Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Lennon
“I said no,” Ridge grumbles.
“And I said…” I grab my purse from where Paul has hung it, very nicely, on the rack by the entrance, because of course, he did, “… that a phone call will not suffice. Nora kept my body alive for a week. I am going to look her in the face when I thank her for that.”
“You need to take it easy for a little, Lenny. You just woke up. You need to recover—” Ridge protests again from behind me, but I cut him off.
“I have been recovering for days.” I check my jacket pocket for my phone and find it there, charged, because of Paul. “I was literally in bed without stopping. I am fine. You and Paul are such hovering mother hens.”
“Hens? Rude, sweetheart.”
“I’m fine. The nurse said I can move around.”
“The nurse said limited activity.”
“Going for a walk is a limited activity. I am not running a marathon. I’m going to see Nora.” I turn and look at him. “You can either come along, or I go by myself, but I’m going.”
“You’re lucky Paul isn’t here.” Ridge scoffs. “He would…”
I tune him out, brushing my hand over my hair and doing a little inventory of my body.
And, I feel good.
I know that has nothing to do with luck and everything to do with Paul. He watched out for me when I couldn’t watch out for myself, and I love him for that.
The shower he gave me yesterday is something I’ll be thinking about for an unreasonably long time.
It was that he washed me. Thoroughly. Every part of me.
He didn’t navigate carefully around the soft parts, didn’t treat the rolls under my belly button like something to be polite about, and didn’t slow down or look away when he got to the places I consider ugly.
He just washed me, like me being clean is important to him, like he had exactly one job, and he intended to do it properly.
I fiddle with my purse, and my gaze catches on the BFF keychain Nevan snagged for me. It’s my side, my half Nora found beside me in bed. I let my thumb glide over it, already missing him.
Paul and Nevan are out getting Nevan’s prescription for his sleepwalking sorted. If I’m being honest, I waited until they were gone before getting ready to leave the house.
I would have been in the minority in that discussion.
It seems I will be for the rest of my life.
I open the front door of Paul’s house. “Come or don’t, but I’m leaving.”
Derek is standing on the other side with his hand raised, as if he were about to knock.
“Lennon.” He lowers his hand and exhales, sounding relieved. “Nice to see you awake.”
“Yeah. Sorry for the drama? Yeah, all of that.”
“Don’t.” He shakes his head. “I’m glad you’re fine. Is Tessa?”
“I’m on my way to check on her. Wanna come? I don’t have my car keys because the guys are—”
“Hovering hens,” Ridge supplies from behind me.
“Being very caring, so we need to walk ov—”
“I have my car,” Derek cuts in. “I’ll drive you.”
Ridge wheels to my side, crossing his arms over his chest and leveling a look at Derek I can’t entirely read. Derek meets it, and something passes between them that has no words attached to it, and then Derek nods once.
“Be good, sweetheart,” Ridge calls after me, but I ignore him.
“What was that?” I ask once we’re both inside Derek’s car.
Derek pulls out of the spot. “I was letting him know I’d do my best to keep his woman safe. The same thing he’s been trying to do for mine.”
It makes my heart ache. Both of them are doing the only thing they can right now in trusting someone else with the person they can’t protect themselves.
When the Vaughn mansion comes into view, Derek’s hands tighten on the wheel.
“We’ve been here before,” I say, looking at his profile. “You were already brave enough to step inside once.”
“I know.” His eyes are fixed on the window to Tessa’s room. “But I didn’t see Mrs. Vaughn then. What if she throws me out again?”
I frown. “Again?”
He huffs. “It’s been over a decade. Do you really think I didn’t go there when I heard what happened to Tessa?
” He pulls through the gate. “I wanted to visit her, but Mrs. Vaughn made it very clear that I wasn’t welcome.
” His jaw tightens. “Since then, I’ve stayed away, because…
because she loves her too. She was scared, and I didn’t want to make it worse. ”
I sigh.
That is what brought us all here in the first place. Him stepping back, thinking Tessa was better off without him in the picture.
“No matter what happens in there, you are not alone. Okay?”
He nods but doesn’t look convinced in the slightest when he parks in front of the Vaughn mansion.
We walk up to the door together, and Nora opens it before we’ve even knocked.
She looks at me for a long moment, then a sob breaks out of her, and she pulls me in with both arms. I hug her back and say, “Thank you,” into her shoulder.
She makes a sound that’s not quite a word.
“Is Tessa okay?” I ask, kicking myself for not calling to check immediately. “Her breathing?”
