Page 1 of Even In Our Dreams

PROLOGUE

Bennet

Her rustling under the sheets is what keeps me from falling back to sleep. The bed groans slightly as the alarm goes off but I barely hear it. All I know is that last night was fucking incredible.

I’m in and out of it and as she hums, nudging her nose against my neck and whispers that it’s time to wake up; all I can do is smile. There isn’t a part of me that’s ready to wake up.

It’s a genuine pull against my lips as I grin and tell her, “Nope, I’m not waking up.” Gripping the sheets, I pull them up and over the two of us, wrapping my arms around her as she squeals in protest. I turn to the side, holding her back against mine and smile wider as she laughs. All I can smell is her shampoo and the laundry detergent as she playfully objects.

“Bennet,” she admonishes, although the laugh is still there, lingering in her gleeful tone, “it’s time to wake up.”

Kissing her hair, I ignore her. I keep my eyes closed and live in this moment between holding her and dreaming of her.

It almost doesn’t feel real. She was the girl I couldn’t stop thinking about in high school. The crush I never had the balls to ask out.

Fate brought her back to me a decade later and it all feels like it was meant to be. The other part of me knows it could all crumble so easily. We’ve only just fallen for one another.

There’s so much at risk as she rubs against my arm, “wake up.” She bats at me playfully. All the while I don’t want to. I have the woman I’ve always wanted and a comfortable warm bed. I’d rather stay here and make use of the mattress like we did last night.

“Only if it means I’ll wake up with you in my arms,” I joke with her, and she laughs that sweet sound.

“I’m right here,” she tells me and then says, “You have to get going… before they find out you’re seeing someone.”

Like I said, it’s all brand new. I wish we could just stay in this moment. Where she knows I want her and I know she wants me and nothing else matters.

Cause I’ll be damned but I think I love her… I think I’ve always loved her.

AUBREY

Late late late. Why am I always ten minutes late?

“Thank you so much for not canceling,” I tell the nurse as she walks ahead and opens the door. “It’s absolutely fine,” Ginnie tells me. “We have a ten-minute grace period, but the new doctor is running late anyway.”

“New doctor?” my eyebrow raises as the door squeaks shut and we’re left in the privacy of a sterile examination room. The typical bed draped with that waxy thick paper and stool on wheels in front of a row of boring cabinets is all there is in the room. That and posters of skeletons and body parts that look like they belong in high school anatomy textbooks.

“Scale please,” Ginnie chimes. She’s one of my good friend’s sisters and I nearly joke that I don’t want to, but given how late I am, I toss my purse down on the patient bed and next are the keys, jingling as I drop them down too.

As I slip my tennis shoes off, Ginnie jokes, “You don’t have to strip for this part.” Her cherry red lips form a delighted grin and her chin length blonde curls bob as she chuckles at her own joke.

I laugh too, to be polite but also because the scale doesn’t matter. Least as far as I know it doesn’t. Today is just a checkup and I’ve always been around the same weight since high school. Well maybe five or ten pounds over, but I don’t have to update it on my I.D. and that extra weight is to be expected… since wine exists.

As she taps the little weights to get my weight, I ask her, “You said there’s a new doctor?

“Oh yeah. And new to town,” she purses her lips after mumbling my weight while writing it down on my chart on the clipboard. Once she’s done, she holds it to her chest and sways. “He’s a hottie too.”

She gestures to the bed and I toss my keys in my purse then put my purse on my lap as I take my seat. I practically hug it as I wait for what’s next. It’s been a bit since I’ve been to the Doctors. I probably wouldn’t have even known this hottie doctor was new.

Ginnie is younger by about five years my senior. We didn’t grow up together really since Lauren and I were always enrolled in a grade school ahead of her, but that doesn't mean I haven’t heard all about Ginnie’s dating life. I can only nod as she describes the new doctor and I recount the number of stories Marlena has told me with a bottle of wine in one hand and her phone in the other, texting Ginnie to keep her out of trouble.

“You know my cousin asked him out,” she tells me, before setting down the clipboard on the counter and pulling down the top of her blue scrubs as she sits. “Arm out,” she commands as she drags out a blood pressure cuff from a drawer. “He said no and I haven’t a clue why. They would make cute babies.”

She continues rambling as she gets her stethoscope in place. “Good looking doctor, no reason why he should be single.”

I almost give a comment that maybe he’s secretly dating someone or has a long-distance relationship since he’s new to town, but she looks up to the ceiling, obviously attempting to listen to my pulse.

She whispers under her breath before jotting down the numbers on my chart and clicking the end of the pen as she searches the sheet for any missing information.

Before I can comment, she peers up at me, those blue eyes so very full of naivety, “Well you’re cute - how about you ask him out?”

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