Page 119 of In Somnis

We have a deal, after all, so either way, I have to try again, even if I have no clear idea of where to start, and even less of an idea what it means that This Man is involved. Even thinking about him in the context of Tessa turns something cold in my stomach.

I’m not going to tell Derek. Not yet. Not until I know whether it means something, and whether what happened in the dreamscape with her is the door I think it might be. I won’t hand him hope until I know it holds weight. Derek has been carrying the weightless kind for long enough, and I’ve watched what that does to a person.

He deserves the real thing or nothing.

The Vaughn mansion disappears behind us in the dark, and Derek doesn’t look back.

Neither do I.

A soft sound from the back seat tells me Melanie has finally given in to sleep. I glance back to find her head tilted against the car seat, mouth slightly open, and her right hand has fallen open in her lap, the little white stone resting in her palm.

I hope her dreams are only the good kind. That they’re soft, strange, and full of things that make no sense in the best way, the way dreams are supposed to be before life gives you nightmare fuel, and you learn dreams can cost you.

“Hey,” I whisper when I turn back to Derek. “Have you heard anything from the bitch?”

“Ridge.”

“What? Princess is asleep.”

Derek glances in the rearview mirror, then back at the road. “You still can’t call her mother a bitch.”

“I call her as she is.”

“Mm.”

“Well? Have you?”

“No.” He signals for our street. “Her parents said she’s in India. Finding herself, apparently.”

“She can get thoroughly lost while she does it.”

“Then why are you asking?”

I look back at Melanie. The stone is still in her palm, and she has a small red crayon smudge on her thumb that I didn’t notice earlier.

“Still can’t believe she made you that,” I say.

Derek is quiet for a moment. When he speaks, it’s dry, fond, and a little tired. “I’d love to regret that one-night stand. I genuinely would.”

“But?”

He looks in the rearview mirror at his daughter. “But I really can’t.”

We turn onto our street. Shadowed buildings slide past, and I’m already thinking about getting back upstairs, about heating up the lemon chicken and eating it while thinking about next steps with Lennon. But then a black pick-up truck moves through the intersection ahead of us with “Bennett Logging” written in white letters on the side.

Paul Bennett is in the driver’s seat, and before I even think about it, I flip him off.

He doesn’t see it, of course, already driving down the street, but it gives me a little thrill.

Derek looks at me. Then at the intersection. Then back at me. “Really?”

“What?”

“Very mature.”

“Thank you.”

He pulls into the parking lot, and I look down at the pebble in my hand.