28. Chapter 28 #2
I think of that night on the roof, the clench of my thighs when our eyes met. My surprise at it. The jealous stab when Becca had claimed him from a moment I’d stupidly thought was ours. Except it wasn’t stupid because look at us now, here.
I tuck my chin to my chest, watching the way his hips grind against me. Long, indulgent strokes wringing out every last bit of pleasure.
Jamie’s next breath is a muttered curse, and we’re so close. So close that when I find his eyes again, I see myself reflected in his irises, like we’ve melted completely into each other. Like every past moment we’ve lived has been for this future.
I wake before Jamie. He’s shirtless beside me, and as usual, flopped onto his belly, cheeks red from sleeping in this too-warm embrace we’re sharing. His arm is the most delicious dead weight over my hip and the sun is streaming through the window at our feet.
I’m even laying the same way I saw myself, cheek in the pillow, half turned toward him. It’s eerie and undeniable, and one thing’s for sure: I have to tell him about the visions. This train is going too fast for me to hold on by myself.
He stirs behind me, the heat of his yawn fanning over my shoulder. I have to force myself not to burst out in hysterics when his hand sweeps my hair aside, running over my shoulder and down under the blanket, just like I knew he would.
The rest is a surprise, though, because this is where the vision ended.
“Hey,” he whispers in my ear. “Fancy meeting you here.”
I’m swept by a full-body shiver because— gah —I know he’s being cute, being Jamie but what a thing to say.
I turn in his arms, tipping my chin to see his sleepy eyes. “Did you forget you packed me?”
He grins. “Definitely not. I don’t think I’ll go anywhere without you from now on. You’re my favorite thing.”
I swoon inwardly. He’s so casually declarative.
He stretches an arm over his head, still grinning. “Hope you slept okay. I’m fidgety in an unfamiliar bed.”
“I didn’t feel a thing,” I lie, and he pinches my side. “Hey, Jamie?”
“Mmm.”
“What you said about the night we met. Did you mean that? You… felt something that night?”
He makes a face and pushes his hair back. “You must think I’m an asshole.”
I scrunch my nose. “What? Why?”
“I was there with Becca. I would never have acted on it, I just… you were so beautiful. It seemed almost… important.” He laughs, bewildered, and champagne bubbles rise in my blood.
“I don’t think you’re an asshole. I think you’re probably better than most to feel guilty over it even now, after… everything. But I also think I knew that about you from that first night. That’s why I told you what I saw, why I didn’t just run away. I could just tell you were good.”
He tilts his head, watching me with an expression that says there are things he knows about me too. That he can feel something coming. “I’m glad you did tell me,” he says carefully.
“It’s just…” I pause to press a kiss to the freckle beneath his collarbone, smoothing the hair on his chest. The words feel too big for my mouth after all of this time, but I have to tell him. I want to. This is a secret I want to be in on together. “There was something else.”
We’re so close I feel the tiny stiffening in his spine. His hips tilt a fraction of an inch away. “Something else in the vision?”
I nod, my lip between my teeth.
“What?”
“This.”
Jamie props himself on his elbow, looking down at me. “This… what?”
“This us. I saw you and me here , Jamie. This hotel room.” I sit up and tug the sheet over my naked chest, feeling suddenly exposed.
I doubt it after everything else, but there’s still the tiniest possibility he’ll think I’m crazy.
“I recognized the room when we got here last night. That’s why I asked if you’d been here before. ”
He sits all the way up too, staring at me with an unreadable expression, maybe the first I haven’t been able to read. The champagne bubbles fizz faster, close to bursting. “Say something, please.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t tell me,” he says, running a hand over his mouth.
For a true believer like Jamie, he doesn’t look happy or impressed like I thought he would. I start to wonder if it was a mistake, confessing this. “Are you mad?”
“No.” He shakes off his expression and slides his hand up my neck and into my hair. Then drops it just as quickly. “I’m not mad.”
“You’re something.”
“I’m just—You knew this whole time?”
“I wasn’t sure. Some things changed and—”
“What do you mean? What things?”
My mouth snaps shut. I’m suddenly hesitant to list them out.
It doesn’t matter because there are more things that came true than things that changed, but I don’t want to give voice to the different ones.
Not with the way he’s looking at me. There’s still a big question that Jamie wants an answer to and there’s no use in casting doubt on his hope for that by picking this apart.
We’re here. It happened. It’s happening.
“It was just a few details,” I say lamely. “Are you okay?”
“I’m… letting it sink in.” His voice is off. The knot in my stomach pulls tighter.
“I didn’t tell you because I wanted to see if it would happen on its own. And it did!”
“Well… not entirely on its own,” he says, his face pinched in confusion. “Because you knew.”
I bite my lip again. “Right.”
He pulls away from me and runs a hand through his hair. Cold trickles down my spine at that nervous tic. He’s anxious, and I don’t know why. I was entirely unprepared for this reaction.
“Jamie,” I say quietly. “You’ve wanted me to have another vision since we met. Now you don’t like the idea of it?”
“It just feels different. Being about me and you. I don’t know…”
I cross my arms over my chest, feeling awkward and unsteady. “Last night, you said you hoped you and I were part of the deal.”
“I know, it’s just—” He stops, shakes his head. “You’re right. I don’t care how it happened.”
“Me neither,” I say, quick to reassure, to fix this. “Everything’s happening exactly how it was supposed to, right?”
“Right.” He swallows again, punctuating his agreement with a nod.
But I can’t shake the feeling that I’m trying to convince him of something he was sure of before now.