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Thursday night a nightmare wracks me again, and I jolt up, sweating and gasping. This time I was in a glass coffin and I was being buried alive, seeing the soil slowly swallow me, locking in the heat—
I can’t breathe I can’t breathe I can’t breathe—
I feel my way to the spare room. I’m too scared of the shadows nipping at my heels to knock; I barge in.
Darkness.
Only Larry’s night lamp pierces the gloom. But I can see the outline of a bed. I inch around it.
‘Chase.’ I don’t know why I’m whispering if I want to wake him, but I don’t think he’d appreciate me yelling his name.
Nothing.
I reach out and poke his arm—what I hope is his arm, anyway.
He startles awake, scooting back across the bed, his hand reaching behind him to flick on the lamp. I realise how this must look—a strange figure in the darkness calling his name. I’d be terrified, too.
He blinks at me in the light. I’ve never seen him like this, so… sleepy. Vulnerable.
‘What’s wrong?’ And God, his voice is the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard.
I feel stupid coming in here and waking him. He’s done enough for me. ‘It doesn’t matter. Sorry for waking you.’ I turn to leave but he grabs my wrist.
‘No, it’s okay.’ He rubs his eyes with his free hand. ‘Talk to me.’
‘I had a nightmare.’
He waits, clearly expecting me to elaborate. ‘Do you wanna talk about it?’
‘I… I wanted you to hold me until I fell back asleep—but never mind, it doesn’t matter,’ I add, seeing him go still, his expression going from concern to hesitancy. I step back, out of his grip, and this time he doesn’t stop me. I was stupid to think this would be okay; after all the times he held me, why would I think him doing the same in his bed wasn’t overstepping some unspoken rule? After all, I’m still with Archer, and he’s with Genevieve.
I get to the bottom of the bed before he clears his throat, but his voice is still rough when he says, ‘Wait.’
I keep walking. It shouldn’t matter, holding each other in his bed. If we were friends. But he can never be just my friend. Every gesture of kindness he offers means something so much more to me.
‘Frankie.’ And it’s the urgency in his voice that makes me halt.
He’s sitting up now, the blanket around his hips, and I realise he’s shirtless. With those tattoos, that body, his sleep-mussed hair… it hurts to look at him.
What a sweet sort of torture, to have this man back in my life by happenstance, teasing what I could have, only for him to be ripped from me all over again.
He scoots to the other side of the bed, flings back the duvet, and pats the space beside him. I don’t think he breathes at all as I climb in next to him.
I lie on my back, but I’ve forgotten about the nightmare entirely.
I’m in Chase’sbed.
WithChase.
He props himself up on an elbow and looks down at me, the powerful muscles in his arm straining. ‘When I imagined you in my bed, I don’t remember you wearing clothes,’ he says suddenly.
My mind goes quiet. ‘You imagined me in your bed?’
His eyes bore into me. ‘A couple times when we first met.’
‘After Ifarted?’
He grins. ‘In my defence, I was a hormonal teenage boy who wanted to fuck every girl in sight.’
