Chapter 27 #2
I grab the pizza cutter out of the drawer and a few plates while he grabs the pizza.
Once we’re seated at the table, I serve us each a few slices, waiting for Seth to speak.
It’s strange, because his mask doesn’t move, but I’m starting to feel like I can still pick up on certain expressions somehow.
Like if I stare hard enough, I could see his eyes back there, when they crinkle when he smiles, or when he opens them wider in surprise.
Right now, he’s rubbing his hands on his pants, and I would bet a fair bit of money that he’s looking up at the ceiling…
making me think he must be nervous, too.
“When I left the other night, after the cookies, I barely made it back. I knew I needed to be careful, because otherwise, I might get stuck.”
“Oh no…” That flip-flopping stomach falls flat inside me. “And by asking you to come…”
“No. By choosing to come, I’ve trapped myself here. Permanently.” He levels his gaze at me. “But Ada, that’s a choice I made. I didn’t have to come, and you didn’t know the consequences.”
Shit. If he’s using my real name, he’s serious. “I know, but I asked you—”
“And I’m so fucking glad you did.” Seth sets his slice down and stands, walking around to lift me from my chair and set me on his lap.
“If you hadn’t asked me?” His voice breaks, and he has to clear his throat before he can continue.
“I’d never have forgiven myself if something had happened to you. ”
“What’s… what’s keeping you here? Do you know?”
Pressing his lips together, he nods. “Yeah.” He takes a deep breath. “You, I’m pretty sure.”
My stomach falls to my feet. Fuck. I did this to him. I’ve trapped him—I’m his literal jailer. I squirm to get off his lap, but he holds me fast.
Scowling and fighting back tears, I glare at him. “You—you should hate me.”
“Princess, I’m incapable of hating you.” His voice is thick with emotion, like he might be crying behind his mask. “I needed you to be safe.”
I reach a hand into his hair, pressing his forehead to mine. “I was so scared. I was worried he’d hurt me. I was worried that I’d made you up and that I was crazy. But most of all, I was so worried that I’d call and you just… wouldn’t care.” I sniffle.
Amazing, now my nose is going to be bright red… again. He’s going to think that dream Ada was a catfish and that this is how I look all the time.
He chuckles, a noise that settles low in my belly. It’s not the time for sex—we need to talk—but I can’t help but want him, every bit of him.
“I couldn’t have resisted coming even if I'd tried.” He rubs his thumb across my cheek.
“You know, I thought I just wanted you to be happy so I could stop being this. My friends tried to convince me I was in love with you, or at least obsessed with you. But no, I thought everyone else’s dreams just tasted horrible.
I thought I needed you to be happy so I could change.
But really, I needed you to be happy because you’ve overwritten my soul.
With you, I found the person I wanted to be with… every other dreamer felt hollow.”
My breathing quickens. It’s so hard to believe the words he’s saying, no matter how badly I want them to be true. Because while the feelings I have been feeling for Seth are overwhelming, I haven’t really had time to consider the extent of his feelings for me.
“Getting stuck was my own fault, really. I should have visited other dreamers, but I couldn’t stop coming to yours. Even before your attack and your daily nightmares, I’d all but given up on anyone else.”
“That seems… inadvisable. If you’re supposed to visit multiple people, I mean.”
He smiles, his cheek pushing his mask askew because one rises higher than the other.
“You are. I just… couldn’t. I wanted you.
Always you. I wanted to be near you, to know what that beautiful mind would create for us…
and then after… I couldn’t leave you to face the night alone.
I didn’t want to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you.
” He cups my face with both hands, his voice desperate.
“Please, Princess, if you don’t believe anything else, believe this. I never wanted to hurt you.”
With as many times as he’s attacked me in my dreams, I probably shouldn’t believe him… but I do. He’d never hurt me if he had the choice. It’s a truth that has sunk into my bones, as sure as the sun.
