It washisdream.
The flowers weren’t here before you came.
Gods, of course it was his dream.
I took it all in—a field of red that went on as far as I could see. “I’ve never seen you here before.”
He laughed, and the sound ran over me like rain, soft and sweet sluices of water that washed away all the tension in mybody. It didn’t sound bitter. It didn’t sound angry. He almost sounded… relieved.
“I haven’t dreamed about this place since Caiden died. I think maybe… I don’t know… maybe I was waiting to show it to you.” I felt it then, the softest tremble in his fingers, the way his voice was edged with tears. “You’ve been with me since that night, though, haven’t you?”
How could he see right through me when we weren’t looking at each other? Still, I couldn’t lie to him.
“Yes.”
“Before the thread. Even when I wasn’t having nightmares.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
The silence behind me was only broken by the sound of warm wind spilling through the flowers, catching red petals and sending them cascading around us in a slow dance.
“Okay.” Cole rubbed his head back and forth between my shoulder blades, like he was trying to calm himself with the feel of me while I couldn’t see him doing it. His next words came out in a whisper. “You don’t have to stop, you know?”
I closed my eyes. Maybe this wasn’t his dream after all.
Maybe it was mine.
“What do you mean?”
I was met with silence, with the feel of his fingers squeezing mine… his shoulders shaking.
“I’m fine during the day, Sephtis. I’m great at hating you then…” Cole’s voice broke on the last word, and his next breath came on a hitched little sound of pain. “But I can’t do it at night. I can’t hate you when my eyes are closed.”
I understood what he wanted—I even understood why. It saved me the trouble of telling him I’d be here even if he didn’t ask. But I still wasn’t sure what it would mean when daylight broke the dreams and we had to go back to reality.
“And what happens when the sun comes up, Cole?”
“I go back to hating you.” Even as he said it, his fingers squeezed mine, and he shifted closer, until our bodies were in a perfect line against one another. “When the sun comes up, we can pretend.”
It was an echo of what I’d said to him earlier, and I gave him the only answer I could.
“If that’s what you want.”
He tugged me down, settling us in the flowers. My vision clouded with red, and I was drowning in the way it felt for Cole to lean against me like he actually wanted to be there. His fingers trembling in mine, his body shifting until there was no space between us and he could lay his head against my shoulder again… it meant more than the words he left unspoken. The truth I knew now that I’d seen this place—it was a truth Caiden had tried to show me from the beginning.
“Yeah, Sephtis… that’s what I want.”
And that was it, a simple fact I knew down to my core. I couldn’t lie to him, and I couldn’t deny him. I would be whatever he needed…
“Okay then. We’ll pretend.”
“Good…” Cole let out a soft breath, and I felt his body settle, felt him completely relax against me. I felt my soul finally align, drifting to exactly where it was supposed to be. Here. With him. “That’s good.”
Chapter 19
Cole
Something was off with Sephtis.
