Page 19 of Ripple Effect, Vol. 4

In spite of that, I nod. Marchetti’s just gained a death sentence. A brutal one.

11

Dylan

I stand in the doorway to Rip’s bedroom, wrapped in the thick, heavy bedspread and nothing else.

“Do you need something, Dylan?” He doesn’t bother to roll over in bed, where he lies with his back to me.

“Yeah. I want to sleep in here. With you.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. If you’ll recall, I held a gun to your head not too long ago. Not exactly a sound sleeper.”

“That was then.” I lean against the doorframe, eyeing the broad expanse of his back down to his finely sculpted ass.

“Nothing’s changed,” he says, still facing away from me.

“You have.” I huff and wrap the blanket tighter. “Look, this thing we have isn’t normal, I get it. But even prostitutes sometimes sleep next to their Johns, ya know? We haven’t slept in the same bed once.”

“You’re not a prostitute. And I’m not taking any chances.”

“I’m not afraid of you, either.”

Rolling onto his back, he drags a hand down his face, and I can just make out the dimples in his cheeks that tell me he’s smiling. “You’re stubborn as fuck.”

“And you’re closed off as fuck. I’m not asking you to marry me, I just want to sleep beside you, is all.”

“Why do this, Dylan, when we know how this ends?”

I do know how it ends, but pain is like a magnet. Once you’ve felt it, you see it in others and it draws you in. When you’re around someone else’s pain, it doesn’t hurt so much. You become number to it. Stronger.

I want to absorb some of his pain, some of this punishment that surrounds him, and make it my own.

But I don’t tell him this because Ripley would probably deny pain. Instead, I shrug. “Do I need a reason?”

He rises up from the bed and slips past me to the closet, tempting me to peek as he rustles around for something, until he reappears, holding my pocketknife. “You keep it on you, then.”

I glance down at the weapon and back. “You told me I wouldn’t need it.”

“That was then.”

I shake my head, refusing the proffered blade. “I trust you.”

He rolls his shoulders back and crosses his arms. “Then you’re naïve.”

“We’re the same.”

“I doubt you’ve held a weapon on someone half asleep.”

“I have. When I was afraid. When I felt threatened.”

“It wasn’t fear that made me hold that gun to your head,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It was my fucked up psychology that puts me in a dangerous state every time I close my eyes.”

“You have nightmares. So what? So do I.”

He tips his head and snorts a laugh. “My nightmares are real, sweetheart.”

“You avoid me to keep from hurting me, Ripley. And that’s why I trust you.” I step past him, deeper into the room, and stop just short of his bed. “Why do you sleep like this? Like you’re in some kind of prison camp?”