Page 132 of In Somnis

I think he’s going to deflect or make a joke. Call me dramatic, maybe, but he doesn’t.

His thumbs press into my cheeks, grounding me. “There’s nothing there that needs changing,” he says, slower now, like he wants me to hear every word. “Not one fucking thing.”

Everything cracks open in me, and the dream shifts violently around us.

The flowers feel it first. They ripple outward from where we’re standing in a long, slow wave, then bend all at once as if they’re leaning in, petals tilting toward us. The sky above begins to soften at the edges, stars bleeding into each other.

“Breathe. Stay with me, sweetheart.” Ridge’s fingers tighten slightly, like he can feel it too, like he’s trying to hold the edges together⁠—

I wake up gasping, ceiling above me, one hand pressed flat to my sternum.

Shit.

The echo of warm palms against my cheeks.

Cedar and crystallized ginger.

“Not one fucking thing.”

My heart is going to need a minute.

Maybe two.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Lennon

The bedroom looks like a clothing apocalypse, and I’m standing in the middle of it.

Sweaters draped over furniture boxes, dresses scattered across the mattress, jeans pooled on the floor like fabric puddles. Mr. Muffin is buried somewhere under a pile of cardigans I’ve tried on and immediately rejected. Both suitcases are open and empty, their contents vomited across every available surface.

And yet I’m still looking for something to wear.

I’ve been at it for over an hour, which would be embarrassing under normal circumstances, but these are not normal circumstances. Because this morning, I woke up with the ghost of someone’s hands on my face. I should’ve marched next door and banged on Ridge’s door until he opened it and demanded an explanation about last night.

But I know what he’d say. The deal. He’d lean against the doorframe with that infuriating half smirk and remind me that I’m useful to him and he’s useful to me, and nobody should be confused about the situation.

There’s also the Tessa thing, which is its own catastrophe that I don’t have the emotional square footage to process right now.

And if I start pulling on that thread, everything else is coming down with it.

The only thing I know is that I’m going to get her out.

I just need to figure out how.

But not in the next forty-five minutes, because in the next forty-five minutes I have a date.

Maybe a date.

Paul never actually said date. He said, “I’d love to see you again, maybe without furniture this time.” Which could mean anything. Maybe he wants help with his plants. Maybe he’s going to present me with an itemized invoice for the bedframe, and this whole thing has been an elaborate billing strategy.

Honestly, I’d respect the commitment.

I hold up a yellow sundress and then immediately put it back down.

Too much.

I grab a soft cream blouse instead, then drop it on the catastrophe pile with everything else.