“Unless,” I say, unable to hide my smirk. “I wanted you to…”
“Well, I think we both know I am powerless to your wishes.”
“Are you?” I whisper, my lips so close to his that I graze them with mine. The contact sends jolts of arousal through me like lightning.
He licks his lips, perhaps forgetting how close we are… perhaps opening a door. “Yes.”
He’s hesitant, waiting or teasing me, I’m not sure, because he doesn’t come any closer. Does he truly not know how much I want him?
I leap, hoping that I haven’t misread the situation.
Leaning in, I press my lips tentatively against his, inviting him in.
He answers. Instead of desperate and demanding, his kiss is slow, reverent, beseeching. His tongue slides against mine, massaging and teasing questions and answers from me that neither of us quite knows how to put words to.
What are we? my tongue asks.
Whatever we want, his seems to reply.
I don’t want to read into it, but nothing has ever felt more real, or perfect, or right.
It’s everything I heard that I should expect of communing with God, a deep knowing inside myself. But instead of an inscrutable being, it’s this impossible, amazing one who has been everything I have ever wanted, ever needed.
Seth’s long fingers twine in my hair and cradle the back of my head like I am something fragile, something special.
When he pulls away, gasping, I’m disoriented, chasing his mouth. He holds me back by pressing his forehead to mine, our breaths lingering in the space between us. For a perfect, suspended moment, that is the only sound in the world. His breath and mine, mingling and joining until we are but one.
And then Henry snores from his space by the fire.
Seth throws his head back, laughing, and it feels like I’ve come home. The sound is so familiar from my dreams, it echoes through my life and my memories.
We’re running through a field of wildflowers, hand in hand.
We’re huddling under my father’s desk after sneaking a few of his cherry cordials.
We’re collapsing against the wall of a castle after taking tea with a dragon.
I’ve lived millions of lives with him, but none of them have ever been real.
None of his laughs have ever been real.
Until now.
Now, Seth cradles me in his lap, in my cabin in the woods, while my dog snores by the fire. I couldn’t dream up something this perfect.
My cunt squeezes, demanding more attention, but Seth pulls away.
“Sitting you on my lap was a bad idea.”
“Why?”
“Because now I don’t want to talk.” He releases my face to squeeze my breast instead.
“Oh, I see.” My voice is breathy, and I can’t remember what we are meant to be talking about.
“As much as I want to stuff you full again, this is serious.”
I try not to whine when he picks me up and sets me back down on my chair alone, but I fail. “What do we need to talk about?”
“Ada.” He clears his throat.
There’s my name again. I sit up and pay better attention, lifting my pizza slice and staring at it like it will grant me the power to be so chill and cool. Maybe even put my puss on ice.
“Since I can’t go back… will you help me… find a job? I think I could stay at Tom’s place, but I want to keep seeing you—”
I blink at him, the cheese dripping off of my slice onto my plate. A job? I mean, fine, I can try, but everything inside me recoils at him living at Tom’s. Not only do I never want to step foot in that house again, but thinking of him anywhere but here with me just feels… wrong.
Everything between us is so confusing, because I barely know him, but I feel like I know everything about him.
Until, of course, I think about any detail outside of my dreams or what he’s done for me.
Even though he says it’s not my fault, so much of what I’ve done has removed his choices.
If he wants to live at Tom’s, that’s what we’ll do.
I might not be able to come over to visit, but it’s not as if I can go much of anywhere at all anyhow.
“Of course, if that’s what you want, but Seth… you don’t have to—I mean if you want—you could always stay here…” I know my face is beet red, but I feel like I’ve just launched myself into the air, an acrobat wondering if he’s going to swing the other half of the trapeze.
“Here? With you?” He smiles, lifting the pizza slice to his mouth. “I think I’d like that.”
I mirror him, the cat who got the cream.
The pizza is still arguably too hot to eat, but even as the cheese sears the roof of my mouth, I moan.
