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I sat straight up, and the second I did, his arms were around me, pulling me back against his chest. It was warm there. Safe there. “It’s okay, it’s just a dream,” Drake murmured over and over. “It’s just a dream. You’re all right.”
Even after four months, this was still the routine.
The nightmares.
The panic attacks.
The insomnia.
Some nights it was worse than others.
And some nights, like last night, it felt like I was never going to escape it.
Brain Hypoxia was no joke, and I was lucky as hell to walk out of the hospital with just some insomnia and trouble remembering what happened over those few days of chaos.
My brain was starved of oxygen.
Not completely but to a point where it was slowly killing off important cells.
Cells that I needed.
The doctor said I had minutes, no more than three or four more minutes in that box, and there probably wouldn’t have been any chance of me walking out of the hospital and leading a normal life.
I’d have been brain dead.
Just minutes.
For months, Drake sat up with me when I couldn’t sleep. Those first two months he missed important meetings and handed over projects to other contractors, so he didn’t have to worry so much about going into work on the mornings when I’d had less than an hour of sleep.
He made me feel safe again when the trauma kept me from shutting my eyes. It was like no matter how tired my body was or how exhausted my brain felt, the fear that if we closed our eyes, we’d be right back there. For a while, I felt like it was going to overtake my life.
“Bad night?” Drake asked, pulling me back down on the bed. I curled into his body, readily losing my fingers in his hair which he’d let grow, and honestly, I was enjoying the man buns and ponytails. It was like a new speed we were moving in, one we were learning together, and it was sexy as hell having him there, making changes as he moved with me.
I hummed softly, allowing myself time to calm my heart as it continued to race away in my chest. “Yeah. Not really sure why. Maybe second-hand nerves because you want me to go to that meeting with you this morning.”
“Can’t be,” he answered with a chuckle, pressing a featherlight kiss to my neck as he threw the sheet back.
I laid back and enjoyed the view.
The early morning stretch.
Then the strut to the bathroom.
The tattoos, the abs, and the way he looked at me, I made time to appreciate that shit every single day.
“How do you know it can’t be?” I challenged, sitting up and folding my legs, tugging the sheet around me.
“Because I’m not nervous,” he called back, his baritone laughter floating out the door before it was smothered by the sound of water spray and the old door creaking as it eased closed.
This morning we moved quickly, no joking about the meeting. He said it was important, but I still had no idea why that meant having me there too. The man keeping me in the dark, teasing me about it, all until we turned onto a familiar street, Simon pulling the car to the curb right next toThe Kings Line.
The place we met.
That was when I saw them.
Aspen, Reed, and Mr. Barlowe.