“Yes, no change, but what happened, Lennon?” She pulls back and looks at me, her hands still on my arms. “What happened to you?”
“I’m going to tell you everything. But we might have to sit down for that. Can we come inside?”
At the mention of we, she looks past me.
The moment that follows is a long one too. Nora’s eyes find Derek, and he immediately straightens, but not in a confident way, more in a bracing-for-impact way. Like every muscle in his body suddenly remembers every ugly thing that was said between them.
He tries for a smile, but it goes terribly. The man looks like he’s attempting to survive a kidney stone through positive thinking.
“Derek.”
His shoulders tense, and something in Nora’s face breaks entirely, and she steps around me, straight to him.
“Oh no,” I mutter quietly.
He looks like he’s expecting another hit, but instead, Nora grabs him and pulls him in for a hug, and Derek’s eyes go comically wide.
“I’m sorry, Derek. I am so, so deeply sorry for how I treated you.”
He doesn’t say anything, but his arms tentatively come up around her, hugging her back.
Well, if that isn’t a good sign.
After the weird yet beautiful welcome, we spend half an hour inside with Nora at the kitchen table, telling her as much as I can.
How Tessa is doing, 5D, Lucien, the promise Tessa made, the tethers, and how they work.
That not everything is lost, and how we need to make a plan to get her out of that promise.
Derek listens intently, asking questions as I go. I watch him put things together in real time as he rearranges a decade of grief.
When I have nothing left to share, Nora leads us upstairs to my best friend.
Tessa is still lying in her bed, her nails still ballet pink.
I need to change them to French tips before she wakes up, or she will be mad.
“Hey, girl,” I say, standing at the foot of the bed. “I made it out. And you’re going to too. I promise.” I glance at Derek, who hovers beside me with wide eyes. “And I brought you someone.”
Derek stares at her, a little pale around the nose, and I’m wondering if I should grab him a chair when he sinks to his knees beside her.
“I’m here, angel,” he rasps, taking her hand. “I’m sorry that I made you leave, but I never left.”
He raises her hand to his mouth and presses his lips to the back of her hand.
Her hand twitches.
It’s not much, but enough that I see it, as does Nora. Derek feels it. I know he does, because he goes completely still, looking at her face like the next thing that happens will be the most important thing that has ever happened to him.
For one ridiculous second, I think she’s going to gasp dramatically and sit up. Like this is a movie, and miracles happen on schedule.
Then reality remembers itself, and nothing happens.
We let out a collective exhale.
“Can I…” He clears his throat and looks at Nora. “Can I stay a little longer? Please? I never manage to stay lucid long enough to reach her in dream space, but Ridge said the better you know someone’s face… I want to look at her a little longer.”
Nora puts her hand on his shoulder. “Stay as long as you want. You’re welcome here, Derek.”
I look at the two of them there, thinking about twelve years and what time can cost a person.
“Seraphine’s tea might help,” I say when I finally manage to swallow the lump in my throat.
“With the staying lucid and the dream sharing. I don’t have any left, but it made a real difference when I was using it.
I can walk to the inn and ask if she’d be willing to give us some more? It might be worth a try?”
“I’m willing to try anything.” Derek reaches into his pocket and holds out his car keys to me, but I shake my head.
“Paul and Ridge would individually and collectively murder me for driving, and you for allowing it.” I pull my jacket tighter. “It’s not far. I’ll walk.”
Derek starts to stand. “Are you sure? I can—”
I press a hand to his shoulder. “Stay. You’re where you’re needed.”
He kneels back down and stares longingly at my best friend. “That I am.”
Nora hugs me again at the front door, and then I’m outside with the cold hitting my cheeks, and it feels so good.
I look down at my fingers.
Normal, no breadsticks.
Concrete underfoot.
The smell of cold air and something that might be pine from the tree line, my breath making small clouds before disappearing.
For the first time in eight days, the world is real.
The cold air stings the tips of my ears, and I let it.
I’ve earned that.
I don’t bother going through the inn to get to the cottage. Instead, I walk through the garden, past the swings, and knock on the cottage door.
Jasper’s eyes go wide when he opens it, but then he grabs me, hugging me hard enough that I can hear his crystals clattering against each other between us.
A laugh escapes from me as I hug him back.
“I had this feeling you were awake,” he says into my shoulder, and then pulls back to look at me, equal parts relieved and accusatory. “Why didn’t you text?”
“I’m here now, aren’t I?”
He looks me over from head to toe while the crystals settle, and his brow furrows. “You are,” he says. “But not for me.”