Chapter Eighteen Hollis
Chapter Eighteen
Hollis
I startled awake, bolting upright. I slammed a hand over my chest, trying to catch my breath as Ranger crooned in response.
“It’s okay, boy. Not a nightmare.” I reached around in the dark room for his head. “The same dream. Always the same.” But why? “Same bed and . . .” My words faded as something dawned on me.
I threw my legs over the side and stood. Ranger flew off the bed on alert.
“No bad guy, sorry. But we gotta wake up your dad.” I nearly tripped over him on my way to the door.
Out in the hall, I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, then slid my hand along the wall to get to Reed’s room. I didn’t bother knocking and tested the handle.
Running on adrenaline with the fog of sleep now lifted, I flung open the door with a little too much excitement and flipped on the light switch.
“What the—” Reed cut off his curse the second he realized it was me, not an intruder. Though I probably deserved a gun pulled on me for waking him like this. He sat upright and threw the covers aside. “You okay?”
“Nope. Yup. Don’t know,” I said in a daze, taking in the sight of him. I shouldn’t have checked out his near nakedness in only his light-gray boxer briefs, but it was a challenge not to notice his hard body and his hard-on. Wow, okay. Damn. I really had to stop staring. Why am I here, again?
“Shut your eyes,” he ordered while standing, cutting off my dirty thoughts, “or turn around, will ya? Give me a second to put something on.”
“Right, yes. Sorry.” I slapped both hands over my face.
“You’re good,” he said about thirty seconds later. I lowered my hands but kept my eyes squeezed shut. “It’s okay,” he added, his voice drawing closer.
I hesitantly parted my eyelids, slightly disappointed to see him in a gray shirt and black loose-fitting shorts since he’d been naked in my dream, and I’d guiltily enjoyed him that way.
“So, what’s going on?” He whistled to Ranger, and he hopped off his bed.
“Your bed,” I blurted out. “I know it.”
His face scrunched in confusion. “What?”
I pointed at the crumpled bedding as if that’d clarify things. “Even the bedspread. Same one.”
He lifted his hands up, palms facing out. “Walk me through this like I’m someone who was just woken up from the dead so I can meet you halfway here.”
I rested my hand on my chest, still needing to dial down my pulse. “I keep having the same dream.”
“Where you’re not a good cook?” he asked in a low voice, still utterly lost.
I’d forgotten I’d mentioned that part to him last night, and only that part. “No. I mean yes.”
He pushed his hands into his pockets, jaw set as he stared at me with weary eyes.
Poor guy. “I’ve been having a dream, and it’s always the same. Your bed is in it.” I clutched the hem of the shirt as if that might help ground and steady me, but when his eyes shot to my thighs and he walked back a step, I realized I was showing too much skin.
“You were saying?” His question came on the tail end of an exhausted breath as I let go of the shirt.
“I keep having a dream involving you. I thought the dream started Friday after we met in my mother’s bedroom. Even questioned if it was a memory, not a dream, which is why I asked you if there was something between us.”
I’d expected his body to relax at this news, but I was pretty sure he tensed up even more than I thought possible. His muscular arms were tighter than tight, a vein visible down his forearm.
“The dream always starts with us naked in bed after we’ve had sex, never during.
” Talk about awkward, and now the hardwood had my attention so I could get through this.
“Then our three children yell out for food, and we all sit together and eat breakfast, the five of us.” Heat built up in my cheeks.
“But Friday wasn’t the first time I had that dream. ”
I slowly looked up at him, finding his lips parted and eyes narrowed.
“The coffin. I just remembered . . . I woke up in there to that dream before realizing where I was, switching to escape, panic mode.” My heart wouldn’t stop working double time, making my speech a little breathy.
“How is that possible? That was also before I hit you on the street.” There was more, too.
More that made no sense. But I wanted to give him time to process this first.
“I don’t understand,” he said in a rough voice, drawing his palm to his stubbled cheek, eyes on the floor.
“Reed?” It took all my energy not to call him Jason. “We were in this bed. Not just any bed, but this one. Same covers. Same nightstand.” I closed the gap between us and held his wrist. “Come with me.” I gently tugged, then let him go and quietly left his room, assuming he’d follow.
I turned on the lights in the hall so I wouldn’t stumble and made my way to the kitchen and flicked on the switch.
“We ate breakfast with our kids at that table.” I glanced back to find him standing behind me, staring at me, not his table.
“It’s just missing the fifth chair.” My voice broke as I went over, the echoes of their adorable laughter surrounding me.
