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“I don’t know,” Nova answered, frowning as if she were thinking hard about the question.
“You haven’t been swimming before?” I asked.
“No.” She shook her head so much that her pigtails swung back and forth. “Is it fun?”
“We have a pool in the backyard. Papa and Zio Ciro had it installed last summer. We had another one, but it was too small for all of us. This one is way bigger. It’s heated so we can swim year-round if we want, and there are lights in the pool for when we swim at night.” I turned so I was facing her fully. “I’ll teach you how to swim.”
“That’s a wonderful idea, Ryan,” Zia murmured with a small smile. “You are being a great host already. Thank you for helping to make our guests feel welcome.”
I shrugged, not really liking praise. I wasn’t doing it to help out, but because I really liked how I felt when I was so close to Nova. When she’d been asleep beside me earlier, I felt like nothing was wrong. I actually felt good, when good was the one thing I’d rarely felt my whole life. Only Mom could make me feel like that, but this was a different kind of good.
This was…more.
4
Ryan
Heart pounding, I jerked upright in bed. Sweat was dripping off my body, and I kicked off my covers in frustration as my fear continued to make me shake.
After the nap I’d taken with Nova earlier, with no nightmares to wake me, I had thought—hoped—that I wouldn’t have them when I went to bed. A glance at the clock told me I’d only been asleep an hour, and already I’d been chased by the monster in my dreams.
Pulling my knees up, I pressed my damp forehead to them and tried not to cry. Crying wouldn’t help, and it only made me feel like a baby. When I was younger, I would scream out and wake the entire house. And then Mom came to live with us. The dreams hadn’t been as bad since then, but that didn’t make them stop. I might not scream out in terror, but the very real fear that I could taste on my tongue wasn’t much better.
The sound of my door being pushed open had my head snapping up. There were a few night-lights in the outlets around my room to give it a soft glow, which made it easy to see the tiny shadow tiptoeing toward my bed. The sight of Nova in her kitten pajamas, her long blond hair hanging around her face like a halo, and a stuffed bunny in one arm, had that sick, terror-filled feeling in my stomach disappearing.
I didn’t know why, but I’d left my door slightly ajar when I’d gone to bed earlier. Nova had been given the room across from mine, a toddler bed having been set up the week before in anticipation of her and her family’s arrival. Knowing she was just across the hall, I’d wanted to be able to hear her if she happened to get scared in the middle of the night. As big as my house was, I didn’t want her to wake up and not know where anyone was and be afraid, so I’d shown her several times that I was close.
As she got closer to my bed, she stopped. “What’s wrong?” she whispered, seeing that I was sitting up.
“Nothing.” It wasn’t a lie. Now that she was here, there really was nothing wrong. My heart rate was back to normal, not making my chest shake from how hard it was pounding, and the cold sweat that had been dripping off my body only moments before was quickly drying on my skin. “Couldn’t you sleep?”
She tightened her hold on her bunny. “We don’t like that big room. I like it better in here. With you.”
“I like it better in here with you, too,” I told her honestly. Getting out of bed, I picked her up and waited until she crawled over to the pillows. Once she was comfortable, I got in beside her, and we laid our heads on the same pillow. “What’s your bunny’s name?”
“Bun-Bun. My aunt Raven gave her to me when I was a baby. Do you want to snuggle with her?” She lifted it and touched its nose to my cheek. “She’s real soft and gives the best cuddles.”
I just looked at the bunny then at Nova, who gave me these big, hopeful eyes, as if she wanted me to cuddle the stuffie. I took it and gave it a quick hug before giving it back to her. Even though the room was mostly dark with just the night-lights to see by, her smile was so bright, it made something feel as if it were glowing in my chest.
“See?” she said with a yawn. “Bun-Bun is the bestest cuddler.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “The best.”
“Ryan?” she murmured, her voice full of sleep now.
I traced my eyes over her face, and without thinking, I tucked a few locks of her pretty hair behind her ear. “Yeah?”
“Don’t tell, but I was scared.” She yawned again. “But I didn’t want to be a baby and sleep with my mommy and daddy. And Garret won’t let me sleep with him.”
I grimaced at the mention of her brother. It wasn’t that I didn’t like him. He was kind of cool, even if he was grumpy and got into trouble a lot. But what I didn’t like was, from what little I’d seen of him with Nova earlier, I’d noticed he didn’t treat her the way she should be treated. She was so tiny and precious. Why didn’t he want to protect her like I did?
“It’s okay,” I told her and moved closer so I could wrap an arm around her. “You can sleep here any time you want.”
“Promise?” she whispered, snuggling against me with Bun-Bun tucked under her arm, her ear right over my heart.
“I promise,” I whispered back.
She got quiet and I thought maybe she had fallen asleep, but she surprised me when she said my name. “Ryan?”
