Before I Wake

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.

19

BY SOME MIRACLE, no one noticed us missing, and when we blinked back into my room an hour later, everyone else was sound asleep. So Tod and I borrowed some of my dad’s DVDs and we watched a Predators marathon on my laptop, curled up together on my bed.

In the morning, my dad made good on his threat to take the first shower, then he started frying bacon. I pitched in with the pancakes while Tod fried eggs, and the morning was off to a surreal start.

Em woke up at a quarter to eight and started to panic over the late hour. She’d woken up both Nash and Sophie before my dad could explain that no one had to go to school. Which was news to me, too.

“We’re taking the day off,” he announced from the kitchen doorway, wielding a greasy spatula and wearing the apron I’d given him for his birthday. “Since Avari showed up at school, I’m deeming the campus unsafe—at least for the moment.” He, Uncle Brendon, Harmony, and Madeline had called in sick for me, Sophie, Nash, and Luca. Then my dad had used his Influence over the phone to get the attendance secretary to write in medical absences for both Sabine and Emma.

“Today, we’re spending the day at the lake,” my father said. “All together, for safety in numbers, to make sure that what happened to Alec won’t happen to any of the rest of us.”

Tod’s hand slipped into my grip and squeezed. He was reminding me not to blame myself—not to let Avari benefit from what he’d done—but that was hard, because Avari hadn’t done it alone. I’d helped.

“Doesn’t that seem kind of…cold?” Em asked. “Taking a day off to go to the lake when Alec hasn’t even been buried yet?”

My father nodded and set his spatula on the counter. When he turned to face us again, I read confliction in his frown lines and determination in the smooth swirls of color in his eyes. “I know most of you are probably very upset over Alec’s death. As am I. That’s how I know that the temptation to mourn him is overwhelming, and that’s normal.”

“I never even met him,” Sophie mumbled, and Sabine shoved her in the shoulder, a wordless warning to shut the hell up and respect the dead.

“But today should be about celebrating his life and remembering what he meant to those of us who knew him. That’s what he’d want, and that’s exactly what Avari and his hellion pals will not want, and this is a really good chance to piss them off.” My father glanced at me then, and I was surprised to see a hint of a smile haunting the corners of his mouth. “Also, today is Kaylee’s birthday.”

“Oh, shit!” I said, and my dad frowned at me. Seventeen and dead, and I still wasn’t allowed to cuss in front of him. “I forgot about my birthday.” Again.

“Well, I didn’t. I rented one of the picnic areas at the lake. Harmony’s going to meet us there at eleven with burgers and hot dogs, cupcakes, and enough brownies to exhaust the world’s supply of cocoa powder for a month. We’re bringing chips, soda, buns, and this very spatula.” He picked up the spatula on the counter for emphasis. “So, everybody get up, deflate your air mattresses and roll up your sleeping bags, take showers—one at a time, please—and get dressed. Food’s on the bar. Serve yourselves.”

“Can I invite Jayson?” Emma asked, and my father glanced at me, deferring to my judgment. Because it was my party. Evidently.

I shrugged. “Sure.” There’d be plenty of room at the lake to avoid the one human who wasn’t supposed to hear about the basket of crazy trauma my life had become.

While Sabine, Em, and Sophie argued over bathroom access, Tod snagged a slice of bacon and pulled me aside. “I’m gonna go shower at my place to save time,” he said. “I’ll be right back.” He kissed me, and I took a bite of his bacon. “Happy birthday.”

But instead of blinking out of the kitchen, he dropped onto the couch next to Nash, and I had to strain to hear them over the three-way girl-squabble in the hall. “Did you know it was her birthday?”

“Of course, I knew,” Nash said, meeting the reaper’s gaze boldly.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why didn’t you not-steal my girlfriend the day before she died?”

I sighed and went into the kitchen for another slice of bacon. Some things were just going to take a while.

* * *

We didn’t actually make it to the lake until nearly noon, and by the time we got there, Harmony already had charcoal stacked like a pyramid in the grill attached to the covered picnic area my dad had reserved. “This is how