Page 40 of Ex Somnis

“You’re being smug about something that doesn’t help us.”

“You’re right. So, if you don’t know whether you’re her tether, what do you know?”

I think about Nevan. How he talked about her with his whole chest while he thought he was alone in it.

“The Shaw boy,” I say again, hating that apparently, it all circles back to him. “There’s something there. Between them… could be nothing.”

“Or it could be the key to reaching her. You said you visited his dreamscape?”

The image of Nevan’s clouds flickers behind my eyes for a second.

“I did.”

“For… reasons?”

“Yep.”

He apparently decides not to push on that. “And?”

“And his subconscious is very communicative. He cares about her in a way that…”

In a way that makes me want to yeet him through a window but also, objectively, might be exactly what she needs.

“In a way that could matter.”

I bite down on the lollipop harder than necessary.

“So we need him.”

“We need him,” I agree. “She needs him.”

“I know what she needs,” Paul says quietly, picking the watering can back up. “I knew the moment I met her that most of the time, what she needs and what I want are the same thing. Occasionally, they aren’t. I’ve been trying to account for that. Nevan is part of what she needs,” he continues, and his fingers tighten slightly around the watering can handle. “I understand that now. Though admittedly, I believed it was friendship on both sides for longer than I should have.”

“I can assure you,” I say dryly. “The boy was also alarmingly late to that realization.”

The side of Paul’s mouth twitches.

“Are you actually okay with pulling him into this?” I ask, tilting my head. “Or are you professionally self-aware about it? Because those are very different things.”

“Both,” he admits. “I’m working on narrowing the gap.”

“Good.” I step around three hanging ferns and drop into the chair again. “Because I need you emotionally functional, not just clinically organized.”

“When have I ever not been functional?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe when you let your best friend spend half a decade thinking you were a coward instead of just telling him the truth.”

“That’s fair.” Paul looks past me instead of at me. “Nevan might hate us after what we said in the parking lot.”

“I’ll handle it.” I sit up straighter.

“How, pray tell, are you going to handle it?”

“His subconscious loves talking to me. I’ll pay him a visit tonight. Plant the suggestion.”

“Ridge.”

“What? I’m going to see what the Shaw boy is dreaming about and give it a nudge in the right direction. That’s all.”