sigh, shaking my head. "A cat person."

The cat eyes me warily as it slowly walks into the room, the tiny gold bell on her green collar tinking away as she moves.

She takes the long way around the room, her long bushy tail raised high behind her, never taking her suspicious eyes off of me as she jumps onto the couch beside Ben.

"Actually I'm a dog person too." He says, petting the cat down her back and up her tail. She leans into his hand and turns for him to do it again. "Well, an all animal person." I wrinkle my nose at him. "What?" He says, still petting her. "You don't like animals?"

"Of course I do, I'm not a monster." I say. "I just don't love cats."

"What's wrong with cats?" He asks, covering the calico cats fuzzy ears and looking at me expectantly.

I laugh a little. "There isn't anything adherently wrong with them, they're just so...judgy."

"Look," Ben says, uncovering the cat's ears. "Fancy is very unjudgmental."

She glares at me from beneath his palm. "Tell that to her face." I say, giving her back the same quizzical look she's giving me. "I don't know, I just haven't ever had a pet. They seem unsanitary."

Ben shakes his head as he continues to pet Fancy. "Never?" He asks and I shake my head. "I've had tons of pets." He says, leaning back into the couch while the cat settles on his lap. "My first one was a bird, but his stomach like exploded somehow. Then I got a hamster. His name was Shady and he was the coolest little fucker until he got out of his cage one night and we couldn't find him. You would hear him playing in the walls in the middle of the night. But then one morning when we were about to leave for summer vacation, I guess he came out and my mom accidentally stepped on him. We didn't have time to bury him so we wrapped him up and put him in the freezer to bury when we got home but we kept forgetting so he was in there for basically a year." Ben doesn't seem to notice the horrified look on my face because he keeps going. "Then I had a turtle for a  few years, but I left him out one night and he got on top of one of the air vents and got stuck I guess and he froze to death."

"Oh my god, I'm expected to think you can keep a baby alive?" I gasp. "All of that sounds horrific and traumatizing."

"Look," Ben laughs. "All I'm saying is, even The Grinch had a dog, so maybe you should question your own life choices."

"Have you managed to keep any of your pets alive?" I raise my brows, looking down at the cat sleeping in his lap wondering if she had begun to question her own life choices as he talked.

"We had two family dogs who lived very long happy lives." Ben laughs. "I was a kid with the other ones. Maybe not the most responsible, sure, but they weren't all my fault. My ferret was diabetic and would have seizures. My mom actually gave him mouth to mouth one time and saved him."

"Thank god your mom is coming." I sigh. "I'm not sure I could leave Elizabeth alone with you after all of that."

Ben smiles looking down at where Elizabeth sleeps between us. "My mom is the best." He says. "She's going to be obsessed. I'm not sure she'll ever go home after she meets her."

"Do you think she'll move out here?" I ask hopefully.

"Come on, now." Ben grins up at me. "Fancy and me have been surviving just fine on our own this whole time."

I look at the cat and then back at Elizabeth. "What if she's allergic?" I ask, suddenly panicked.

"Huh?"

"What if she's allergic to cats?"

"My mom has met Fancy plenty of times, I'm pretty sure she'd know-."

"Not your mom!" I smack a palm to my face. "Elizabeth."

Ben smiles. "Oh, right." He says, then looks down at her. "I'm sure she's not."

"But what if she is?" I demand. "She could go into anaphylactic shock or something."

Ben frowns. "Look at her." He tells me. "She's completely fine." He says, gazing down at her. "Thanks to you."

"Don't try to butter me up, I'm serious."

"You worry too much." Ben says and I fold my arms over my chest.

"Maybe you don't worry enough." I argue.

"Are you going to tell me who you are?" He asks, throwing me off again.

"Hayden." I sigh. "My name is Hayden and I'm concerned."

"Ok," he laughs. "Hayden, be less concerned. Lizzy is fine. If by some freak chance she is allergic to cats, Fancy will go live with my mom, ok?"

I chew my lips and relent. "Fine." I nod.

"Ok then." Ben says, standing slowly, letting Fancy hop down onto the floor. "I've heard you're supposed to try to sleep when the baby does." He tells me. "Are you planning to...."

He lets the sentence hang and I realize he's waiting for me to leave. I'd been so angry with Alice and then so wrapped up since I had gotten here I completely forgot I don't even have a hotel yet.

"I'll need to find a place to stay then I'll go." I tell him, looking for my phone. "Where is a good but cheap hotel around here?"

He looks down at me, brows pinched. "You're not from around here?"

"No." I say, pulling up my google. "I just flew in. I went straight to the hospital and then here."

"Oh, just stay then."

I blink up at him. "What?"

He shrugs and stretches his long arms over his head. "Yeah, just crash here. I don't have a spare bed right now, but you're welcome to stay. She probably won't be out long."

"Uh." I look down and little sleeping Elizabeth and ponder. Would that be super weird? I mean, I don't really want to leave her just yet. His pets stories still haunt my mind as I look down at my precious defenseless niece. His mom will be here soon and then I'll feel better about leaving. "I mean, if you don't care." I say, studying his expression for any signs he was just saying it to be nice and now regrets it.

But he smiles around a yawn. "I'll grab a blanket." He says and disappears up the stairs.

I guess I'm spending the night.