“Oh my God,” she sobs when she realizes that I’m right there with her.
“Are you okay? You’re scaring the shit out of me, Lena.” My own voice is clogged with emotion.
“I had the worst dream of my life. It felt so real, like I was living inside it or something.” She closes her eyes, but that doesn’t stop the tears from falling a-fucking-gain.
“Tell me about it, baby,” I say softly, not wanting to make this worse.
“It was the absolute worst. I’m not sure if you want to hear this because I know with every depth of my being that you’d never do this, but that dream, it was so, so bad.” She opens her eyes again, and I see the apprehension in them.
“Nothing you say will upset me. Letting it out, that will be the hardest part. Okay?” I’m still comforting her. Our skin is bare, and I can feel her sweat-slickened skin. I hate like hell that she’s questioning whether she lets me know or not.
“Promise you won’t be upset? I swear this was never a thought in my mind.” There’s conviction in her tone.
“I promise.” I hold up my pinky doing, something I haven’t done since Laney was a kid. She’d get a kick out of this if she were here.
“I went and surprised you, you know. After all this time, I got anxious. Shocker, I know.” She takes a breath after that. “Anyway, I somehow knew what hotel you were staying in, and the lady at the front desk gave me the keycard, which we both know never happens. Security and all that. So, when I opened the door to your room, I heard noises, and my world fell apart, even though it was a dream. It was like I was trapped, you know, like when you’re watching a horror film and the girl runs up the stairs, like an idiot, when she should be looking for the nearest exit?” I move her so she’s in my lap now, needing to feel her body as much as possible.
“Yeah, I know what you’re talking about.” I kiss her forehead.
“So, that’s what I’m doing, walking to my demise, literally. I open the door, and there’s some chick in bed with you, and thank God you woke me up, saving me from finding out exactly what was going on, but my heart was beating out of my chest the entire time.” Lena faceplants into my neck, kissing it like she always does.
“I’d never do that to you. And I’m not upset. We can’t control what happens in our dreams. I still hate like hell you even went through it.” Fuck, clearly, this traveling shit isn’t going to be easy on either of us. I’m going to have to seriously sit down with my family and figure this shit out.
“And I assure you, with every depth of my being, that I know you would never ever do that, not now and not ever.” She kisses my neck again, sucking on the skin this time. It’s her way of telling me what we both need, but first I have something to say.
“You know how I feel about us. There’s nothing I would ever do to jeopardize or hurt you in any way imaginable. I love you, no matter the distance, okay?” I pull her out of my neck, wanting her to see the truth behind my words.
“I love you too, Rhett.” She barely gets my name out before my lips are on hers, kissing the worry and the pain away. Even if I wasn’t the one who caused it, I still need her to know I’ll always be here.
Twenty
Selena
“I fucked up so bad, Raven,” I tell my friend a few days later. Rhett still hasn’t left my side since that crazy nightmare happened. The only reason he’s at my place and I’m meeting Raven for coffee is because I fibbed and told him that we’ve had these plans all along. Even then, he was reluctant to let me go.
“Shit, what did you do?” I tell her all about waking up Rhett in the middle of the night, and not in a good way, the crying jags I’ve been having non-stop over absolutely nothing. Raven sits, listening to me go on and on. Her hair is up in a messy bun, the circles beneath her eyes showing how tired she is, and I feel horrible that I’ve dragged her out of bed with my emergency S.O.S. we both use if we need help.
“That’s not horrible, you know. I thought you were going to say something worse, like, I don’t even know.” She yawns through her tiredness, but I’ll tell you what, my best friend is still beautiful, even with the darkness rimming the bottom of her eyes, a body in the shape of an hourglass, those gorgeous gray eyes added to everything else. Let’s just say she’s freaking beautiful. How she’s not an arrogant jerk, I’m not sure.