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“Holly.” Denied lust makes my warning sound more serious than I meant, but she just gives a big gust of a sigh in response.
“Okay. I’ll be good.”
I wait a moment and then release her hands. She keeps ahold of one, interlacing her fingers with mine, and plants a kiss in the center of my palm like earlier. It’s such a sweet thing to do, and my chest tightens with some intense feelings I’m not sure I’m ready to explore.
“Night, Ben.”
After brushing my lips over her shoulder, I whisper back, “Good night, Holly.”
Whenever I’ve spent the night with a girl, I’ve always found a way to separate myself from them after sex, wanting my own space. Maybe I can blame the chill of the night, but here, in this bed, the idea of releasing Holly seems so ridiculous that I actually chuckle to myself.
“What’re you laughing about?” Her whisper slurs with sleepiness, and I regret disturbing her.
“Nothing important. Go to sleep.” I breathe in deep, getting drowsy, surrounded by the smell of her honeysuckle shampoo.
“You go to sleep,” she mutters the command.
My lips curl at the edges, and for the first time in years, I fall asleep in Grandpa Ben’s cabin with a smile on my face.
HOLLY
The door looms tall before me.
I reach up, turn the knob, and push. The hinges squeak as it swings wide, revealing the dark room beyond. My feet move forward on their own.
I’m in Grams’s room. She should be asleep in the large bed I’m walking toward.
Someone is under the covers, but when I pull the sheet back, it’s not my grandmother.
It’s Ben.
He lies still, eyes closed, like he’s sleeping, but his chest doesn’t rise. I put my hand on his shoulder and find him ice-cold.
The darkness around me shifts and moves, closing in on us. Ben begins to sink into the bed, as if the mattress were quicksand. He’s disappearing from my sight, and he doesn’t respond when I scream his name.
There’s a pressure at my back, pushing me toward the sinkhole in the bed where Ben has vanished. Terror crashes over me in waves.
I turn away, searching for the door. It stands there, closed again.
With fear clawing its way down my spine, I run. The darkness slows my legs, pulling me back, but I push my way through. My fingers clasp the doorknob, wrenching with a mighty tug.
I’m awake.
Something heavy is holding me down, and I cry out, flinging it off me. It’s not until I’ve tumbled out of the bed, which sits a foot higher than the one in my apartment, that I realize I’m not at home. When I see Ben staring down at me in half-awake confusion, I remember where I am.
I’m in Ben’s grandfather’s cabin. We were sleeping in a bed together. That was his arm holding, not restraining, me. There’s no terrible, creeping darkness.
“Holly? What’s wrong?” He slides out of the bed and crouches in front of me on the floor.
Seeing him here, awake and moving, helps push back the panic of moments before. On pure instinct, I lean forward, clutching his face in both my hands just to make sure he’s solid. When his scruff scratches my palms, I let out a sigh of relief.
“Nightmare. Just a nightmare,” my voice sounds ragged when I whisper the reassurance, and I wonder if I was crying out in my sleep.
Remembering then all the effects of my nightmares, I glance down to see that I’ve sweated through my pajamas.
Gross.
At least I don’t wet the bed anymore.
