Series: Like Us Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 174544 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 873(@200wpm)___ 698(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 174544 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 873(@200wpm)___ 698(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
So I climb off the bed, throwing the trash in a bin, and she’s reluctant to crawl beneath the covers. “Donnelly,” she starts, an emotional tension straining the air this time.
I have to cut in first. “I need to warn you—since I sleep over there.” And I haven’t slept in a while. “I sleepwalk.”
She considers this carefully. “What helps?”
I shake my head. “I dunno. Some years it’s worse than others.” I glance to her bathroom door. “I thought being next to you might help, but you’ve seen me sleepwalk before.”
Luna touches her comforter. “I was gonna ask if you want to sleep in my bed with me. You were with Original Luna, and it’s something I think I want…but if you’re not into it, that’s okay. I don’t know if it’ll help your sleepwalking or not, but if it can, then…” She shrugs. “I want to help you too.”
Lying in bed alone or lying in bed with the comfort of the girl I love?
No brainer. And that’s how I find myself stripping down to my boxer-briefs and beneath the comforter with Luna. Naturally, we gravitate toward one another. On our sides, she nuzzles her back against my chest, spooning, and our deep breaths sync up.
I hold her, and as I begin to drift, I hear her murmur one last thing to me.
“I wanna do all the amazing things in this world.” The tail-end is too quiet to catch, but I’m hoping she said, with you.
Please let it be with me.
32
PAUL DONNELLY
Rage envelops me like a violent inferno. I’m suffocated in the fumes of anger. My knuckles sear. Breath is smoldering in my lungs. I scream a noiseless scream while my fists fly into Patrick’s face. He’s still laughing.
It’s gasoline to my wrath, and I can’t stop.
I can’t stop.
I can’t see his face anymore. I can’t hear him. Blood-red fury overpowers me—scares the shit outta me—and I thrash awake.
Holy shit. I’m in bed. Luna’s bed. Panting, I’ve shot up to a sitting position, and she’s startled awake. Sweat soaks the sheets all around me, and I take a second to collect my bearings.
“Donnelly?” I hear her concern.
“I’m alright, I’m alright, I’m alright,” I say so fast in one staggered breath, then ask, “I didn’t hurt you?” I skim her features with urgency, hoping I didn’t throw an arm at her face. God, if I hurt her…
She shakes her head quickly. “No. You just started kicking.”
Alright. I brush a hand through my wet hair. Fuuuck. I smear a hand down my damp face, then climb out of the bed. Jabbing a thumb to the door, I say, “I’m gonna get a water. You need anything?”
“No,” she says. “You sure—?”
“I’m alright,” I say again. “Talk tomorrow?” Don’t wait up for me. “I might crash in my bed so I don’t wake you again.”
She nods, then scoots back beneath the covers.
Orion tries to follow me, but I close him in her room and whisper, “Stay with Luna. She needs you.” He sits more patiently, then rounds back to her, hopping on her bed. She wraps an arm around his furry body, and it eases me out.
Once I’m in the dark kitchen, I abandon the task of getting a water. I’m gripping the butcher block island and trying to breathe out a strange weight on my chest. The chain around my neck might as well be a choker. I keep tugging at it, the kyber crystal like two-tons against my sternum.
I fucking hate this feeling. Anger has never lived inside of me, not long enough to take root and grow thorns, but every single time I think about that night…in that row house…it simmers beneath my skin. Crawling. Restless.
Weight.
I clench the counter.
“Hey?” Farrow flips on a warm kitchen light. In point-two seconds he scans me and he’s looking at me like he’s never seen me before.
“Couldn’t sleep?” I ask him. He’s only in black drawstring pants, his body covered in tattoos I inked on him.
“I was woken up by texts. Hospital paperwork.” He’s chewing slower on gum. “You look like shit.”
I smell like roses, I’d joke. Come see. I’d stuff my pit in his face. He’d shove me and tell me to go stink up Oscar. All of those easy-going things just wither in my head. Asphyxiated beneath this dark fuel.
“I’m alright,” I mumble.
Farrow kicks open the trash bin, spits out his gum, then eyes me once again.
“Stop,” I sneer, acid burning the word. Burning me.
He frowns. “Man, this isn’t like you. What’s going on?”
“I’m fine!” I shout. “Just get the fuck away from me.”
Farrow shifts his weight uneasily, glancing at my death-grip on the counter—at my hardly healed knuckles—and his hand outstretches calmly, coolly. “Donnelly—”
I push him. Farrow is taken aback. It pisses me off, and I can’t say why. So I push him again, harder. His jaw muscles twitch, and we’re breathing heavier. Then I snap, and coming at Farrow means meeting the floor. I’ve known that since I was a teenager—when he brought me to his MMA classes. Signed me up. Paid for me.