27
I tumble into my dream. My mum would laugh to hear me say it’s like sliding down a moonbeam.
My namesake, given life.
Yet there’s a sliding, falling sensation and wind rushing in my ears. My stomach rises and falls, shooting down, down, until?—
I open my eyes.
The wind rushing in my ears is the noise of morning waves, slate-gray and crashing over the sandy shore. White gulls sweep overhead, calling out a harsh, querulous morning alarm. I blink into the dawn light. The sky is half-dark, half-pink, and gold and orange as the sun slips along the water’s edge. The gold light reflects in the wavy surface.
I stretch, my muscles sore and my neck pinchy. Cold, shaded sand shifts under me and sticks to my bare legs.
I’m thirsty. I have to pee. Yet I don’t want to get up, because I’m lying on the beach, my head on Aaron’s chest, his arms wrapped around me. I have one leg thrown over his. He’s warm and his chest moves in a lulling rhythm as steady as the rolling waves.
“Do you think we should get up?” he asks, his voice sleep-roughened. “Or should we sneak inside and try to sleep for another fifteen?”
His hand drifts over my back, tracing a slow circle at the base of my spine. A tingle rides over my skin. I lift my head then and peer down at him.
He gives me a sleepy smile and I’m reminded of the day I first woke to find him. He smiled at me then too. Although, now that I know him better, I think I misread the situation.
“Last Saturday . . .”
His hand pauses on my spine. “Yeah?”
“When I woke up and you told me we still had a few minutes . . . what did you mean?”
Aaron’s eyebrows rise. “That we had a few minutes.”
“To?”
“Sleep.”
“Sleep?” I repeat.
His eyes soften with a dreamy expression. “It’s been years since I’ve slept past five thirty. Wouldn’t it be nice?”
Oh. Okay. Yes. I completely misread the situation. He didn’t want me to get back in bed for a long, orgasm-filled morning. He wanted to sleep.
I don’t know why this makes me cranky. It’s not as if I wanted to have sex with him on Saturday, but I tense and move to roll off him.
“Fi?” he whispers, the word barely heard above the sound of the waves.
I still. My eyes fly to his and I sink back into his warmth, my muscles loosening. A soft hum steals over me, running over my skin.
“Yes?”
He smiles then, his eyes warming. “Just wondering,” he says, then he cups my face in his hands, his thumbs rubbing over my cheeks, and pulls me down for a kiss.
His lips brush across mine, whisper-soft. And I exhale, the breath forced from me at the feel of him. His fingers stroke my skin and an ache builds in my chest as he runs his mouth over mine. I breathe in the salt of the sea, the perfumed flowers opening and tilting their heads toward the sunrise. My blood thrums in time with the sea.
He pulls back then, the heat of his mouth still on mine. His heart thunders beneath me. When I shift over him he makes a small, deep noise in the back of his throat.
“Morning.”
I smile. “Good morning.”
His fingers curl on my cheeks. “You’re still here.”
“I am.”
“I thought you’d go in to bed. What does Fi mean?”
I stare at him, unsure how to answer. Do I tell him it’s my name? With that, though, I’d have to convince him I’m not Becca and that he doesn’t actually exist outside my dream world.
“It’s a code word.”
He lets out an amused huff of air and then takes his hands from my face. “Why?”
I shrug. “It’s so you know I’m me.”
Me, and not the other dream Becca. The one who loves Robert and wants to leave the island.
He looks as if he’s going to argue, but then he must decide against it.
“We should go,” he says, looking across the water at the rising sun. “We have to get Amy and Sean up, head to work.”
Wait.
Work?
As in, work, work?
I work in my dreams?
In Geneva I work twelve-hour days. Before Mila I often spent eighteen hours at the office. I’m not averse to work. In fact, I love what I do. However, I didn’t think I’d take that passion with me into my dreams.
“It’s Monday?” I ask.
Aaron nods, his black hair blowing in the wind.
I wait for him to say more, to tell me where exactly I work and what exactly I do, but he doesn’t. Instead he sits up in the sand, taking me with him.
I squeak and wrap my legs around his waist as he stands.
I grab his shoulders and hang on as he holds my hips. Sand rains from my skin and my nightdress falls around my bare legs. The ocean air wraps around us, and at the grass line, crickets begin to sing a morning melody.
The air is morning-cool, not yet tinged with humidity and heat. The cottages are still dark and sleepy, and it’s just Aaron, me, and the rising sun.
He tugs me close and I keep my arms and legs wrapped around him. He rests his forehead to mine, looking into my eyes.
“Thank you,” he says, his voice low.
“For what?” My heart thuds in the space between us.
“For last night. Thank you for listening. Thank you for . . . coming into the water after me.”
He doesn’t mean literally. I know that. I think he means that for maybe the first time he doesn’t feel as if he’s treading water alone, trying to keep his head above the waves.
“Anytime,” I tell him. “I’ll come into the water after you anytime you need.”
With that, I swear he’s going to kiss me again. My lips tingle and warm.
But then he only smiles and carries me across the sand, through the shaded, dew-covered grass, onto the wide porch, and into our home.