Page 62 of Into the Shadows

“You should lie back down,” I implore.

She doesn’t even glance at me. “Only if you do.”

Stubborn woman.I add coffee grounds to the filter instead of arguing with her. She’ll do what she wants as she always does. Unfortunately, it’s one of the things I love about her.

My hand freezes over theOnswitch.

I love her.

I’m in love with Lottie Jackson.

On some level, I’ve known that for a while; my brain just never let me dwell on it long enough to be certain.

“Did you fall asleep over there?” Lottie’s teasing brings me back to reality.

“Just stuck in my head. Usually happens after a nightmare.”

“You can talk about it with me if you want.”

I turn around. Lottie is sitting cross-legged on one of the chairs at the table. She’s leaning on one hand, her chin in her palm and her fingers curled against her cheek. Her other arm rests on the table, her hand flat against the surface. She looks so nonchalant that I almost believe she feels the same way. It makes me want to laugh. I don’t because she wouldn’t understand, but the feeling puts me at ease. She’s trying so hard to meet me where I’m at without pushing.

I’ve never opened up to anyone. Not even to the guys on my special ops team. With Lottie, the words are practicallypressing against my teeth, demanding to be let out. I guess if it was difficult to talk to her, I probably wouldn’t love her as much as I do.

I step toward Lottie, cataloging every one of her features, until I lift her chin with my thumb and forefinger. “I’ll tell you about it. But it’s not pretty, Lottie. Nothing about my life has been pretty. At least, until you came into it. I don’t want your pity. I don’t need to be coddled. What happened, happened, and I’ve moved forward.”

“I understand.” She tilts her head, indicating she wants a kiss. I oblige her, needing one more than she could ever know.

The coffee machine beeps, interrupting the moment. I grab down two mugs and, after doctoring Lottie’s how she likes, gesture with my head for Lottie to sit on the couch with me.

We drink in silence for a minute. I’m soaking up the feeling of having my girl tight against my body. I don’t want to return to my dreams, but talking about them out loud will help me shed the darkness slithering in my mind.

“My nightmares are normally centered around what happened on my last deployment. I only remember the moment leading up to the explosions. Then there’s this blank space until I woke up in the hospital. My dreams are usually some variation of that day. Most of the time, I’m watching my team die while I’m lying in a field across from them.”

“Do you think they’re real memories or your brain supplying images for what you don’t remember?”

“I don’t have a clue. Probably a combination of both, if I had to guess.”

“Is that what you were dreaming about tonight?”

I shake my head. “As weird as it sounds, I was sort of having a dream within a dream.”

“Ooooo. Inception,” Lottie jokes. She kisses my shoulder, and I appreciate the levity.

I take a sip of my coffee to give myself a second before I tell Lottie the rest. “I started off dreaming about my childhood. You already know my mom was an alcoholic. What I didn’t tell you is that she was also a prostitute. When I was really little, she would have the guys come to the house because she didn’t have anyone to watch me. Every few nights, she’d have a John come over. On those nights, she would hide me in the closet of our bedroom to keep me from seeing anything. The thing we never talked about was how much I could hear.”

I swallow the bile bubbling up my throat with a sip of coffee. The sound of my mom’s whimpers when the men were especially rough with her will haunt me until the day I die.

“When I was about ten, she started leaving the house at night. I was never sure if she was working or drinking. Likely both. I didn’t care either way, to be honest. I was just glad she wasn’t doing it in the house anymore.”

“What made you dream about her tonight?”

Taking a chance, I glance at Lottie. Her body is turned toward mine, her leg bent against the back of the couch, and her coffee cup resting on her knee. Her other hand rests on my forearm to keep our connection. The openness she shows me has me drowning in her gaze. There’s not a hint of judgment or pity. She’s merely listening to my story as if it’s anything else.

“I don’t know for sure. I think it might’ve been a combination of meeting Jackson and Thia and joining his company. Thia has a really shitty past, and she was open with me about what happened to her. She wanted me to know why she believes wholeheartedly in Jackson’s company. I appreciated the honesty, but it brought up my own demons. Normally, they’re locked away in my head, but not tonight. The weird part is that after dreaming about hiding in the closet again, I woke up on that field while my team screamed for help.”

“That explains why you were screaming for help.”

“I’m sorry you had to wake up like that.”

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