Page 138 of Golden Eagle

And, really, it was.

They sat in easy silence after that, until the dream slowly faded, a snowfall that blotted out everything, white, white, white, and then his eyes were fluttering open and it was just after dawn, silvery light filtering through the blinds on the bedroom window.

They’d slept beside one another last night, both of them tense and unhappy. They’d started out back-to-back. Was this what couples did? Was this like sitcom characters going to bed angry? But he hadn’t felt angry so much as tired; quietly devastated.

They’d turned toward each other in their sleep. When Sasha opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was Nik’s face mashed into the pillow, his dark hair wild from tossing around in the night. There was a groove between his brows – tense even in sleep – and Sasha knew the urge to reach out and smooth that line away with his thumb.

He tucked his hands beneath the pillow instead.

The light had shifted when Nikita finally took a deep breath and stirred. He made a face as his eyes cracked open, a little grimace that Sasha found terribly cute. He blinked a few times, stretched, and then settled, eyes open and clear on Sasha’s face, the gray-blue of faded denim in the early light.

They regarded one another for long moments, not tense, exactly, but Sasha could feel the weight of things thought and not voiced. He put a hand on the mattress between them, and Nikita covered it with his own.

Whatever’s wrong,that touch said,we’ll get past it.

It eased the tightness in his chest. “Val came to visit me in my dream,” he said, softly, barely making any sound.

Nikita swallowed. “I thought he might.”

“I’m going to go have brunch with them.”

“I thought that, too,” Nikita whispered, and squeezed his hand.

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