Page 20 of Ex Somnis

Derek and the Shaw boy are more complicated. Neither of them can lucid dream. Someone has to teach them before anything else happens.

Apparently, that’s me.

Meaning I have to voluntarily spend sustained time with a twenty-something-year-old who kissed my woman before I managed to.

Fantastic.

I reach for the nightstand, unwrap a lollipop, put it between my teeth, and let the sour hit the back of my tongue.

Then I open my messages with Derek.

He’s been trying to reach me since I locked myself in the apartment after the party. The last thing he sent was a photo of Melanie holding what appears to be a frog, timestamped fifteen minutes ago.

Derek

She found it behind the building. She wants to keep it as a pet. I need backup.

I scroll past it.

Looks like you have a pet frog now, Derek.

We need to teach you lucid dreaming.

Fast.

CHAPTER FIVE

Lennon

The fish is a problem.

Not a bad one. One where the answer exists, and I haven’t found it yet, which is different from when the answer doesn’t exist and you have to make peace with that.

I’ve had enough of that to last a while.

“The sauce is too sweet.” I sigh.

“The sauce is perfect,” Tessa counters.

“The sauce is too sweet, and you know it. The fish needs acid. Some bite underneath the butter.” I set down my spoon and look at the ceiling, thinking. “Capers. Or preserved lemon.”

We look at each other across the pass. “Preserved lemon,” we say in unison.

“Obviously preserved lemon.”

“Obviously.”

I’m in the kitchen of Maes & Vaughn at the end of a service that ran exactly right, and my best friend is here. We fixed a problem together in about four seconds, and this is the notebook—the actual restaurant. And it’s ours.

This is the dream.

I decide to let myself have it.

Picking up my spoon, I taste the sauce again. Yep. Almost perfect.

I grab a lemon when somewhere between one step and the next, the kitchen disappears like the end of a thought, or the way you sometimes find yourself in a room without remembering how you got there.

Now we’re in the restaurant’s dining room. Fairy lights are strung along the ceiling beams, and the tables are already set for tomorrow, glasses polished, everything in its place.