Page 148 of If Only In Our Dreams

“I have one more question,” I hummed, our lips brushing, my heart in my throat.

“Hmm?” Ben waited, sleepy-sweet.

“Did I scare you, Ben?” My heart stuttered. “When I left?”

Ben laughed, a quiet, sweet little sound. He pressed another kiss to my lips, and instead of answering my question, gave me the last piece of the puzzle I needed before I could rest. “Beckett gets to go home,” Ben replied, voice husky and gentle. “And he’s sickeningly, deliriously happy.”

“He is?”

“He is,” Ben hummed, kissing me again, and then again—just because he wanted to. “He gets married.” My eyes burned.

“He does?”

“He gets to be with his brothers.”

“Y-yeah?”

“He heals,” Ben’s voice was a quiet, soothing rumble.

“He gets his happy ending,” I echoed, kissing him back as my heart stuttered, one last, lovely time.

“He does,” Ben agreed—a promise.

I’d made a lot of bad choices in my life.

Choices that hurt.

Choices that changed who I was—and not for the better.

I’d had fears and doubts. Poison that bled black in my veins.

But there was none of that now as Ben Montgomery gave me the happy ending I’d always wanted, but never thought I deserved. Because just like Beckett, I was going home. I was going to have the Christmas I’d always dreamed of with thefamily I adored, and the people who loved me just as fiercely as I loved them.

And while I knew that life would always have its obstacles, and that falling in love wasn’t a cure-all for the past I was still healing from, I was no longer scared to move forward. My feet didn’t itch.

Not anymore.

And I wasn’t poison.

In fact…I’d never been poison at all.

“Take another handful, kid, you know you want to—” Robin waggled the cauldron full of candy that he was holding like he was offering the lineup of kids drugs. I tried not to laugh—and then stopped trying, because some things were impossible and there was no point wasting my energy.

The kid made a happy sound. I recognized him from a few weeks back. It was good to see he’d gotten over his ear infection and was feeling well enough to be out trick-or-treating. He grabbed a second entire handful of candy—before shoving it into his bowl with a grin, and a lisped out “thank you”, before tearing down the street, his dragon tail swinging.

“Fill up,” Robin commanded the next kid, looking way too fucking pleased about his giant four-foot cauldron. The entire thing was full. It’d taken us nearly an hour to dump all the bags of candy into it—and while it was maybe, definitely overkill—I couldn’t help but find it cute.

This was Robin’s first Halloween in Belleville and when I’d informed him that trick-or-treaters didn’t often come up to our door because it was around the back of the building, he’d beendevastated.

Which was whyyyy we were out on the street, freezing our balls off, with Robin’s cauldron attracting flocks of kids as they ran by with their parents.

The girls were in bed already.

We’d taken them out earlier, and they’d tuckered right out after we’d wrangled them out of their matching Wednesday Addams costumes and into bed. Neither of them had wanted to be Pugsley. Robin and I were still dressed up as Gomez and Morticia, and I had no idea how he was managing to stay out here wearing…that.

His body was cupped by a floor-length black velvet gown that hugged every curve. It dipped down the center, and every time he leaned over I got a glimpse of those perky little nipple piercings.

I’d done my best not to stare—because being hard while handing out candy to children was a goddamn nightmare I did not want to live, thank you very much—but it was difficult.

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