Page 59 of Pretty Nightmare

I was sleeping with Adam the night before. We were all doing this weird turn-taking thing with where I sleep each night because McKay insisted that we ‘cool things down before they got too hot’.

I respect him for that. For respecting me like that. But who in their right mind wants to cool things down when you are in this kind of unique situation?

Not me. But whatever.

Anyway. I woke up the morning of my birthday. Adam was in the shower and I was doing my best trying to picture that. This whole cool-down idea is not easy when the men surrounding you look like Adam, and McKay, and Donovan. And picturing him fifteen feet away—naked and wet, inside a shower? Yeah. I needed to get the fuck out of that room.

So I threw open the door and took one step, and when my feet hit the soft petals I stopped and looked down.

There was a path of rose petals—white, and yellow, and pink—leading down the stairs.

And I swear to whatever the hell is running things from above, I will never forget how those soft, soft petals felt under the tired soles of my feet.

They were like… being lost in a forest without water. All dried up and weary. And then suddenly you come upon a clearing with a waterfall and the mist hits you and your whole body is refreshed.

That’s what it felt like to walk on his path of petals.

He didn’t skimp, either. It was a thick path. A cushion. And my weary feet—well, they had never felt so refreshed in all their days.

McKay was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs, shirtless, arms crossed, face all asmirked as he watched me walk down to him.

I could hear Donovan in the kitchen banging things around. And I could also hear Maggie talking to him while he did that. Also the sound of Adam’s shower running through the pipes. So it was just McKay and me.

I expected the path of petals to lead me to the kitchen. To breakfast. To Donovan and Maggie. But it didn’t. It stopped at McKay’s feet. Right there in the foyer. And there was a kind of curve to the end of the path because McKay was leaning against the archway that divided the hallway to the dining room about halfway between the kitchen and the front door.

No real rhyme or reason to the location he picked. We had never had a special moment in that particular place. But it was a spot where he could watch me come down the stairs. Like a girl in a movie who descends for her first date, or whatever.

He wanted to see me before I saw him.

He had several seconds on me because I was still fixated on the feeling of silky pastel petals and I cherished every step. I didn’t see him until I turned the corner on the landing near the bottom and then…

It takes my breath away just thinking about that moment.

Because then… he was all I saw.

The sound of Adam’s shower went away. Maggie’s and Donovan’s voices went quiet and the banging stopped. And at first I thought, Well, they were all in on it and now they’re watching too.

But that wasn’t the case. No one was watching. It was just us.

McKay waited for me to travel the entire path. I could tell he was nervous by the way he was breathing. But he didn’t move or say one word until I ran out of petals to step on and I had to look up to meet his blue-eyed gaze.

That’s when all the breath ran out of me. That’s when my heart stopped beating. And that’s when he took my face in both of his hands and leaned down and kissed me on the lips.

Just a very soft kiss. Not a kiss good night, or a kiss of passion, or a kiss hello or goodbye.

Just a kiss. That’s it.

I closed my eyes and went still like my breath and my heart.

And when he pulled back and I opened them back up, he pressed his forehead to mine and whispered, “The end.”

I get what most people would think about those words. That something is over. And that is true. And he did mean it that way. But when you are standing at the end of a pathway of rose petals and there is this man—a glorious, beautiful man who can kill you and save you in the same breath—and he is waiting for you with something soft and slow…

No. That’s not what he meant.

He meant this is the beginning. Because that’s what happens when you get to the end of something. It doesn’t matter if it’s a road, or a story, or a goal—when you get to the end of it you start over.

Then he hugged me and just held me. For a long time, I think. And eventually the bustle of Old Home came back. Donovan and Maggie were laughing in the kitchen as they banged things around. Adam came downstairs, his upper body bare and still wet from the shower, his old jeans hanging off his hips and his scuffed boots in his hand, and he just stopped and looked at us. Cocked his head a little and said, “What the fuck is this?”