Page 36 of Come in with the Rain
Adam opens one heavy-lidded eye and looks over at me. “You’re what’s been missing all along.”
My heart gives one hard, heavy thump.
CHAPTER35
ADAM
The nightmares are always the same. It’s a sunny day, the kind of day where the sun is so bright that it looks like a blinding white ray coming directly at you, and while we’re in the middle of an ongoing soccer tournament, there’s an explosion.
In the dream, everyone dies.
In reality, only half of them did.
I stand in the center of the site, tents blown to hell all around me, only half dressed because it’s such a goddamn hot day, and there at my feet, Ford, Dani, Christian: all of them bleeding from their stomachs and their necks and their heads.
And in every dream, I start screaming. I scream as their blood seeps down through the hard dirt under my feet, all the way to my shoes, until it’s soaking into the leather. I scream as more bombs fall, as they keep falling, never seeming to hit me, always hitting everyone else, until my friends’ bodies have become nothing but limbs and fingers and hair, and eventually the bombs aren’t even bombs anymore. They’re comets, but ones with blazing, orange tails, crashing into the world around me and taking it apart, piece by piece.
Eventually a comet will get me. They’re huge, after all, and aimed right at me.
And when it hits, that’s when I wake up. Always covered in sweat that feels like blood, always in the dark, the black of it so shocking after staring directly at the white-hot sun, always hoarse from all the screaming that happened in real life like it did in the dream.
But tonight, I don’t make it to the comets. I’ve barely made it past the first explosion before something is dragging me up out of sleep. I process her words first, coming in that gentle, soothing tone of hers, calling me out of the depths until I’ve opened my eyes into the darkness, only to find her leaning over me, her red hair falling down around us like drapery.
“Adam,” she says, her hands on either side of my face. “Adam, it’s okay. You were dreaming. It was just a dream.”
She’s right and she’s wrong, but it doesn’t matter because her warmth is wrapped around me, pressed up against me from waist to shoulder. All I can do is lie here and let her hold me, let her comfort me, let her whisper things in my ear about how I’m not alone and how I never have to do any of that again.
And eventually, I reach up to pry her off of me until I can look her right in the eye. Even though I know it’s impossible, I feel like I can still see the green of her irises in the dark, looking back at me from a face that’s creased with worry and concern.
“You’re really here,” I say because a part of me is convinced that this is some new part of the dream, and that any minute, Stella will be gone, too, that a comet will swoop in and take her away, and I’ll be left with nothing but the feel of her lingering in my arms.
She nods. “I’m really here.”
There were so many nights when she wasn’t, nights when I would wake up from the nightmares and it would feel like I was missing her without even knowing her, like someone had taken a piece from a puzzle, right from the very center. But that never made sense. It was like having phantom pains of a fifth limb.
But now, now Stella really is here. This is really her voice, and those are really her eyes, and this is really her hair, I tell myself as I run my fingers through it, so soft that I almost can’t even believe it.
“Was I—”
“You were shouting,” she whispers, leaning in to place a kiss right at the corner of my mouth. “You sounded so scared.” I can hear the thickness in her voice, like she might cry. I don’t want her to cry.
“I’m sorry. I never should have let you—”
“Why are you sorry?” She nuzzles into the soft skin of my neck. “Is it something you have control over?”
“No.”
“Then don’t apologize. Just let me be here with you.” She wraps her arms around my neck, pressing her warm, naked chest against mine, and even though this is the absolute worst time, I feel my cock starting to harden between us.
She gives a little wiggle against me and sighs. She’s getting wet. I can feel the slide of it along the length of me. She starts to pull away. “We probably shouldn’t—”
I cut her off with my mouth, taking her little waist in my hands and lifting her so I can lower her onto my cock. She whimpers, high-pitched and desperate, and we go slow. I let her set the pace, lifting up off me and then lowering down in this patient, indulgent rhythm. Neither of us is in a hurry, and I wait until she starts to sob before I start to move faster, pushing us both over the edge.
When we’ve quieted, I don’t pull out of her. We lay like that until I eventually fall asleep with the weight of her on top of me and dream about nothing.
CHAPTER36
STELLA
