Rachel Vincent - Before I Wake

I couldn’t help but notice my father’s look of surprise. And respect. And a tiny ray of hope shined through the clouds thick on my emotional horizon. I wanted my dad to love Tod as much as I did. Just not in the same way.

“Okay?” Tod said, and I nodded. Letting go of the pain would be much harder than embracing the anger, but he was right. Avari didn’t deserve even a taste of my grief over Alec.

I took another tissue and wiped my face, and my father looked at Tod, fresh worry twisting in his irises. “How much trouble are we looking at from the police?”

“None, hopefully.” Tod met my dad’s gaze boldly. “I took care of it. They’ll never know she was there.”

“Thank you.”

I tossed both tissues in the trash and glanced at the time on my alarm clock. It was after midnight. “You’re late for work,” I said, and Tod shrugged.

“Levi’s taking this shift for me, to give me a break.”

I had no words to express my relief. I didn’t want to be awake all night, alone, even for the few hours Sabine would actually sleep. “Will you stay?” I turned to my dad. “Can he stay the night? Please? We’ll leave the door open, I swear.”

My dad actually chuckled. “Considering everything that’s conspired to take my little girl away from me in the past few weeks, I have to admit I’m thankful that you’d actually ask for permission. Of course he can stay. But I’m going to hold you to that open-door promise.” He was looking at Tod then, not me.

Tod nodded.

A few minutes later, I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and froze in surprise when I heard my dad and Tod talking in the hall. Curious, I pressed my ear against the crack between the door and its frame, careful not to let the wood creak.

“I hate it when she cries,” my father said, his voice low and soft, and difficult to hear.

“Me, too,” Tod said. “Nothing makes me feel more helpless. I’d kill anyone who tries to hurt her, but I can’t save her from herself.”

“You’d kill for her?” My father’s voice was still. Deliberate. This was a test, and I didn’t know the right answer. But Tod didn’t hesitate.

“In a heartbeat.” There was a moment of silence, and I peered through the crack, desperately trying to see them, but I couldn’t even see their shadows. “Mr. Cavanaugh, I know this isn’t the future you wanted for Kaylee, and I know I’m not who you wanted for her. And I’m not even going to pretend to think I’m good enough—I know I’ve made mistakes, and I’m probably going to make more. But I love her with every single cell in my body. She’s the reason my heart beats—literally. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her. There’s no one I’d put ahead of her. And I will never, ever leave her, as long as she wants me. Kaylee’s the strongest person I’ve ever met. She can make it through eternity on her own. But I swear on my soul that as long as I’m here, she’ll never have to.”

Fresh tears filled my eyes, and my heart ached like it no longer fit inside my chest. I wanted to throw open the door and tell him I felt the same way. Exactly the same. But those words weren’t meant for my ears. He was talking to my dad, and as hard as it was to respect his intent instead of rushing into the hall to kiss him harder and longer than he’d ever been kissed, in either his life or his afterlife, I took a deep breath instead.

But I wasn’t noble enough to stop eavesdropping.

“Tod…” my dad began, and my breath caught in my throat. Please don’t ruin it, Dad… .

“I don’t need your acceptance to be with her,” Tod said, like he’d read my mind. “She wants me, and that’s enough for me. But if you don’t disapprove of the two of us together, it would be really nice to hear that someday.”

My dad cleared his throat. “The world lost something when you died, Tod, and I know that wasn’t easy for your family. But the world’s loss was Kaylee’s gain. I hope the two of you have the forever her mother and I never got.”

“I will do my damnedest to make sure of that.”

“I know you will.”

My tears spilled over, and when I sniffled, the sudden silence from the hall made my heart jump. I turned on the faucet to hide my sniffles and remind them that I was only a door away. Then I finished brushing, and when I emerged from the bathroom, the hall was empty and my dad’s bedroom door was closed.

Tod was in my desk chair when I shuffled into my room in my Grinch slippers. “How much of that did you hear?”

“Enough. You were cute.”

He scowled. “I am not cute. I am the dreaded Grim Reaper. People fear me, you know. There’s a whole song about it.”

“Only because they don’t know about the dimples. People don’t fear a man with dimples.”

“Levi’s a nine-year-old with red hair and freckles, and you’d have to be crazy not to fear him.”

“I have been called crazy a few times.”

“Seriously. What did you hear?”

I turned and gave him a secretive smile. “I heard you ask my dad for his blessing to be with me, in your own way.”

Tod covered his embarrassment with a heated glance at the tank top and shorts I slept in. Back when I used to sleep. “You should have heard the things I didn’t ask his blessing for… .”

“What things would those be?”

“Things we’re not allowed to do under his roof.” He stood and I let him pull me close, and little sparks shot through my stomach, like they had the very first time we’d kissed, and I hoped that it would always be like this. That every time either of us lost something or someone, we’d still have each other, and that would be enough to make forever worth shooting for.

“Is that why you got a roof of your own?” I teased, watching the lazy swirls of contentment in his eyes, and beneath those, the tighter, faster coils of blue that said how badly he wanted me, in every possible sense of the word.

“Well, that, and so I’d have somewhere safe to plug in my cell phone. Someone turned it in to the lost-and-found at the hospital last week.”

“Mr. Hudson, if you can’t keep up with your own cell phone, how is my father supposed to trust you not to lose his only daughter?”

“Are you suggesting I clip you to my waistband, like a phone?”

“I don’t think I’d fit.”

“Let’s give it a try.” He lifted me, and I wrapped my legs around him, glad no one else could hear us, because we needed this. This one moment of happiness in the midst of so much pain and fear. “Feels like a good fit to me,” he said, and the heat in his eyes made me burn inside, all over, but instead of putting out the fires, I wanted to stoke the flames.

I kissed him, feeding from his mouth as he walked us toward the bed, and I knew in that moment that I would never need another sustenance. Tod was more than enough, and he was all I wanted. And I wanted all of him.

He lowered me to the bed, and my heart raced, and only when he stood to pull his shirt off did I realize we were no longer in my room. Or anywhere else in my house. I propped myself up on my elbows and lifted both brows in question, and Tod shrugged with a wicked smile. “I respect your dad too much to do this under his roof, but I love you too much not to continue this under my own.”

“We promised not to…” I started, but then he crawled onto the bed with me and I ran my hands over his stomach. I couldn’t help it.

“ You promised. I never promised. Besides, I told him I’d probably make more mistakes. But my hands are in the right place.”

“Heart,” I corrected. “Your heart’s in the right place.”

“Yeah, but my hands are in an even better place.”

And so they were.