Page 60 of In Somnis

I wake up fighting for breath.

My lungs burn, heart slamming hard enough that I’m convinced something inside my chest finally gave out. I suck in air, over and over, staring up at my ceiling while the echo of her blue eyes and that scrunched-up nose refuses to let go.

The air still smells like lemon blueberry muffins, and my hands are trembling just enough to piss me off as I reach out and press my fingers into the side of my nightstand, willing them to go through the wood, but it’s solid beneath my palm.

Reality.

“Fuck,” I rasp into the dark.

Soft, muffled sounds cut through the ringing in my ears.

I go still, breath caught halfway in my lungs, listening to a soft thud from next door. My gaze snaps to my phone on my nightstand, and I reach over to check the time.

7:32 a.m. Since when the fuck do I sleep past six?

I drag a hand down my face, scrubbing hard like I can wipe the night off my skin, when there’s a knock at my door.

“Ridge!”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Lennon

“Ridge!”

His name echoes down the hallway as I rap my knuckles against his door again, pulse still pounding from the dream.

I register dimly that I’m still in my pajamas. My bare feet are cold against the carpet, and my hair is doing whatever the hell it wants. I should probably care about that, but I don’t, because my new neighbor was just in my dream.

“Ridge.” I pound my fist a little harder on the next knock. “Open the damn door.”

If this is real, I need to know.

I’m not crazy.

Tessa reaches me in dreams, that’s just a fact I’ve accepted, so the real question isn’t whether someone can do it. It’s whether he did. I don’t invent strangers. My dreams pull from what I know, faces I can already picture, people who already exist in my life. So where did he come from? I didn’t build him.

Which means either my brain had a very specific and inconvenient creative breakthrough last night, or the man on the other side of this door was in my head.

And I’d really like him to explain that.

“I dreamed about you.” I rest my forehead against the door beside my fist, the fight draining out of me, but then a loud creak sounds from behind me, and just as quickly, I snap my head back up, jumping like I’ve been caught trespassing.

“Everything okay?”

I turn around and find Derek coming down the stairs with Melanie, her tiny hand wrapped around his finger, backpack bouncing against her legs. They both look… normal, rested, and are not wearing their pajamas.

Must be nice.

“Oh. Hi. Yeah. I just, um…” I gesture vaguely at the door behind me. “I wanted to try apologizing again.”

To the man who may or may not have invaded my subconscious and yelled at me about muffins.

God, was that really my plan here? I sound unhinged.

Derek raises an eyebrow. “Since the nice approach didn’t work, you’re trying the aggressive one now?” he asks, amusement threading his voice.

“What?”