Even if I did, all I’d find would be pristine white sheets, not a wrinkle in the fabric, and three of the same size, rectangular pillows resting against the sleek headboard. No tall shape hogging half the mattress and two pillows for himself. No barelegs kicking the bedsheets off. No grumbles about the too-thick duvet.
If not for the icy-cold hardwood floor leaching warmth from my soles, I could swear the ground had split open under my feet.
I missed his laugh. His smugness. The way he pinched the bridge of his nose. How his commands lured my defenses to disintegrate, never to rise again in his presence. The feeling of him pressed against me, demanding control and growling a warning into my mouth if I didn’t surrender, and how it weakened my knees. The mess of his disheveled hair in the mornings.
“Zion?”
Kali’s whisper knocked against my thoughts, but the fogged-up window had glued my forehead to the glass—the pathways of my memory had caught me in their snare.
But as Kali padded over to me, her light footfalls destroyed the oppressive stillness. “Come back to bed,” she said, enveloping my waist from behind.
Her fingers skated across my abdomen in search of the two newest scars, one along my fifth rib and another below my pectoral, both of which I’d been graced with hours before Gedeon had ceased being a part ofus.
Covering her arms with my own, I turned us sideways so I could look at his bedroom. “It looks like he never left.” Everything was in its place, not an item sticking out. “Like he could just walk in at any moment.”
“I know.” Her warm breath tickled my neck, reminiscent of how his grip on my throat had felt.
“Did you know he’d said I was his?” After so many years.
I doubted I’d realized it then, but there had to be a reason why I’d been obsessed with following Gedeon everywhere when we were kids. Why I’d stayed by his side all this time. Why I’d toyed with him, telling myself it was just for fun.
“One day. I had him for one day. Not even a full one,” I murmured, fixated on the burn scars marring my left forearm. The swirls of discoloration reminded me of him.
Kali’s touch skimmed my back as she moved to stand before me. “I feel it too, Zion. You’re not alone.” She cupped my face, and I nuzzled her palms, savoring her body heat. “Let’s go back to bed, okay?”
Real. She wasreal.
Not merely a wisp of memories like him.
I dipped my chin in agreement, and she led me back to her bedroom without pushing me to talk, without nagging me to leave the festering past behind.
Snuggling in bed on our sides, I wrapped myself around her and buried my nose in her hair still slightly damp from the shower. A whiff of mouth-watering sweetness, juicy with a note of a tart scent, invaded my nostrils. “You smell?—”
“Like cherry.” Kali drew the duvet up to our chins. “Your favorite shampoo.”
Huh.
“How do you know?” I’d been slowly replacing her toiletries with my preferred ones since we’d moved into her room. After a soldier had come after the three of us last autumn, our pictures in his uniform pocket, Gedeon and I had refused to leave Kali alone for a single night.
As one could expect, the soldier’s mission had gone unsuccessfully.
Well, depending on how you looked at it. We’d delivered his body parts back to Ilasall, so in turn, he’d served as our response to the city’s assault.
“You’ve stashed, like, five bottles in the bathroom cabinet under the sink, Zion. It’s hard not to take notice.” Total darkness cloaked the room, but her smile was palpable. “Why do you like it so much? It’s just like any other shampoo.”
I traced idle circles on her back, relishing how her muscles loosened. “First, cherries are deep red. And second, they?—”
She slapped my chest. “Please don’t tell me they remind you of blood,” she groaned into the pillow, and another wave of cherry fragrance washed over to me.
So relaxing.
I planted a kiss on her shoulder. “They do.”
“You’re terrible,” she huffed.
“That’s why you like me.”
She searched my face for a minute. “Why do you keep showering me with gifts?”
