“Okay, Jon. It’s nice to meet you.”
There was a beat of silence, and then he replied, “It’s nice to meet you too, Ellie.”
There was a stranger in her room, but for the first time in as long as she could remember, she felt safe. Her ribs ached, and she turned over on her pillows, finding a more comfortable position. The pain eased, and she sank further into her mattress.
“Jon?” she murmured his new name, trying it out.
He didn’t answer.
“Jon?”
“Oh. Hmm?”
“What does “real” feel like anyway?”
He was silent even longer, but she could hear him shifting against the fabric of the covers where he leaned against the bed.
“This,” he said eventually. “This feels real.”
Chapter Seven
Fuck,his neck hurt. He was too damn old to sleep on the floor, propped into a weird half-sitting position, head bent back at an awkward angle. He didn’t know exactly how old he was, but he knew he was too old, nonetheless.
But he’d also known he couldn’t just climb into bed with Ellie. No matter how deliciously warm and rumpled she’d been. No matter how their bodies had swayed closer and closer before she broke the spell. Because then he would have wanted to hold her. Wanted to dip his nose into that sensitive space just behind her ear and breathe her in. And that would be a bad idea. For both of them.
He groaned and pushed himself up to standing, then massaged his lower back for a few seconds before gripping the strained muscles of his neck in an entirely pointless attempt at softening their spasm.
Ellie was gone, her bed left in disarray as she’d slipped past him. He hadn’t expected to, but somehow he’d slept. They’d dozed and chatted off and on for hours until eventually she had fallen completely asleep, and he must have followed soon after.
There was something undeniably intimate about hearing her soft murmurs in the darkness, the same rise and fall thatsoothed him in the other place. She’d been telling him about her game—theShadowbound Rift—a world that she’d created full of magic, adventure, redemption… even love.
He could imagine her game vividly, could easily see how her players must love the chance to live those ideals when the real world fell so short. God knew he could do with some magic. He could certainly do with redemption, otherwise why was he here? And adventure was always good too, although after this—whatever this was—perhaps he’d be less interested in more adventure. The only one he didn’t want was love.
He didn’t need to remember his past; he knew this truth. Love wasn’t for him any more than he wanted to be a hero. Even the idea made his shoulders tense right back up.
But Elliedidwant love. It was clear in everything she’d said. Ellie believed in love. And that was why he’d been better off sleeping on the floor, no matter how stiff his neck was.
They were both better off keeping some distance.
Still. Keeping some distance didn’t mean he couldn’t spend time with her. He could let her warmth and kindness wash over him. Just for a moment. He could allow himself that.
He rolled out his shoulders and followed the sound of Ellie’s voice down the stairs to her sunny kitchen. She was talking on the phone as he made his way to sit at the gleaming kitchen table. He didn’t pay enough attention to furniture to know what kind of wood it was, but it looked solid and somehow classy.
The last time he was there, he’d been too rattled to really look around, but now he could lean back and take it all in. The kitchen was high-end and smelled of lemon cleaner. Marble counters complemented the sleek blue-green cabinets that perfectly matched the huge abstract painting spot-lit on the opposite wall. It was done in textured oils, creating an effect of golden beams of light falling through waves. He half expected to see a fantastical siren hidden somewhere in the depths.
Everything looked as if it had been carefully chosen and coordinated, but it was also lived in. The coffee machine took pride of place beside a half-empty fruit bowl. A magnetic strip on the wall held a haphazard collection of kitchen knives and scissors, clearly washed and thrown up in no order whatsoever. A well-used novel with an oak leaf sticking out from between its pages was balanced on the edge of the counter beside a neat folder of annotated printouts and a closed laptop.
A well-fed cat was drinking water from a bowl on the floor. She was a short-haired ginger tabby—almost certainly with zero official pedigree—but her big amber eyes and supercilious air told of a cat who knew exactly who was in charge: her.
And there was Ellie herself, moving around the kitchen in worn jeans and bare feet, her hair left loose and soft, a stray curl tumbling over her shoulder toward the expanse of skin left bare by her too-bigStranger Thingschain of lights T-shirt.
It reminded him of their conversation the night before. How she’d walked across the room to hold out her hand to him. She’d obviously been nervous—she wore her thoughts and feelings so openly—but she was so brave. And taking her hand in his had been the first warmth on his skin in all the time he’d spent in the darkness.
She grinned at him as she finished her call, and everything else faded. That smile. Sincere and joyful. It almost made him want to reach out and hold her. Almost made him wish he’d climbed into the bed with her and let her chase away the shadows still lingering in the back of his mind.
“Good news.” She slid her phone into her pocket and set the coffee machine to percolate. “You’re not a brain tumor.”
He couldn’t help but chuckle with her. “I’m not a brain tumor?”
