Dani

I sat up in my bed with sweat rolling down my back.

What the hell.

My curtains swayed, cinnamon lingering faintly in the air. I scanned the room. Trevon’s baseball cap was still lying on my dresser. Mom’s necklace was still resting around my neck peacefully. There was no sign of Eros.

I rested my head against the headboard and closed my eyes. Of course, he wasn’t here. It was just a dream, Dani, just a dream.

A damn sex dream.

About the hot guy next door.

While I was sleeping next to my boyfriend.

Oh, God. I was going to Hell for this, wasn’t I? I’d burn in the pits of lava and get eaten alive by flesh-eating demons and—

“Babe?” Trevon groaned. He rubbed a hand across his face and slowly opened his eyes. The faint scent of alcohol still lingered on his breath. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything is fine.” No, it wasn’t.

After chuckling lightly, he rolled over onto his side and wrapped an arm around my waist. “Good, now come lie back down. We still got a few hours—” He stopped suddenly and rubbed my waist, fingers slipping lower than I wanted them. “Damn, babe, sleeping with no underwear on? If you want to fuck, you just have to ask. Don’t need to be teasing me and shit.”

I swallowed hard and pushed a hand under the blankets. No underwear? Why wasn’t I wearing any underwear? Maybe I slipped them off while I was sleeping. It was hot last night, deathly hot, scorching hot.

Trevon nuzzled his head into my neck. “Come on, let’s have some fun. You already got me excited.”

“I’m… uh… not in the mood,” I said. I scurried out of the bed and rushed toward my bedroom door. “I’m going to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.”

Dull light flooded in from the living room window, illuminating the apartment. I glanced down the hall and into the foyer. Empty. Maria’s door was closed, like usual. Nothing was out of place.

When I reached the bathroom, I leaned over the counter and gazed at myself in the mirror. The dream felt so real, so damn real. But I couldn’t understand why I was dreaming of Eros. I had a perfectly good man—no, a great man. One that cradled me every time I woke up from a nightmare about the night of Mom’s death. One that used to take me on breakfast dates to Ollie’s every Saturday morning. One that I had loved for five whole years.

And, here I was, dreaming about my undeniably sexy neighbor.

I turned on the sink, the soothing sound of water calming me slightly, and splashed some on my face. In the mirror, I watched beads of water run down the sides of my cheek, the dark purple circles under my eyes. 

You will not think of Eros, again.

You will not think of Eros, again.

You will not—
eyes widened. There were red fingerprints on my hips, four on each side. I rubbed my fingers against them, trying to make them go away but only making them redder. I swallowed hard—thinking the worst—then shook my head.

Damn, what was I even thinking anymore? These fingerprints were probably just from Trevon holding me. Why was I so paranoid all of a sudden? Next, I’ll be thinking Eros was actually in my room last night.

But that would be ridiculous.

~~~

Sorry, babe. Work called. I would have woken you up, but you looked too peaceful to bother. I’m taking you out tonight. Be ready at 5. Love, Trevon.

I grasped Trevon’s note in my hand, smiled, and walked into Dr. Uriel’s office. After getting back to bed last night, I actually had a good sleep and woke up five minutes before my alarm feeling well rested.

“Morning, Dani,” Dr. Uriel said from her royal blue sofa. She handed me a file and a cup of tea. “This is my 9:30 client. She had an absent father and is struggling with feelings toward a new lov—” Her dark brown brows furrowed together. “Are you okay?” she asked suddenly as I took a seat across from her. “You’re quiet this morning. Anything you want to talk about?”

She crossed one leg over the other and leaned forward, the way she did when listening to all of her clients’ problems. I shifted in my seat. If I knew anything from the last five months of interning under Dr. Uriel, it was not to tell her anything that I didn’t want her to pester me about.

I made that mistake once when I told her that I still had nightmares about the piercing red eyes of Mom’s killer. She was hung up over it for weeks, telling me that I should talk to someone—meaning her—because suppressed feelings were nobody’s friend.

“I’m fi—”

“And don’t tell me you’re fine either. You know I see right through that,” she said.

If I closed my eyes and imagined hard enough, I could hear Mom in her voice. When she sat me on her knee at five years old and asked me what happened in pre-school one day, when she waited so patiently for me to tell her that the boy I liked was pushing another girl on the swings, when she gazed down at me with her pretty light blue eyes—so light that they looked like they were glowing—and said that it was okay not to be fine.

Instead of reminiscing, I gazed out the window and sighed.

From Dr. Uriel’s office, I had a whole view of the city. The morning sun gleaming off of the river next to us, hundreds of people brushing past each other on the sidewalks, red and blue buses picking up riders. I leaned against the back of the couch. “I just haven’t been getting much sleep. A few guys moved in next door and they were over all day Sunday.”

“Tell me about these new guys,” Dr. Uriel said, clasping her hands together. “Are they loud?”

I moved Mom’s pendant between my fingers, listening to it glide against the chain. Dr. Uriel eyed it. “No,” I said.

“Are they over a lot?”

“Yes.”

“What are their names?”

“Javier and Zane,” I said. She sipped her tea, waiting for me to continue. “And Eros.”

She paused for a long moment, gazing out of the glass windows. “Eros,” she said softly. “Is he the reason that you’re not sleeping?”

Damn. Was it that obvious?

When I didn’t say anything, she frowned. “Dani, I will tell you what I tell all of my clients. Whatever you’re feeling toward him—”

“I feel nothing toward him.”

She raised a sharp brow, and I pressed my lips together. “What you feel toward him is nothing compared to your relationship with Trevon, right?”

I closed my eyes when Eros’s black one flashed in my mind and nodded. “I know.” 

Leaning toward me, she readjusted her black blazer and placed a hand on my knee. “Those feelings—those lustful feelings—are nothing compared to feelings of absolute love. They will pass, and so will he.”