QUINN
The nightmare startles me awake,shaking the entire bed as my body shoots up. The dream’s already hazy, fading into a jumble of distorted images and disjointed storylines. But the feelings are still there. The shame and fear. The hurt. And the knowledge that it was about Colton and the life that had been stripped away from him for defending me.
I’m still shaking, trying to reconcile my brain’s response to yesterday’s events.
The movement must have woken Colt, because he sits up next to me, placing a soft kiss on my shoulder. “Quinn? You okay?”
I force a jerky nod. “Yeah. Weird dream.”
He yawns, a ridiculous, over-the-top sound that chases away some of the darkness inside me. “Wanna talk about it?”
“No. I’m good.”
He nods against my shoulder, wrapping his arm around my waist and pulling me down with him. The casual intimacy makes my heart squeeze.
“Let’s go back to sleep,” he says.
No way I’ll sleep with the jittery feeling under my skin, but I place my head on the pillow next to Colton’s, his arm thrownover my middle as I attempt to force the issue. After a few minutes of my squirming, Colton chuckles, his laugh vibrating from deep in his chest and through my body.
He throws his feet over the side of the bed. “I guess we’re up, then.”
I watch in confusion as he grabs a pair of jeans and slides them on.
“I’ll go back to my room,” I say.
He rubs a hand over his sleep rumpled hair. The gap in his curtains offers just enough light to see the way his muscles flex. “Nope. We’ve got plans.”
I laugh and grab my phone from the bedside table, shooting a quick glance at the time. “Plans? At two o’clock in the morning?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he answers, sounding more awake with each word. “I’ve been meaning to set an alarm anyway, so this dream you refuse to talk to me about”—he pauses and sends me a chastising look—“knocked something off my to-do list.”
He keeps moving around the room, grabbing clothes and shoes like it’s completely normal to go from a dead sleep to leaving the house in the middle of the night.
“Where are we supposedly going?” I ask.
“We haven’t done the Trevi yet.”
“The Trevi?”
He flicks on the lamp and I wince at the influx of light. “Yes, Quinn. It’s this famous fountain where people throw coins to guarantee they’ll come back to Rome one day. Surprised you haven’t heard?—”
His sarcastic response is cut off by a pillow to the face, while I laugh so loudly I worry about waking up Inez. “Fuck off. I know what the Trevi is. My question is why we’d get up now instead of stopping by while we’re already out in the city.”
His brows pull together. “You hate the Trevi during the day.”
He’s right, of course. The Trevi Fountain is one of the most epic sights in the city, a massive fountain the size of half afootball field with elaborate travertine sculptures butting up to the building behind it.
Unfortunately, it’s also one of the most popular sights in Rome, and during the day it’s flooded with tourists, so packed that you can hardly make it to the edge of the fountain, much less enjoy the magnificence of the art. When the sun’s up, visiting the Trevi’s transactional. Get to the front. Throw your coin. Move over for the next person.
But at night, with the sculptures illuminated by dramatic lighting and no tourists to overpower the rush of the millions of gallons of water, it’s perfect. I dragged Colton and our other friends there more than once after a drunken night out.
“Colt, were you actually going to set an alarm?” I ask.
He scoffs. “We certainly aren’t partying until two in the morning anymore.”
I chew on my bottom lip. “You’re kind of the sweetest.” He busies himself with getting ready to hide his pleased smile. “But we don’t have to do this.”
He throws one of his shirts at my face. “Get your ass out of bed, Chaos, or I’m leaving without you.”
