Finn’s eyebrows shot up.
“Or . . . to be unbound. Unfettered. Look out the window.”
Finn and I both turned to stare out the wall of windows.
“All that could be yours. A lifetime of it. You only have to ask.”
My skin itched like it was covered in sea salt. I shook my head. The man’s mustache twitched as he flourished a hand. “Enjoy your stay. Ring if you need me.”
He backed out of the door and closed it with a sharp click. I frowned and checked the door. It opened easily, but the concierge was gone.
“This is odd,” I said.
Finn crossed his arms and looked around the room. “A bit. I suppose. Unless you wanted honeymoon bliss that lasts a lifetime.”
He turned back to me, and my cheeks heated, the flush spreading down my neck. I glanced at the bed. He shook his head.
I sat down on it. It bounced softly, and I sank into the quilt. Huh. Feather mattress.
“I’d rather be unfettered,” I said, patting the bed next to me.
Finn wrinkled his nose and then sat down. I bounced and slid toward him. He was big, and the mattress tilted under his weight.
“Sometimes,” he began, his voice warm, “I think about our wedding night.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Do you ever think about it?”
I couldn’t speak. There was a lock in my throat; a lock on my heart.
“Who am I kidding? I think about it all the time. Mari?”
I shook my head. No. No.
“I love you,” he said, taking my hand, “in case you forgot or were fooled into thinking it wasn’t true. That’s the one thing you can always trust. That I love you. It’s okay if you can’t love me back, or if you don’t remember loving me. It’s okay.”
I dropped my gaze to the way he held my hand. The same as always. Our fingers linked, his thumb stroking the sensitive parts of my palm.
This wasn’t real. The Finn in the real world hated me now. It was funny though. Love me or hate me, it didn’t really matter—they both consumed him.
“If you’re real,” I said, “then the next time you see me in the world, will you do something for me?”
The slow circle of his thumb on my palm stopped. “What?”
“Say . . .” I thought about it for a moment. What could he say that only we would know and that the cruel him wouldn’t say by chance? “Say ‘ghost train.’”
“And then what?”
“And then nothing.” I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it, but I’d know this wasn’t all in my mind. I’d know no matter what I’d heard or thought I knew, Finn wasn’t cruel or evil or somehow tainted by having descended to the underworld.
I’d know he was my Finn, and I could trust him.
He reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. His fingers glided over the shell of my ear, and a warm tingle spread over me. Before, when he was happy, Finn’s hazel eyes would shade toward green. One eye was green now. But the other, the navy solange eye, was full of stars and lightning.
He wanted to kiss me.
He wouldn’t though. I could see it in the tenseness of his muscles and the restraint in his gaze.
