Page 1 of Only in Your Dreams

Prologue

Melody, Ten Years Ago

“Ihave something for you.”

I snap shut my bedroom door. Then pause to listen for sounds of my parents coming to inquire why their daughter felt the need to sneak into the house, home early from a fully sanctioned final hurrah with her classmates the night before she leaves for college.

As it happens, that reason stands just feet away from me in the form of a tall, eighteen-year-old boy.

I give it a second before flicking on the overhead light. Even without it, I know I’ll find his chin dipped to get a proper look at me, sending dark hair spilling onto his forehead. I know that eyes the color of molten caramel will be on me, conveying their amusement.

“Whatever happened to theno boys in the bedrooms rule?”

I was right: his face is screwed up, a touch confused but amused as hell, wondering why I brought him up here.

I don’t blame him.

In the four years since we’ve known each other, Zac and I have rarely found ourselves alone. Unless you count those few minutes in the boys’ locker room at school before a game, but that ritual went away months ago with the end of the football season.

I’ve been third-wheeling with Zac and my twin brother Parker since the first time he trailed into our parents’ house after practice, all quiet and lanky. Polite. New in town. At fourteen, Zac was already offering to help Mom set the table for dinner. When Dad went to drop him off at home later that night, Mom praised Parker for bringing home such a nice boy, who’d clearly been raised right by his parents.

Days later, we found out he was being raised right by his grandmother. Weeks later, we found out he wasn’t so quiet once he got used to new people. Months later, he was the perfect middle ground between the Woods twins—the right balance between my relentless sarcasm and Parker’s sunny smiles.

“It’s still a rule. But you’re you,” I tell him. He follows me into my room and plops down on the end of the bed with me. An imposing figure, just like I always imagined he’d be, if I ever got him in bed.

Not that I ever could.

“Elaborate on that for me, will you?”

“You know.” I shrug. “You grew up with us. You’re… basically a brother.”

Zac’s eyes sweep my bedroom, a space he’s only ever glanced from the hallway. “Trust me, Melody. I’m not a brother.”

“Parker’s brother,” I amend quickly. God, I’m an idiot. He and I are barely friends, and I go calling him my brother? “You grew up here, with him. What I mean is, you hardly count as a guest. This is totally fine.”

Zac arches an eyebrow, reaching behind him for the mini foam football sitting on my bed. “So why did you sneak me in through the back door?”

“I felt like taking the scenic route in.”

His mouth twitches. “And why are we whispering?”

“So that the guy I keep hidden in my closet doesn’t hear you and get jealous.”

Zac laughs. The warm, deep sound that’s been rewarding my snark for the past four years. He’d been one of the rare people in high school who hadn’t immediately confused my dry humor with snobbery. Even my best friend Summer confessed it had taken her a while to get me.

“It’ll be weird not having you around, Clover,” he says with a sigh. “You think you’d ever move back here? After school, maybe?”

I eye Zac in my peripheral vision, refusing to look at him on the off chance the rush of warmth coursing through me has deepened my flush. He’s called meClovermore than a thousand times in those precious few minutes we spend alone, but the way he says it tonight feels… different.

Quiet, intimate.

Like he can see into my brain and knows exactly how bad I need to hear that he’ll think about me while I’m away. At least for a little while.

“Maybe,” I tell him. “But Oakwood Bay is all I know. I’ve always liked the idea of moving to the city.” When Zac only nods, I release a long breath. “Who knows, maybe I’ll be in both places one day. A city apartment, and a big stone house on the bay here.”

He looks around curiously. “A big stone house?”

I nod at my desk, where sits the large vision board we’d been tasked with putting together as a senior year project. “With a wrap-around porch. A yellow front door, maybe a cute porch swing, and a patch of daisies. Or… you know. Something less cheesy.” I rise, tucking my hands into the back pockets of my jeans. “Anyway, I wanted to give you a going away present.”

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