“Why am I dreaming about being married to you? Having three kids together? Why does it feel like a memory and not a figment of my imagination?”
He came up behind me and rested his hands on my shoulders, and I peeked at him. His eyes were fixed on the table, like he could see our kids there.
“Tell me how I’d know this table and your bed. Know you. But not myself.” I turned toward him, forcing him to let go of me.
His deep inhalation had his chest brushing against my body. He exhaled through his nose, staring at me. “I don’t know.”
I closed my eyes, my skin pebbling from chills. “Maybe I saw a similar scene in a movie, but that doesn’t explain why—”
“Why you remember me and my home,” he cut in. “And you’re sure it was me in your dream in the coffin? You’re not mixing me up with an actor? This house, too—it’s a dime a dozen in design.”
“Sure, I guess that could be true,” I hesitantly agreed, opening my eyes.
“Maybe?” I wanted to cling to the hope that I was remembering something, though.
“I, uh, know we’ve never had sex and we’re not married.
” I half smiled, embarrassment kicking the surprise to the side now.
“No kids, either. It just feels so real, but maybe you’re right.
I mean, you have to be.” I turned and held on to the back of one of the chairs.
“I’m probably confusing things. Making things up. I—I don’t know.”
“I’m not dismissing your dream or what you think you remember. It’s just a lot to process. You’ve been through quite a bit, so I don’t want to . . .”
I turned again, nearly bumping into him at the fact he’d abandoned his words.
He cupped his chin, eyes shooting to the floor. “That op in February . . . we were undercover as a couple. We even checked into a hotel room together. It was all an act, and nothing happened between us.”
“So maybe I am remembering things, just mixing stuff up?”
He slowly met my eyes. “Possibly.”
Of all the people, though, why was my brain circling back to him? Still, it gave me an ounce of hope.
“Your memories will come back.” He held out his palm, and it took me a second to realize what he was doing. I rested my hand on top of his, and a warmth filled my chest the moment contact was made.
A sense of peace took over and settled my nerves.
“Thank you,” I whispered a few seconds later, letting my hand fall to my side.
“Least I can do after being such a prick at dinner.”
“You were hardly that bad. I’m just sensitive right now.”
“Not used to you being any type of sen—” He cut himself off, shaking his head. “I’m going to stay up. Make some coffee.” He backed away from me, clearly deciding it was time to abandon the conversation. “You want any?”
I checked the time on the microwave. Five o’clock. “Sure. How do I take it?”
“Black. You don’t like it sweet.”
I wasn’t sure why my coffee order disappointed me, but it did. “Of course I wouldn’t, since I’m apparently nothing like Lyra.” If she was daytime, I was night. Maybe if I’d chosen the life she had, I really would be married with three kids.
“You’re perfect the way you are.” Reed’s kind words pierced my what-if thoughts.
“A perfect pain in your ass?” I forced a smile.
His dark brows slanted. “Not always,” he said in a low, husky voice that had my stomach flipping and me starting to wonder whether that dream was based on a fantasy I’d had before I lost my memories.
“Well then, maybe I can be different now.” I shrugged. “How about making my coffee sweet?”
He quirked a brow. “You sure?”
“If there were ever a time for a change . . .”
He turned on his coffee machine, then set his hands on the counter and glanced at me as it warmed up. “Out of curiosity”—he cleared his throat—“those, uh, kids in your dream?”
I leaned my hip against the counter, palming it for support. “Twin girls and a son,” I answered what I assumed he was asking.
“Sounds like we had our hands full in that dream of yours.” He pushed away from the counter and placed a pod in the machine and a mug in place.
I sighed, a little overwhelmed, in a good way, at the peace that dream gave me whenever I had it or even thought about it. “I don’t know, you made being a dad look easy.”
His back muscles flexed, and he cupped the nape of his neck and squeezed like I’d hit a nerve. “Guess that’s why they call ’em dreams, not reality.”
There was a sadness to his tone that broke my heart, but I behaved and didn’t push this time.
I let him make our coffees in peace, and when he handed over my sweetened one, I nervously took a sip.
Dammit. “I hate it,” I admitted.
He quietly took the mug and gave me his untouched one, as if he’d assumed that was bound to happen.
“Guess some things really don’t change, memories or not,” I said softly, worried that was going to hold true in other areas of my life.
He emptied the drink into the sink. “At the end of the day, we are who we are.” A bit of a drawl slipped through as he added in a somber tone, “And unfortunately, sometimes there ain’t no changin’ that no matter how hard you try.”