Page 164 of In Somnis

Inside, I close my door, peel off my work clothes, then I pull my hair up and wash my face. I don’t have the energy to shower, so I slip into the softest things I own and stand in my dark kitchen, trying to figure out what I’m going to do with the rest of this night, because I am not going to sleep.

I know I’m not going to sleep.

I’m still standing here deciding nothing when someone knocks.

My brain immediately starts running through options—Ridge, Paul, Nevan—and the fact that I have to run through options at all, the fact that any one of those three showing up at my door at midnight is a plausible scenario, says something about my life that I don’t have the bandwidth to look at right now.

“Lemon.” Nevan’s voice is low through the door. “Come on. I know you’re not sleeping yet.”

My chest loosens slightly and tightens differently.

My steps are heavy with exhaustion as I make my way to the door and open it. “It’s late,” I say, because that’s the most coherent thing I have.

He tilts his head. “Can I come in?”

I step back, and he ducks under the doorframe on his way in, then sets two lemonades and what appear to be two bars of chocolate on the kitchen counter.

My gaze shifts between them and him, my eyebrows pinching in confusion. “What’s that?”

“I thought maybe you were on your period and needed snacks.” He says it with genuine sincerity, which is somehow the funniest and most painful thing anyone has said to me today.

I stare at him, and then I laugh, which turns out to be the thing that was sitting just underneath all the crying. “Oh, boy.” I lean against the counter. “If I were on my period, I would kick you out so hard right now. We need to do some work with you before we let you anywhere near Sydney.”

His face shifts through several expressions. “I thought I was being thoughtful.”

“If a girl tells you she’s on her period, bringing chocolate is sweet. You’re right about that.” I cross my arms. “But clocking me having a hard day and jumping straight to must be her period is… that’s just rude, Nev.”

His eyes go wide. “Shit. Yeah, I see that.” He pauses, his body sagging at the realization. “I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted.”

“So you did have a bad day.”

The concern in his gray eyes is so uncomplicated and direct that it goes straight through every defense I’ve been constructing since this morning.

I laugh, because I don’t know what else to do, but it comes out a little broken at the edges, and I can feel the moment it shifts underneath me, how a laugh sometimes does when you’re too tired to hold the two things separate. The laugh is still happening when the sob catches up to it, and for one, awful second, they’re both present at once before the sob wins.

“Oh. Oh, shit, hey…” He closes the distance immediately, arms coming around me.

I’m already falling apart, the sobs hard, ugly, and unstoppable. Nevan makes a steady, low sound, then he reaches down and lifts me, picking me up like it’s the obvious thing to do, and carries me to the bedroom, ducking his head under the doorframe.

He sits on the bed, kicks off his shoes, and settles back against my headboard with me still tucked against him. His hand starts moving in long, slow strokes down my back. “Shh,” he says quietly. “I’m here.”

And there it is, the thing I needed all along and couldn’t name without breaking.

Which makes me cry harder, because that’s what I said to my mom in the hospital when there was nothing else to say, and she’s not here to say it back. I have been so angry at that fact all day, and I didn’t even know it.

He pulls back and tips my chin up, brushing a tear from my cheek with his thumb. His face is so open, sad, and steady that I can’t look away from it. “Lemon. What’s going on?”

“Today is her birthday. My mom’s. She would have been sixty-five. I forgot until I woke up this morning, and then I spent the whole day trying not to think about it.” I press my hand over my eyes. “But I can’t not anymore.”

“I’m so sorry. I had no idea. How long has she been gone?”

“Not even a full month.”

He goes very still before he pulls me back in, both arms tight around me, and he doesn’t say anything else. He just holds on, presses his lips to the top of my head, and keeps his hand moving slowly on my back while the worst of it moves through me.

The sobs slow eventually, like they always do, leaving me wrung out and hollow. “I’m thirty-five,” I murmur into his chest. “And nobody’s daughter anymore.”