Page 6 of If Only In Our Dreams

My very visceral reaction to him.

Thiswasn’t who I was.

Thiswasn’t who I’d been raised to be.

So why had I run from him?

I wasn’t naive enough to think it was because I’d recognized who he was. It was something deeper than that. Something I wasn’t sure I was equipped to face right then, standing in the airport bathroom, my hands sweaty with anxiety.

So instead, I replayed our encounter.

When he’d stepped onto the plane it was like a bucket of icy water had been doused all over me. I hadnotbeen prepared for all that…gorgeousin high definition.And who could blame me?Seeing photos on the album I bought the girls for Christmas last year was not the same as seeing those pale green eyes up close.

Framed by bruises darker than the eyeliner he wore, smudged and grungy—like he’d done his best to cover them up. Like he wasashamedof his own exhaustion. Chapped lips, under-plucked eyebrows, a tiny, almost invisible scar on his chin. Frown lines by the corners of his lips that looked particularly kissable.

He was all sharp edges and harsh lines when he was awake. But the moment he’d fallen asleep, so sweetly, that changed.Slow and steady, he’d leaned more and more against me, tipping into me with each warm puff of his breath, his walls eradicated.

I’d been scared to move.

Terrified I’d wake him when he so clearly needed the rest.In a way, he reminded me of a sculpture I’d seen at a gallery in New York. Immortalized in glass, a crushed flower petal had sat on display for the world to ogle. It had been delicate once. Before its destruction had been celebrated. Perfect from a distance, in the way only the truly manufactured can be, but when you moved in close, its history became evident.

When he was asleep, he was vulnerable. Walls down, armor gone. Like he was an entirely different person than the man who had sat stiffly beside me, his head down, like he was afraid of being seen. Like the glass had melted away, and the petal was bare once again, bruised edges on display.

Truth be told, I’d had a lot of time to stare.

Eight hours.

Eight hours to admire the way Trashmouth’s hands were a little large for his frame. Eight hours to admire the veins that danced atop them. The broad swell of his knuckles. His chipped black nail polish—fresh still, like he’d painted them right before the flight and somehow chipped them anyway.

The moles on his throat, the insides of his wrists.

And the freckles that scattered across the bridge of his nose.

I’d never seenthosein photographs.

Maybe he wore makeup to cover them? Or maybe they were photoshopped out. Treated like imperfections when they were anything but. The little flaws that the magazines edited away were the things that made him devastatingly perfect.

And…in a way, that perfection made himterrifying.

Because he made my pulse thrum like it never had before. He made my belly fill with butterflies. He made my palms slick withsweat. Made me want to pull him to my chest, tuck a blanket around him, and let him take a nice long nap.

He certainly looked like he needed it.

He must’ve beenexhaustedto fall asleep on a stranger’s shoulder.

What if I’d been a creep?

Something protective flickered inside my belly at the thought.

I wasn’t sure if I should be offended or grateful that my book had put him right to sleep.

I’d been prepared to walk away the moment he escaped off the plane, running as far and as fast from me as he could. I’d been prepared to write off my feelings as a passing crush—but then…but then…The nail in the coffin had been the way he’d talked to that damn kid.

I’d seen him.

And while Trashmouth hadn’t looked comfortable in the slightest, there was no denying howcarefulhe’d been when he encouraged the child. He’d been rudely stopped while out in the wild—which had to be annoying, my god—and yet…he’d still been sogentlewith him.

Just like when I’d seen him enter the plane I’d frozen, unable to look away. Unable to get my feet to move. Unable to follow the plan that I’d made—to let this be an odd chance encounter, and leave it at that.

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