Chapter 33
Chapter thirty-three
Paisley
I flipped over on my side, scrunching my pillow into a more acceptable shape and trying to sleep.
I’d counted sheep, listened to an audiobook, even done a word-association technique I’d found online with guaranteed results.
News flash: they lied. Anything to pull me from the embrace of insomnia into the land of Nod.
Nothing yet. If anything, I was more awake now than when I started.
I groaned and punched my pillow. The mini drumming army inside was getting out of hand. Stand down, soldiers. Sighing, I picked up my phone—horrible solution, I know—and the numbers glared back at me with hatred. Three o’clock in the morning.
Half of me wanted to call Juliet, even though I’d just seen her a few hours ago. But she’d been so sick lately, and I didn’t have the heart to interrupt her sleep. Besides, she had Myles now. Liz had Ben. Even Stephanie had Nash, with only five weeks till their wedding.
I’d been the first in our friend group to spread my wings in matrimony and romance. Now I was on the outside looking in. Sort of.
Because the husband I couldn’t remember was just down the hall. Fast asleep, no doubt. He was a freaking champion when it came to sleeping. If it were an Olympic sport, he’d win gold. I’d watched him nod off in the living room within 0.2 seconds. So not fair.
But the shadows were pressing in, old echoes of childhood and best-forgotten faces clamouring inside my brain. The room was too crowded for all of us. So I flipped the duvet back and padded down the hall, grateful for the night-lights to keep me from tripping, until I stood outside Greyson’s door.
My momentary courage quailed.
I could knock. So simple, right? Chances were he was a heavy sleeper and wouldn’t even hear me. Did I even want him to answer? That was a question for Future Paisley.
I rapped lightly, and the door creaked. It hadn’t been fully closed. Why? Did he want to keep an ear out for me, or had he just forgotten? Maybe Rosie needed full range of the house?
“Greyson,” I called softly into the shrouded darkness, shoving aside my questions. If he didn’t answer, I’d go back to—
Soft moaning came from the bed before it creaked slightly, and a moment later, the bedside lamp clicked on.
I slapped my hands over my face, but not before I got an eyeful of tanned skin. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. Seriously?
“Uh . . .” I said, pivoting so I could stare at the doorjamb and drop my hands. It was a very nice door frame, painted a lovely shade of forest green. Well done.
“Pais?” Greyson sat up slowly, rubbing his face. “What’s wrong?”
He was kind of cute, all rumpled and sleepy. In fact— No. Focus, Paisley Grace. “Nothing. Sorry, I shouldn’t have woken you. I just . . . That is . . . I’ll just go,” I rambled before turning to head back down the hall to my overcrowded bedroom.
Greyson’s warm hand gripped my elbow. Wow, he was fast. I hadn’t heard him get up. “Hey.” He shifted me to face him and tipped my chin up with his finger. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”
“I just . . .” I couldn’t stare into those hypnotic blue depths and not crumble.
So I squeezed my eyes shut. “My thoughts were just really loud, and I couldn’t sleep, so I thought .
. .” I sniffed and peeked back at him. His gaze locked steadily on me.
“I didn’t want to be alone with the ghosts,” I whispered.
“Come on,” he said gently, steering me into his room.
Rosie didn’t budge from the rug at the foot of the bed. Not even to spare me a look of acknowledgement. Clearly she had picked her favourite human, and I had been found wanting.
Greyson motioned to the bed, and I crawled on, tucking my knees against my chest as I leaned against the headboard and clutched a pillow. I frowned when he grabbed a pillow and moved to drop it on the floor. “What are you doing?”
“Didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“You’ll kill your back on the floor. You aren’t twenty anymore.” The words came out harsher in my ears than in my head. “Sorry, I wasn’t trying to snap at you.”
He chuckled lightly. “I’ve heard worse. And honestly, the floor is a dream compared to some of what I’ve slept on.”
“We’ll just stay on our sides.” I scooted over farther from the invisible middle line.
“We will, huh? I don’t recall being the one to cross the line last time.”
His tired smirk made my cheeks flush. He just had to bring up that night in the hotel room. I was the one who’d crossed the line. Now I just needed a big neon sign that said “Mind the gap.” Wait a second—
“You were asleep!” I squawked.
“Not quite.”
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. What was I supposed to say to that? If death by embarrassment was possible, I was well on my way. I settled on, “I’ll keep to my side.”
He chuckled and eased back onto the bed. “Doesn’t bother me, love. But only if you’re comfortable.”
I’d be more comfortable if he put a shirt on and stopped looking at me so sweetly. Like I was his world. But I didn’t say that. Just waited for him to settle under the covers and click off the light.
The darkness was palatable but less oppressive. My body sank into the mattress, sleep tugging on my consciousness. Begging me to surrender.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Greyson asked after a few minutes.
I’d thought he’d fallen asleep again. But the dark made me braver so I whispered, “Do you ever have thoughts that feel too big to stay in your head?”
“Yeah,” he said, a weighty confession in that one word.
“Are they military thoughts? Stuff from what you went through?”
He was quiet for a minute. “Some of them. You never truly forget everything you witness. The friends you lose. The hundreds of ways you wish things could have happened differently.”
I knew the feeling. My brain liked to pounce on situations and run a hundred hypothetical scenarios to prepare me for any given situation. And then run all the ways I could have handled the circumstances differently once I got through them.
“And the other thoughts?” I pressed.
“I think a lot about you. About us. Where we are now. Where we were. Where we’re going.”
“Those are some big thoughts,” I rasped, my heart doing strange fluttery flops. Was that even medically possible? Pretty sure heart murmurs were a problem. Maybe I should get that checked out.
“What’s crowding your head tonight?”
“You mean, this morning?” I tried to joke.
“Pais.” He made my name a soft caress, hanging between us.
“Some of my foster homes. The times I was sent back to my mom when she cleaned up her act, only to be shuffled back to another home when Child Services was involved again. How many times I was hungry. Meeting Jared . . .” I trailed off because it felt weird to talk about my former husband while lying in bed with my current one.
“There’s a black hole inside me.” I shifted slightly, feeling braver in the dark, so I could look at him.
Or where he would be if I could see him.
“Every time I catch a glimmer of the past seven years, it’s snatched away.
I want . . .” The pain sharpened in my chest, and I struggled to suck in a breath. “I just want to remember.”
“I know,” he said softly. “That’s what I’m praying for. So hard.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. Any words I might say felt paltry and like I might just start crying. So instead I said, “Is this really appropriate?”
“What exactly?”
“You and me. In bed.”
“We’re married, Pais.”
“I know you say that, but I just . . .” I twisted my wedding band, the motion settling me. “The not-remembering part has me feeling like I’m messing up.”
Greyson shifted beside me, reaching out till his fingers traced over my cheek in the dark. “We’re married before God, man, and state. I promise, there’s nothing wrong with this.”
“Man and wife,” I mused softly.
“Mm-hmm. Would a second wedding help?”
“Like a second breakfast?” I teased.
Greyson chuckled. “Anything you want, my hobbit.”
“We should try to sleep.” I tucked my elbow under my head, still looking at him. “Good night.”
“Night, love.”
Love. The word wrapped around me like a velvet cocoon, and I drifted off to sleep. For the first time in a long time without any nightmares.