I know he used my favorite cookbook, the one where they scientifically test every recipe permutation, but I think it might be my most favorite thing I’ve ever eaten.
It’s salty and tart, the bite of spicy pepperoni soothed by the creamy cheese.
There is no way he did this with the ingredients in my kitchen, no way.
The crust is chewy and garlicky, resisting my teeth perfectly.
When I look up, Seth is mirroring my reaction. His eyes close as he savors every bite. I can’t look away as his sharp teeth tear off another slice, a long string of cheese stretching down to land on his chest. I lean forward because I want nothing more than to lick it off.
Unfortunately for me, he swipes at it with one finger and pops it into his mouth.
“You know, we might have to get you some shirts, though… I don’t know if I can work in these conditions.”
“These conditions?” He cocks his head, looking so adorable that I worry my heart is about to burst.
“Yes, sometimes I need to focus, and I don’t know how I am supposed to do that with you thirst trapping all over the place…
” I blush again, or maybe still? I feel like I’ve spent so much time blushing that I can hardly distinguish when it’s not happening.
Perhaps I will just spend the next… however long in a permanent blush.
“Aha,” he says, winking at me. Okay, so the mask can move? I know he’s like literally my dream monster guy come to life, but for whatever reason, the mask moving with his face is what’s shocking to me.
“If we’re setting stipulations…” He reaches across the table to grab my hand. “I really think you should talk to a therapist.”
Like he’s got a homing device on all of my worries, he’s located the next concern.
Not only do I have to deal with my own fears around therapy, the option feels as if it’s now entirely removed.
I never came to a solution for it earlier, and I suppose he knows me too well, so now it’s time to deal with it.
I growl in frustration, because I remember I am trapped all over again. “I can’t!”
“I know that therapist when you were a teenager was a creep, you dreamed about it enough, but we can find you one that is good! There are good therapists!”
“It’s not that! How am I going to talk to a therapist about everything that happened?
Oh, gee whiz, therapist-person, I was mugged, sure, but I was also kidnapped, but don’t worry, my nightmare boyfriend came to save meeeee!
” I slap my pizza down on my plate and bury my head in my hands.
It feels hopeless, but I also know I wouldn’t change knowing Seth for anything.
Because now, I’m doing the math and deciding that even if I can’t talk to a therapist about any of this, Seth is worth it.
There’s self-help videos on YouTube and articles and stuff. Surely I can make it work on my own.
“Oh fuck, Princess, I’m sorry!” he says, rounding the table to scoop me up again.
He sits in my chair, settling me in what is becoming my favorite place.
He puts a finger under my chin to tilt my face up to his, tucking a stray hair behind my ear.
“Ada, you aren’t the first person who knows about us.
I’m sure we can find you a therapist you can tell everything to.
While we try to stay hidden, it happens.
The internet has made it really hard to keep it entirely under wraps.
If I remember right, I should get a sort of feeling if someone already knows.
We can test it out.” He squeezes my hips.
“If you wanted… you could probably tell someone you really trust. I don’t want you to feel alone in this. ”
“Really?” I immediately know that I’m telling Fae. I’ve had trouble navigating the whole transition from friend to employee, and I worry that it means I’ve stopped being as good of a friend. She’s been exactly the same, however, so it’s time I returned the favor and trusted her.
“Really, really.” Seth presses his lips to mine, sipping from them gently, because we aren’t done with this conversation.
“Okay, I can do therapy.” I breathe out. It’s going to be scary, and it’s going to suck, but if this is what I need to do, for Seth, I can.
“Great. But, what I’m hearing is… that I’m your boyfriend?” He smiles and waggles his mask.
Now, the blush is too much, and I cover my face with my hands. “No, no! That’s not how that works! You have to ask me, I didn’t—I mean if you want but—”
“No, I’m pretty sure you just staked your claim, Princess, and I am nothing if not your humble servant. Boyfriend it is.”
I peek out from between my fingers. “Really?”
“Really.”