“How’s that case going?” I reach under my bed for the first-aid kit I kept close since I knew I was fighting tonight. What I didn’t know was that I’d be losing. It’s my first loss… ever. “You catch your guy yet?” I take out a packet of antibacterial wipes and a new tube of antibiotic ointment. Setting the tube on my knee, I go to work sliding a wipe over her stitches.
At the cold touch on her side, she jumps but doesn’t scramble away like I expect. Instead, she brings her hand up to my thigh and works on a loose thread in my shorts.
I swear, I had no clue how many loose threads were in my life until she started picking.
“Didn’t catch him yet,” she murmurs. “I got a verbal confession, but nothing else. Mostly I’ve slept since I last saw you.”
“You sleep with my files? Dream about me?”
Her shaking fingers slide along my flesh, sending weird pricks of heat under my skin. “I did, actually. Slept. Dreamed.”
Folding the wipe with a satisfied grin, I untwist the cap on the ointment. “Yeah? You sleep with me under your pillow?”
“Uh-huh.” Clearing her throat, she nervously brings a hand back to tuck her hair behind her ear. A flash of light reminds me she has a small piercing in the top half of the shell. For a man who rarely forgets things, I continuously forget the jewel’s existence until she tucks her hair with nerves. “Did you know, if you sleep with a book under your pillow, you dream of it?” Her blue eyes come to mine. “If you sleep with a textbook under your pillow, you learn the contents. It’s a magic I learned when I was little.”
I squeeze the ointment onto my thumb and begin slowly massaging it into her skin. “Is that right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So you sleep with my file in hopes to understand me? You think dreaming of me will help you lock me up?”
“Uh-huh. I found the magic when I was about seven or eight.”
“Yeah?”Keep talking, beautiful. You’re doing great.“How’d you discover the magic?”
“I was in bed reading a Babysitter’s Club Little Sisters book.”
“A…” I choke on a laugh. “A Babysitter’s Little Sisters book? What the fuck is that?”
“Books about girls who babysit. But the original Babysitters books were too grown-up for me. So I started theLittle Sistersseries.”
“You read about a group of babysitters?”
“No.” Her icy blue eyes snap with attitude. “I read about theirlittlesisters. One night, I shoved the book under my pillow just before I fell asleep, then voila, I dreamed of them all night; Iwasone of them. I was a little sister. The next afternoon when I went back to keep reading, I realized I already knew the story. Almost line for line. I’d already lived it.”
I bite my lip and consider how to respond to her bullshit. She’s lying. She clearly already read the book. But if she wants to play, then I’ll play along.
If she wants to sleep with my files and dream of me, I won’t stop her.
“So what about the textbook thing? Did you dream of math? Did you pass your studies simply by sleeping with the brick under your pillow?”
Pouting, she shakes her head. “I’ve slept with a textbook or file under my pillow almost every single night since high school. I took a few months off between graduation and law school.” Her eyes come back to mine as I work the ointment into her skin. “Babysitter Club books were reintroduced into my bed during that period. But my magical dream theory has worked for almost every book I’ve ever tried.”
“Almostevery? Which one’s didn’t work?”
“Commerce in high school never stuck. Marketing never stuck. And so far, Abel Hayes isn’t sticking.”
“Abel?” Playful mood forgotten, I narrow my eyes and stop moving my hand over her skin. “You keep Abel’s file under your pillow, too?”
“Uh-huh. But he’s not talking.”
“ButItalk?”
Grinning, she goes back to stroking my thigh. “Uh-huh. We had a billion conversations before we actually met. You talk a lot more in my dreams than in real life. And you’re not as mean.”
“You think I’m mean?” I guess I kinda am, if I consider the whole telling her tofuck off and stay on her side of townthing.
“Only a little. Sometimes. But anyway, the book under the pillow thing really works. You should try it.”