by B. N. Toler
The image of him holding the baby from my dream had plagued me all day, but I pushed it aside because I couldn’t make any sense out of it. I approached Thomas slowly, like a clay humanoid, praying for my feet not to fail me and send me face first into the pavement, when he smiled. So much for controlling my heart beat. My chest felt as if it would combust from the drum solo my heart rolled into. Thomas’s smile widened and my face turned a shade of red the devil would envy.
“You came?”
“You invited me,” I replied coolly, forcing my pulse to follow suit.
We were seated promptly and our server brought us chips with salsa, and we both ordered water.
“So, that freaked you out last night, huh?” He leaned in towards me, dipping his chip into the salsa.
“Which part? The part where you tried to suck the life out of me—or where you invaded my dream?”
“Well, both.” He twisted his mouth as if taken aback by my response.
“I was surprised to say the least.” I nodded.
“So you can get information out of people by touching them?” He lowered his voice.
“Wow. Right to the point, aren’t you?”
“I wasn’t aware there’s a proper accord to this type of situation,” he stated dryly.
I ignored him and answered his question. Lucy always told me, sometimes you have to give to get; another Lucy Lawson ode of wisdom. Maybe if I opened up, he would, too.
“I can’t pick the information I get. Usually it’s a bunch of random nonsense, and whatever I have obtained, I can’t find out until I sleep.”
“Fascinating.” He nodded with a thoughtful expression.
When he didn’t offer anything in return I worried maybe I gave too much.
“So you thought you brought me there?”
I shifted in my seat, his question striking a nerve. “Well, I’ll usually pick someone to help me organize thoughts or ideas, to figure out the information.”
“And you thought you picked me?”
I swallowed hard. It would have been unusual for me to use him in my dream, but I figured my subconscious was telling me I was attracted to him, not that I wanted him to know that.
“Well, you were the person from whom I drew information.” I tried to play it off, taking a sip of my water.
“Right.” He smiled, shifting his eyes to the side and back to me.
“What?”
“You like me,” he stated with confidence, shrugging one shoulder, lost in his ego.
“I don’t even know you,” I replied, appalled.
“I know, but it’s true.” His grin widened and his eyes shined. His smile captivated me and all of the air in my body escaped in one strong whoosh. I quickly slapped myself within and regained my composure.
“Wow, you have some gall,” I snickered, trying to protect my pride.
“Come on, you think I’m cute.”
Cute? Cute was for describing puppies and baby’s bellybuttons. Cute didn’t describe Thomas Watson. There weren’t enough synonyms to describe him, but dazzling, knockout, and exquisite, were a few that came to mind. I truly thought he was the most gorgeous person I had ever laid eyes on, but hell if I’d let him know that. “Oh, you got a little something on your shirt there.” I pointed to his chest.
“Where?” He tugged his shirt down.
“Oh, my bad. I thought I saw a bit of salsa on your shirt.” I shrugged, acting casual. “Must’ve just been your ego.”
He did one of those nasal laughs as he rolled his eyes. “You do think I’m good looking though,” he teased back.
“Not as hot as your brother,” I reciprocated.
“Ouch.” He laughed, placing his hand on his chest as if wounded. “So I’m hot, but not as hot as my brother?”
“You’re not the ugliest guy I’ve ever seen.” I rolled my eyes and forced a serious expression. We both looked at each other in another one of those stare downs where we both refused to break first, but then we both busted with laughter simultaneously.
“So, do you normally invade other people’s dreams?”
“I do when I want to find out information.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything.” He quirked a brow.
“Touché.” I realized he was quoting me from my dream the night before.
I needed to be cautious with Thomas, but being with him felt easy and natural. I couldn’t fight the urge to open up to him, which I had never done with anyone outside of my family. “So, how did you learn to dream walk?”
“It’s kind of dumb, really. My bother Lucas had taken this baseball I had autographed by Sammy Sosa.” He paused. My lack of a reaction must have told him I had no idea who that was because he added, “He’s a famous baseball player.”
“I gathered that, given it was an autographed baseball.”
“Oh yeah,” he laughed. “He hid it and wouldn’t tell me where it was. This was my prized possession, ya know. We didn’t have much.” His expression shifted for a brief moment, as if those words reflected a memory he didn’t care for, but he continued. “So he was napping one day, and I thought, If only I could get in his head. So, I sat beside him, closed my eyes and concentrated really hard.
“Suddenly, I was in a different world. Lucas was there, and he spoke to me like I belonged there. You see, I can show up in a dream, and it doesn’t send up flags. People don’t even realize what’s happening. They think I’m just part of the play their subconscious is performing. I asked him where the ball was, and he took me right to it in his dream. He hid it in my Dad’s snow boot in his closet.”
“Wow. That must have been crazy for you.” I smiled amazed.
“Yeah.” He took a sip of his water. “I had to learn how to exit a dream though. That was the tough part. When I enter another person’s dream, my mind locks with theirs. It’s like a special combination to unlock them.”
“Can you transform yourself in a person’s dream?”
“No. I’ve tried, but never could. It’s always what you see right here.” He shifted his hands.
