Rob Thomas awoke slowly, not with a headache but a heavy feeling, as if he had been sleeping for a long time. He picked his head up off the navy blue pillow and saw a pair of legs beside him. Soft and smooth, no doubt; Annabelle's no doubt. Rob raised himself a little more and stared with a funny curious look. She began to stir as well. Her head popped up from beneath the sheets on the opposite side of the bed, her recently-dyed black hair falling in front of her warm, tanned skin.

Rob laughed and crawled over to her. "What are doing down here, honey?"

"I was sleeping." She smiled at him as he pressed against her. She tousled his disheveled mess of hair. "Boy, don't you look adorable this morning,"

"Gawd, I feel like I've been asleep for so long."

"You fell asleep at seven last night. I've never seen you do that before," she giggled. "Maybe you're coming down with what Kyle has."

"Speaking of Kyle, where is he?"

"In the room downstairs. He looked so sick, and since Claire's out of town I told him to crash here the night," she explained, closing her eyes again. "I got up three times last night. I could hear him coughing all the way up here…. I gave him some syrup that you had in the bathroom. You know, I'm going to have to clean out that cabinet in there if I'm living with you now."

"He's supposed to leave at eight this morning to pick her up."

"He is? Rob, it's already nine-thirty."

"Fuck. Let me go downstairs, see if he's up already," he told her as he slid out of bed. "Go back to sleep, baby."

~*~*~*~*~*~

Maria Peterson placed the last of her clothes in her suitcase, zipped it closed, and walked over to the huge window of her apartment. She let out a sigh and gathered her brown curls to the back of her head, clipping them in place. Watching Adam load the majority of the luggage into his rental car, she clasped a silver butterfly clip with a burgundy-colored stone in the center on each side of her head, keeping obstinate stray curls out of her face. It's for real this time, Maria. No fucking it up, she told herself, still observing Adam from her upstairs window. He was bringing her back to Orlando with him for a few weeks. He was on the rebound, trying desperately to forget a past love ... Grace. He had a burning desire to take a few weeks and go out to New York for a break from Orlando. A break from the guys, his apartment, and his reoccurring memories of Grace. Then he ran into Maria at a pizza parlor on the corner where his cousin lived. She had caught his eye; curvy hips, a glorious mess of dark brown curls cascading around her shoulders, a clingy green shirt, and a beautiful laugh.

"I can love this man," she said out loud. A new determination fell over her, and she felt like everything was right in her world again. That little part of her that made her feel like she was missing something crawled back into its hiding place, prepared to leave her alone … it seemed. Adam Gaynor was what she wanted. Maria tried to convince herself of it. He had definitely been caring towards her, and extremely funny. She liked the sense of humor part. If it worked out, she'd be staying for more than a few weeks.

As Maria began to lug her bulging suitcase behind her, she promised herself not to slip back into past habits. Adam is perfect for you. Leave it at that. Too perfect to screw up, she told herself. But even she knew it was only a matter of time.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Rob knocked on the mahogany bedroom door downstairs, trying to wake up Kyle. "What do you want?" Kyle croaked from behind him.

Rob spun around, seeing Kyle standing before him with a miserable look on his weary face.

"Where were you?" he asked, wondering why he wasn't in the bedroom.

"Puking. Do you mind?" he groaned at the remembrance of it.

Rob suppressed a smile. "Sorry, man. You do realize it's Thursday, right?" He watched his blue-green eyes grow larger.

"Serious? Are you serious? Where the hell did Wednesday go?"

"It came and went, buddy. You don't look up to driving three hours to pick Claire up. Plus, you're already an hour and a half late."

"Damnit!" he barreled past Rob and back into the bedroom, searching for his shirt. Mumbling to himself, he sneezed and sneezed again and again, and again. "Gawd…. Where's my kleenex?"

Rob eyed his friend going into a sneezing fit; he found it quite hilarious. "Kyle, man, you have like, the worst bout of the flu I've ever seen. You just said you were puking your guts out in the bathroom a minute ago. You look like shit."

"Yeah, I think your woman gave me too much cough medicine or something. My head feels all screwy," he told him querulously.

Your woman. He thought about what Kyle had just said. He liked the way that sounded, the way that they were together now. It had almost been a month since the children had been taken away from Annabelle, and at first it seemed like she wouldn't be able to cope. Rob stayed there with her every day, every hour she needed him to, though. They received a call and found that the kids were doing well, both of them were as happy as any child. She seemed better now. And he seemed better to himself too, as long as he had her. It was the way they both wanted it to be. "You know I'd drive up for you, but Annabelle and me are going to her cousin's for the day and it's and hour and a half in the opposite direction…. Hey, I'll call Paul. He won't mind picking Claire up."

"Claire's going to be pissed," Kyle whined to himself as he ignored him, tossing his blankets around; he hoped his shirt was lost somewhere between the sheets. "I'm the one who insisted driving her up there instead of a plane in the first place."

Rob came back to the doorway to find Kyle lying on his knees, furiously rummaging around but not finding his shirt. As his eyes came across a light blue button-down shirt strewn over the chair in the corner of the room, Rob sauntered over to it, the phone attached to his ear. "Hey, Paul. What's up?"

As Kyle's head emerged, Rob hurled the shirt at him with a chuckle. He struggled to pull it over his head quickly, getting severely tangled inside of it. Rob kept laughing at Kyle's incapability to stay coordinated. "Yeah, Paul," he said into the phone. "How about a drive today?"

~*~*~*~*~*~

More to be added within the next week! Don't worry - more suspense is on the way!