“Jet!” My heart is pounding so hard against my ribs. Icy fear closes around my spine. “What happened, man? Oh fuck, Jet…” He looks too young and terrified now. He wipes his hands on his T-shirt, and for some reason it’s not black this time, it’s white, and the crimson streaks he leaves behind twist my stomach. “What the hell happened?”
“Is he dead?” he whispers, and bloody tears slip from his closed eyes, tracking down his cheeks. “Is he dead now?”
“Who, Jet? Who is dead?”
But he won’t say anything else, even when I’m yelling at him to tell me, even as the blood rises around us, drowning us in the past.
***
“J, wake up. Come on, mate. I’m fine. Right here.” A hand shaking me. “You’re not supposed to have nightmares, all right? Don’t fucking do this. Dunno how to deal with this shit.”
“Mmf.” I blink, confused. I’m still seeing a room bathed in candlelight, red velvet sofas and Jet… Jet covered in blood. “Fuck!”
I sit up so fast the room spins. Jet is sitting on my bed, and I make a grab for him before he flees. His face is pale, his eyes wide like in the dream.
“What were you dreaming of?” he whispers. “You were talking in your sleep.”
“Was I?” The need to touch him, check him, make sure he’s okay is crushing my chest, my mind. I run my hand down his arm. “You’re okay.”
“You were asking…” He swallows hard. “Asking if he’s dead. Who, J?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. I can’t remember. It was just a dream.” Just a dream, I repeat to myself, though why Jet’s face is so ashen I’m confused. I was the one having a nightmare, right? “What is it?”
“Nothing.” He visibly shakes himself, pulls himself together. I’m obviously missing something, but my mind’s kinda shattered by the dream, and I can’t think straight, not yet. “You’re soaked in sweat. You should take a shower before Candy arrives.”
Candy. Our apartment. Shower.
It all seems like a dream. Like the nightmare I woke up from was the real world.
Fucking creepy, to be honest.
What I’d need now is a moment to myself, to get my limbs back under control—but when Jet starts to get up, I make a grab for him again. Still not ready to let him out of my sight, not after seeing him like that. Even if it was a dream.
Hell.
He seems to sense something, and he doesn’t shrug me off. “Come on,” he says. “I need a shower, too.”
And just like that we’re stumbling into the bathroom together, shoving down our pants, pulling off our shirts. He produces a startled sound when I push him under the spray and run my hands over his shoulders and down his arms.
Yeah, I’m still not over the fright. Still checking to make sure he’s okay.
“You were covered in blood,” I whisper and lift my hands to his face. “You were hurt.”
He sucks in a sharp breath when I touch his cheeks, his jaw, when I push the soaked hair out of his eyes.
“Goddammit, Jet, tell me you were never hurt like that, that you’ve never…” I swallow back the words, because if anything his face has gone paler. “Tell me this didn’t really happen to you.”
“I don’t… I wasn’t.”
Not enough, not when he’s looking like he’s about to fall apart. With a groan, I wrap my arms around him, crush him to me. “Good. Can’t stand the thought of anything hurting you, man.”
He raises fisted hands to my back. Says nothing.
“Candy said your cousin called. You’d tell me if something was wrong, right? I’ll look out for you. I’ll… Fuck, Jet, I’d do anything for you.”
The water is beating down on us, warm, and his body is slippery and full of angles. His chest is meshed with mine, and his dick is half-hard, poking me in the hip.
I blink. What am I doing?