“So it’s always a scary dream,” I jested.
The longer I spent with Thomas the more at home I felt with him. We talked about places we had been and how we had never met anyone outside of our families who could heal. He shared how his mother had also died giving birth to his brother Lucas and he never knew his father. It was unreal to meet someone who was dealing with the exact same thing I was. He told me he was raised by friends of his mother’s, who were also healers. These were the people he called Mom and Dad.
As he spoke, I memorized every freckle visible to me, the way the corner of his eyes slightly creased when he smiled, and the veins that ran down his exceedingly chiseled arms. I wished I could see the part of his tattoo hidden by the sleeve of his shirt.
“How old are you?” I interrupted him.
“Twenty-five,” he confessed. My jaw nearly hit the table. He was eight years older than me? I never would have thought he was that old. Lucy would have an aneurism when she found out. Good thing I could heal her if she did. Calm down. You aren’t dating him. You just met. I knew deep down when she found out about Thomas, she would want to move.
“How old are you?” Thomas interrupted my train of thought.
I hesitated a moment. If he knew I was seventeen, he would never speak to me again.
Should I lie?
“I’m seventeen,” I answered with defeat. The truth was all I had.
He didn’t react as I thought he would. He made a thoughtful expression shifting his eyes, as if quickly assessing the risk, and then shrugged it off.
“Just a kid,” he smiled, leaning back seeming somewhat disappointed. My heart sank like the Titanic with his words.
“Is that what you see?” I looked him directly in the eyes.
The corners of his mouth curved slightly. “I see a lot of things.”
I didn’t respond, hoping he would elaborate.
“Whe
n is your birthday, Aldo?” he asked quietly as he leaned in, placing his forearms on the table.
“November eighth.” Which was only a month away.
He nodded. “Ah, to be so young.”
I didn’t respond. I felt like a dork. Obviously, he saw me as some kid with a crush and probably wouldn’t see me again. My inner self keeled over at the thought.
He shifted awkwardly in his seat.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Tell me.”
“Well, don’t get weird, but I can kind of sense emotions.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean strong emotions or sensations like happiness, anger, or desire.” He sat back and shifted his eyes, avoiding contact with mine.
I swallowed hard. “Okay, what does that have to do with anything?” I tried to look as clueless as possible.
“Well, I just thought I felt something off you.”
I could have crawled under the table and died. I had practically been licking his body in my mind, and he sensed every bit of it. I wanted to grab my inner self and sucker punch her in the face for her lack of control. He knew what you were thinking, you twit! I pulled my long hair to the side and sat back.
“How wonderful for you.” I glared at him.
“Now I’m sensing anger,” he teased. “I liked what I was getting off you before.”
“I have to go.” I slid to the end of the booth and stood, but he grabbed my arm.
“Wait. What’d I do?”
“So I find you attractive. Do you think embarrassing me is really necessary? That it’s funny to mess with the little girl?” I might have taken that too far, but I felt like a little girl about to throw a temper tantrum because I couldn’t have the shiny new toy I wanted.
His scent intoxicated me as I waited for his response. My inner self lifted her face from her hands where she’d been sobbing after the beat down I had given her, to inhale his delicious scent. God he smelled good.
He smiled and shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. I’m a man” He shrugged. “You’re a gorgeous, young girl who seems to like me, for some reason unbeknownst to me. I acted poorly.”
“That’s quite the confession,” I mocked.
“I speak the truth.” He shrugged.
“Liking you and finding you attractive are not the same thing, Thomas.”
“I was just being honest, Aldo. Should I have hidden it?” His hand remained on my arm, even though I wasn’t giving him much of a fight. Tiny vibrations pulsed from his hand. Was he controlling them, or was it a natural reaction to our touching one another?
Truly, he could have grabbed me and tongue thrashed me at that moment and I would have loved it. However, I heard somewhere hard to get was what men like, so all I could do was pretend to be angry to hide my embarrassment. Of course, in my extremely limited experience, I didn’t know men hate drama. I looked away, trying to appear miffed. Yeah, I was clueless.
“Don’t they say relationships need to start with honesty?” he asked, releasing his hold on my arm.
“Relationship?” My heart wrenched with hope.
He smiled slightly. “Friendship.”
I liked the way relationship sounded better, but didn’t dare make that point. I also reminded myself to stop being such a love sick teen. I just met this guy.
“I’d like to see you again.” He smiled and his voice seemed sincere.
Heat flamed my face. I was out of my league and knew I had already made myself appear to be an irrational teen. Lucy wouldn’t want me to see him. My inner self proceeded to lie down on the ground screaming and kicking her feet at the notion I shouldn’t see him again. In my brilliance, I dug deep and found a perfect line to exit on.
“Maybe in my dreams.” I smiled and turned to walk away. I know how corny that was, but in my defense, I was seventeen.
When I got home that night, Whit waited on the front porch in nothing, but his tennis shoes and basketball shorts. I rolled my eyes.
“Somebody’s in trouble,” he mocked as he pulled his shoulder-length hair back into a ponytail.
“For what?” I asked panicked.
