CHAPTER ELEVEN
Scarlett
There’s a blur Ican’t see through and a weakness running through my body. Where am I? There’s a whole lot of white walls and lights, and that’s all I know. I’m moving down a hallway and lying on a bed. I’m not at home; my apartment isn’t this long. I don’t even think I was drinking last night. There’s a man’s calm mumbling voice buzzing around my head, but I don’t recognize it. I can’t even figure out how to freak out, but I sort of want to.
“You made it,” he says—the man’s voice I don’t recognize.
“Mav why?” I say, knowing it didn’t come out right.
“Just relax. You’re going to be okay,” he says.
“Who you?” That was a little clearer, and so is my vision. Maybe I died because this man was in my dream but I don’t know him. He has pretty eyes, a nice smile, and a deep voice that’s smooth like a big string instrument. “I know you.”
“Do you?” he asks, laughing a bit.
“Yeah.”
“You’re pretty.”
“Gee, thanks.” He smiles, and I close my eyes to keep the memory to myself because I think I am dreaming. Those perfect man dreams happen to me all the time. Why can’t dreams ever be real? There’s no such thing as a perfect man. They’re all the same—the ones I meet. They talk so nicely. Then they just want to take me home. I’m not real estate; doesn’t anyone know that? I don’t want to be rented or purchased. “We’ll let her sleep a bit longer. She’s pretty out of it.”
The voice again. See, only in a dream would a man sit next to me while I sleep. I try to stretch out so I can roll over, but I can’t. Instead, my hand flops on top of another hand and it isn’t mine. It’s a man’s hand. Did I take someone home with me last night? Was I drugged?
I’m too tired to figure it out. I feel around the hand and slip my fingers between his, pulling it up so I can fall back to sleep comfortably. “Um, Scarlett,” he says. “That’s my hand. It’s me, Austin, your nurse.”
I force my eyes open again, finding the same man sitting beside me. “You’re so real,” I tell him.
“Shh, it’s okay. Go back to sleep.”
“See, I knew you were a dream.” I hope I never wake up from this dream.
“Oh, you dream-boy, you,” I hear another man’s voice call out from the other side of wherever we are—his voice doesn’t sound familiar at all. What the hell? Whoever the other person is … he needs to step out of my dream. This is my dream, not his.
“Go away. This is my dream.”
* * *
“Scarlett, can you hear my voice?” It’s him again. The nurse man. “If you can hear me, I’m going to need you to open your eyes.” He’s talking to me. A hand rests on top of mine and the sensation of coziness forces my eyes to open with panic.
“Where am I?” Instinct has taken over and my loss of memory and delay of incoming thoughts are scaring me. “What’s going on?”
“You’re okay. You just had surgery on your wrist. You’re in recovery now.” The familiarity of his voice charges through my mind and my vision clears up enough that there’s now a sharpness to the few people around me. “Austin,” I say. His name feels weird on my tongue—unfamiliar—yet I know him.
“Scarlett,” he says.
“Aussstin. Do you hear the s’s? They sound weird, right?”
“You’re just a bit loopy from the anesthesia. It will wear off in a bit.”
“Are you my hero?” I ask him. Someone put me here. Yet, he’s sitting beside me.
He chuckles and I watch his mouth curl into his dimples. “You’re pretty,” I tell him.
“You already said that,” he says with a silent snort.
“You have blue eyes. They’re blue like what the moon looks like when it’s lit up at night. You have moonlit eyes, Aussstin.”
He takes in a deep breath because I must be taking his breath away. That’s why. “Are you my—”
