Page 174 of In Somnis

She needs someone who notices and shows up, who can hold her when she’s falling apart. She needs someone warm, someone I am not.

I know what I am.

I’m a cold asshole.

But the dreamscape, that’s mine. That’s the one place I’m actually useful to her. I can keep her safe from This Man here. I can teach her, build with her, stand between her and whatever that thing is planning with Tessa.

I can be what she needs when her eyes are closed.

And Nevan can be what she needs when they’re open.

It’s a rational division of labor. It makes complete sense. It has nothing to do with the fact that thinking about him holding her in the dark while I lie on the other side of a wall is producing a feeling in my chest I’d like to remove with a spoon.

I stick the lollipop back between my teeth.

“Well, I know Lennon, too, and I know that she likes you. So why won’t you do something about it?”

“Because she’s dating someone!” The words burst out of Nevan.

Wait, he’s not talking about me, is he?

“And because she deserves someone who has their shit together, not someone who barely has a second of free time and lives in a cottage with his little brother and sick mom and has to work two jobs just to make rent. She deserves better than…” He stops, closing his eyes. “Better than me.”

Well, if that doesn’t sound familiar, but I’m still stuck on the dating part.

I pull the lollipop out of my mouth and point it at him, asking the new question that is way more important now that the other one is answered. “She’s dating someone?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, they went on a date, he picked her up with flowers and everything, but she hasn’t told me how it went yet, and I don’t think it went well, but still, I⁠—”

“Who picked her up?” I cut him off.

“Paul Bennett.”

Oh, fuck me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Lennon

The sandwiches are a hit.

I know they are because the first plate I sent out came back empty within four minutes, and the second one followed seven minutes later.

The kitchen swing doors bump open, and Sydney steps inside. “Table 6 wants to know if there’s a third plate.”

“There’s a third plate,” I confirm, already building it. “Tell them there’s also a fourth if they want it.”

She grins, and it transforms her whole face. “You know they’re going to sit there all afternoon waiting for more.”

“I already have muffins going for the afternoon coffee and tea.”

“If you’re not planning on doing this every day, you’re spoiling them and setting me up to be the villain tomorrow.”

I snort. “That’s not spoiling them, it’s called hospitality.”

“That’s called a problem,” she says, but she takes the plate, and I catch her stealing a triangle of the turkey Brie from the edge before she disappears back through the doors.

I can see what Nevan likes about her, beyond the obvious, the fact that she’s tall and pretty with a mouth that quirks sideways when she’s trying not to smile. She has the quality of people who’ve had to be capable for a long time. You can tell by the way she moves through a room as if she already knows where everything is.