Chapter 25 #2
“I want that too, but . . . it’s only been a month, Cole. Aren’t you worried we’re moving too fast?”
“No. I’m thirty-three years old, and I know what I feel. I don’t want to play games or put things off. Life is short. Don’t you agree?”
“Yes,” she said quickly, laughing again. “I know how I feel too. I just want you to be sure.”
“I’m sure.” I kissed her again. “And we know how Mariah feels about this, so there’s nothing to hold us back. You’re already family to me, Cheyenne. Let me take care of you. It will make me happy.”
The smile blossomed on her lips and took over her whole face, making it glow. “Okay.”
After she went into the house, I stood there for a second on the porch, scratching my head.
Holy shit—I’d asked Cheyenne to move in with me.
And it had felt good. Fucking great.
Take that, Jessalyn, I thought as I strutted back home. Fuck you, panic attacks. Sayonara, dragon.
I’d done it—I’d looked over the edge of the cliff and taken the leap. I was safely on the other side, and I was fucking fine.
As soon as I got home, I went up to Mariah’s room.
“Hey,” I said, sitting on the edge of her bed.
She was facing the other way. Giving me the silent treatment.
“You mad at me?”
“I don’t know.”
I put a hand on her back. “I’m sorry.”
She didn’t answer.
“I try my hardest to do things right, but I mess up sometimes.”
Still nothing.
“I was angry at myself and I yelled at you instead. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Mariah rolled over and looked at me. “I just like it when she tucks me in. We talk.”
“Yeah? About what?”
“Girl stuff.”
That made me smile. “You can’t talk to me about girl stuff?”
She rolled her eyes. “No, Daddy.”
I sighed heavily. “I guess I can understand that.”
“I invited her to live with us.”
“I heard.”
“But she said no.”
“I think she was thinking about getting her own place.”
“But don’t you think it would be fun if our place was also her place?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. That’s why I asked her if she’d like to live with us.”
Mariah’s eyes went wide. “What did she say?”
“She said yes.”
A gasp. “She did?”
“Yep.”
Then a pout. “How come she said no to me but yes to you?”
I chuckled, tapping her nose. “I think she needed both of us to ask her. If I’d asked her first, she probably would have said no too.”
She squeezed the stuffed dog in her arms. “I’m so glad she said yes!”
“Me too, peanut.”
“Are you guys going to get married?”
“One thing at a time, okay?”
“Okay, but do you really love her?”
“Yes. I do.”
Mariah smiled. “I love her too. I know she isn’t my real mom, but this will be like having a bonus mom.”
My throat grew tight. “I think that’s a great way to look at it.”
Mariah glanced at the photo of Trisha on her dresser. “Cheyenne says that Mommy was nice to everyone.”
“She was.”
“I try to be nice to everyone too. I want to be like her.”
Leaning over, I kissed her forehead. “I’m the luckiest dad in the whole world. I love you, peanut.”
She looped her arms around my neck and hugged me. “I love you too.”
I went to bed feeling pretty damn pleased with myself.
That night, I had horrible nightmares.
I was trapped in the dark with an evil thing I couldn’t see except for two toxic green eyes.
I could hear it breathing. I could feel its heat. I could smell its rot. It watched me, moving closer, then retreating, but always ready to dig in its claws and tear me to shreds.
I heard Mariah’s voice. “Daddy?”
I fucking panicked—she was there somewhere in that stinking dark, and I had to protect her. But where was she? Where was she? I started to scream for her.
“Daddy!”
I woke up in a pool of sweat, my heart pounding, adrenaline pumping.
Mariah was standing at the foot of my bed. “Daddy, you’re scaring me.”
“Oh, honey. I’m sorry.” I rubbed my face. “I had a bad dream. I’m okay.”
“I heard you yelling. It woke me up.”
“I’m sorry, baby.” I checked the clock—not even two. “I’ll take you back to bed,” I said, swinging my legs over the side of the mattress.
“Okay.”
In her room, I tucked her in and kissed her forehead. She gave me a hug, but recoiled a second later. “Ew. You’re sweaty.”
“Sorry.”
She lay back. “Was it a really bad dream?”
“Yeah.”
“Was I in it?”
I hesitated. I didn’t want to scare her. “There was a monster.”
“Did he want to eat you?”
“I think maybe he did.”
“You told me monsters aren’t real.”
“They’re not.”
“But just in case, you gave me Prewitt to protect me.”
“Prewitt?”
“Yes.” She leaned over the side of her bed where several stuffed animals had fallen to the floor. “Here he is. He’s a platypus. You said monsters were only scared of one thing—platypuses.”
I had to smile. “That’s right.”
She handed me the stuffed animal. “Here. You can sleep with Prewitt tonight. He’ll protect you.”
“Thanks.” I kissed her forehead. “Go to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”
I took Prewitt back into my bedroom and tossed him onto the bed. Then I stripped off my sweat-soaked T-shirt and yanked on a new one before climbing under the covers again.
Fuck. What the hell? I hadn’t had a nightmare like that in years.
As a kid, I’d had bad dreams about the usual stuff—a monster under the bed, a bogeyman in the closet, a shark in the lake.
But I’d learned to combat the fear of something bad happening to me by always telling the truth, always doing the right thing, always standing up for people.
And eventually, the nightmares had stopped.
Of course, later I learned that nothing you did could prevent bad things from happening. You could never be one hundred percent safe.
My pulse began to race again, my chest growing painfully tight. I was hot and sweaty, but chills racked my body. My breathing was quick and shallow.
I wanted to reach for my phone and call Cheyenne, ask her to come over and hold me. Let me hold her. Beg her to sleep right next to me so that I would know she was safe.
But that wouldn’t be the reason she wanted to hear. She’d probably be upset if I said that. She’d tell me I was being paranoid. She’d probably suggest I needed therapy, just like Jessalyn had.
But I wasn’t going to fucking therapy. Spilling my guts to some stranger wasn’t going to help. I would conquer this bullshit on my own, one way or another, because I wasn’t a six-year-old boy, I was a grown-ass man.
I fought it off alone, like a man should.