“Looks like you already know.” He laughed. He must have felt my energy surge when my heart beat accelerated. Judging by the ridiculous dopey smirk on his face, I could see he was enjoying the idea that I was in trouble. “Lucy got a phone call from the Shively police department today. Officer Malkin, wanted to check and see how you were after you fainted yesterday.”
Officer Malkin, the tall female officer that questioned me. “Great.” I mumbled under my breath.
As I entered the house, I mentally prepared myself for what would be no less than a nuclear meltdown.
Inside, Lucy waited, just as Whit had warned me. I decided to be honest about everything.
Well, mostly everything.
Well maybe only about twenty percent of the truth.
“You revealed yourself, Aldo. You’ve put us all in danger.”
“It wasn’t intentional, Lucy.”
Then the loaded question came. “How old is he?” She crossed her arms over her chest and her glasses slid halfway down her nose.
“Older than me.” I shrugged. In the short life I had lived up until this point, playing dumb had worked maybe two times out of a million, but that didn’t stop me from trying.
“How old, Aldo?” She stood like a statue, her voice stern.
“Twenty-five.” I tried to say it as if I had no clue she would find it upsetting.
“Are you kidding me?” She threw her thin arms in the air like I had just told her I was pregnant. “We need to move.”
“No, we don’t!” My voice boomed.
She turned and stared at me surprised, her eyes wide. “You are not seeing this man.” She picked up her coffee mug and huffed into the kitchen. Lucy and I never fought, mostly because I did whatever she told me to. To defy her felt like the cruelest thing I could do because, she had taken us in and protected us after our mother died giving birth to us. Lucy said our father bailed as soon as he found out our mother was pregnant. Lucy was all we had and she took us in, unselfishly and wholeheartedly. But I would see Thomas again… as long as he took my playful banter about seeing me in my dreams seriously, and she couldn’t stop me.
“What man?” Whit walked into the living room from the hall, where he had been eaves dropping, no doubt.
“No one.” I rolled my eyes. Why did he always have to interrupt?
“Lucy,” I called, as I made my way into the kitchen.
“My answer is no, Aldo.”
Whit followed, continuing to be his usual nosey self, and of course Hudson appeared behind him seconds later.
“Lucy, I didn’t ask you if I could see him.” I responded calmly, doing my best to ignore their presence.
She leaned against the sink, using her hands to balance. “I’m sorry. I assumed you wanted to date this man.” The hard lines of her face relaxed as she smiled relieved.
“No, you assumed right.”
The hard lines instantly returned, and she pushed her glasses higher on the bridge of her nose.
I felt a lump the size of Texas rise into my throat. I had never defied Lucy or challenged her in any way.
Hudson and Whit shot a quick look at each other, their eyes wide. Anticipation crackled in the air. Given my defiance, anything short of a global crisis was about to happen.
“Aldo, he is too old for you.” She scolded, like a mother would speak to her child, telling them how silly they are.
“Under normal circumstances you would be right—”
“Under any circumstance, I am right!” She made a condescending laugh.
“I’m not normal.”
“That’s for sure.” Whit added one of his usual unwelcomed, sarcastic remarks.
“What are you? Ten?” I shot glare at him. “None of us are normal. I found someone like me and I want to know him. He’s just a friend. I’m not datin
g him. Do you guys mind?” I turned to my brothers who remained engrossed in our conversation.
“Like we wouldn’t find out anyway, Aldo,” Hudson snorted.
“Quit being such a spaz,” Whit followed. I groaned becoming more frustrated with their presence.
“Aldo, there are boys your age—”
I interrupted her. “Not like him. Not who know what it’s like to move around, afraid of being found by vampires, and knowing your purpose in life is to give, give, give.” I started to tear up, but held back as my brothers would surely have teased me. “Besides, we’re only friends,” I reiterated again, disappointed at the truth of it.
“What did you say?” Whit asked.
“What?” I tried to remember my babbling.
“Did you say vampires?” Whit’s dark eyes stared at me with bewilderment.
Lucy shot me a look, and I knew it was her way of saying, Way to go dipshit.
“Did Thomas tell you this?” She removed her glasses and wiped the lens with her shirt. “Did he tell you that?” she asked again as she placed her glasses back on.
“Well, yes. I mean, no. I figured it out in my dreams. He never actually said it.”
“Did you tell him about your dreams?” Her stare told me I’d be in big trouble if I answered yes.
“No.” I made a point to control my heartbeat. Lucy forbade me to tell anyone about my gift to absorb information.
“His name is Thomas?” Hudson asked from the kitchen doorway with a look of confusion on his face. Leave it to Hudson to completely miss the atomic bomb I just dropped about vampires and focus on the random, insignificant part.
“What did you see?” Lucy whispered, stepping towards me.
“Why are you whispering, Lucy?” Whit whispered mockingly. “Everyone is in here.”
Lucy rolled her eyes at him.
“A vampire drinking blood from a woman.” I left out the part about Thomas holding the baby because it still didn’t make any sense, and she already didn’t want me seeing him. That would freak her out even more.
Lucy huffed and stormed out of the kitchen.
