Page 24 of Only in Your Dreams

“Please don’t interrupt me. I’m trying to remind the universe that I am very much a good person. A good person who only recently realized she was being gaslit through a six-year relationship. I’ve earned some good karma, I’d say.”

“You’re better off without that jackass.”

She gives me a withering look. “And now I have to bear snide commentary on my relationship from the very last person who deserves to have an opinion on my personal life, my dating life, my life ingeneral—”

I slam the cooler shut. “The very last? You mean you’re ranking me worse than that piece of shit ex-boyfriend?”

“It’s my ranking system. So yes, right now, when I’m stuck in the middle of a torrential downpour with nothing but a flimsy tent for coverage, I’m ranking you worse.”

Little brat.

She scowls at me like she fucking hates me. But at least she’s talking to me now.

I move to sit next to her on the air mattress.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she asks sharply, throwing out an arm to block my path.

“It’s this concept called sitting—”

“Not here you’re not,” she says. She nods behind me. “The only way we’re surviving this is if we set clear boundaries. You have your side of the tent. I have mine.”

“You want me to sit on the ground while you hunker down on this air mattress that I blew up for you?”

“You blew it up for Parker, technically. Now,” she indicates the other end of the tent, “off you go.”

I blink. Melody waits until I’ve settled on my side, then reaches for the pile of stuff I grabbed from the other tent and bundles herself under the two extra sleeping bags.

“There. Nice and toasty warm.” She gives me a delicatefuck yousmile.

I sigh dramatically, settling into the ground on my side of the tent. “You know what? I’m starving. Absolutely famished.”

I flip open the cooler beside me and pull out one of Brooks’s chocolate chip cookies, almost downing it in one bite. She looks so immediately sour I have to work real fucking hard to suppress a laugh.

“What? You don’t… oh. You don’t happen to be hungry, do you? I’d pass you a cookie if I were allowed on that side of the tent. He bakes them dairy-free for Parker, too. But I don’t make the rules around here.”

“At least you’ve got something right,” she mutters, laying back onto the mattress. She stares at the roof of the tent, watching the rain pummel the fabric. “I can’t believe this is actually happening. I told Parker coming here was a bad idea.”

“Bad idea why?”

“You know why, Zac. In the long list of things I’d rather be doing with my time, hanging out with you doesn’t even crack the top one hundred.”

I slip into Summer’s sleeping bag. The fabric is damp and I notice water starting to seep through the corner seam of the tent. Surreptitiously, I kick my foot out to soak up the moisture with the end of the sleeping bag before Mel notices and it sets her off again.

At least she’ll be safe up on her air mattress. And if she wants to put me in my place after the way I fucked up with her, then I’m going to sit here and take it like a good boy. Tail firmly between my legs.

I deserve it, and you won’t hear me say otherwise. It’s not my choice whether she lets it go or not.

But man, this fucking sucks.

“Can we talk about it yet?” I say quietly.

Mel takes a long breath. “Does your explanation involve a terrible accident where you woke up from a ten-year coma this morning?”

I shake my head, and she fists her sleeping bag. It’s clear that regardless of how she feels about me, she still held out hope there was a perfectly reasonable, forgivable excuse for what I did. It makes me loathe myself more.

“Then no, we can’t talk about it. I don’t have the stomach to hear it without having the space to lick my wounds without you around.”

“Fair,” I say. “But for the record, Mel? I haven’t stopped being sorry. I’d do anything to get us back to what we were that night.”

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