“Whatever is happening, I want in!” Heaven shouts from the hallway, the crutches thumping against the floor with every hop he takes.
Damn it, I spoke too soon.
I pour myself another shot and ignore all of them.
“You going to share?” Owen asks, crooking a brow at me.
“No.” They don’t understand, well, Jaxon could. I can’t put it into words with how strongly I feel about this.
“Well, then, it’s a good thing we keep so many extra bottles.” Owen stands and his knees pop as he walks around the kitchen island and opens the cabinet to grab a bottle. He takes down a few shot glasses and lines them up in front of each man.
I down the next one, then grip the edge of the counter as they stare at me, questioning in their eyes. I glare into the bottom of the shot glass, a bit of whiskey dripping down the rim and pooling at the base, leaving nothing but a drop.
That is how I feel now. There is nothing but a drop left of sanity in my mind before I lose myself completely.
“What happened yesterday, Owen?”
The clink of his glass tells me he just drank his shot. “What do you mean? You don’t remember?”
I shake my head and think as hard as I can, but the dream mixes with reality, and I can’t decipher it. “I think something is wrong with me. I can’t … I can’t tell the difference between my dreams and what is real.”
“That must have been one hell of a dream,” Grayson says, tilting a shot of whiskey to his lips, sipping it like some fancy fucker instead of taking it all the way down. “Shit is nasty. I don’t know how you guys drink this shit.”
“Only real men can handle it.” Heaven sticks out his chest, and his glasses are empty in the next second. He sticks his tongue out, then gags. “I guess that makes me a bitch because my god, that shit is gross.”
“Told you,” Grayson grumbles.
“I like it,” Owen says. “Makes the hair on my chest tingle.”
“Guys, we are losing focus,” Jaxon says tiredly, reminding everyone to focus. “What was your dream, Sebastian? Talk to us.”
I lift my head to meet Jaxon’s concerned gaze. His brown eyes have dark bags under them, and he seems to be in a lot of pain. “It doesn’t matter.”
“You running down the hall, shouting for Gabriella, waking all of us up, sounds like it matters,” Jaxon says, taking the neck of the bottle with his hand and drinking a swig directly out of it, not even using the shot glass.
“Did we go to the market yesterday? Was Gabriella here?” I know I sound hesitant, full of fear because if none of that happened, if we didn’t go to the market, I am crazy.
Full blown, losing my goddamn mind.
Owen speaks first. “You and I went to the market, but then it started to rain, so we got out of there. Gabriella isn’t here, Sebastian. She hasn’t been here ” His eyes show the familiar warmth that my dream held when he stared at Gabriella.
I lay my hand on my chest and try to breathe, try to focus, but what they are saying makes no sense. “But I felt her,” I say. “Goddamn it, I felt her. She was here.”
“She isn’t here, Sebastian.”
I take another shot and slam the glass down so hard it shatters. “Then where is she!” I shout through burning eyes and raw throat. “Where is she?” I repeat. “It felt so fucking real. I held her; I could smell that fucking perfume.”
“The perfume was a real thing,” Owen adds, shooting back the bourbon. “You went insane looking for her. You combed the entire area, but the perfume, yeah, that was probably what set off your dream. Smells are the biggest trigger for the mind, and since you are so connected to it, it makes sense that you would have such a vivid dream.”
“You didn’t shoot Kendrick?”
“No, Sebastian. I unfortunately did not get to shoot anyone yesterday.” He pushes out his bottom lip before taking another drink.
“I’m losing it,” I groan, leaning my elbows on the table, and running my fingers through my hair. I don’t feel like myself. “I have to find her, guys.”
“Well, if her perfume is the real deal, say she was there, then she is closer than you thought, right? She’s here.”
“Heaven, I don’t need your positive rainbow and butterflies fucking attitude.”
“He’s right,” Jaxon says. “Why don’t you search Trinidad? What harm could it do? You don’t have her now and if you come up empty handed—”
“Then I still won’t have her. It isn’t a possibility. If I continue to dream like that, then I won’t know what is real or fake one day. I believe she is here, guys. I believe it. To my fucking depths. What happens next time? What if I don’t just pull out of the dream? What if I think I’m really living it?”
“Then I’ll shoot you myself and put you out of your misery.”
Grayson slaps Owen on the back of the neck. “What the fuck, man?”
“What? he asks.
“He asked for something less dark than that.”
“No, it’s fine,” I say. “It would be what I’d wanted. Slowly losing my mind isn’t the way I want to live.”
I still believe there is something real about the dream, and it isn’t just the perfume. She was here, somewhere, and if I have to lose myself to find her, if I have to lose my grip on reality to make sure she is safe, then I’ll do exactly that.
I’ll forget myself if it means remembering her.
“I’m sorry for waking you guys up. Go back to sleep. I’m sure Quinn is pissed at me.”
Jaxon shakes his head. “She’s currently puking her guts up in the bathroom. She told me to get out when she heard you shouting for everyone, then locked me out.”
“Still puking?” Grayson taps his fingers along the counter. “That’s odd. She’s changed her diet enough where that shouldn’t be happening.”
“Unless she’s pregnant,” I say offhandedly with a snort, taking another shot. Everyone chuckles and then we all really think about what I said, as if it dawned on us that her being pregnant is the only explanation that fits.
“Oh, shit,” Jaxon whispers and guzzles down four shots worth of whiskey from the bottle.
“I could be wrong. I wasn’t serious. It was just a joke, Jaxon.”
“A joke that makes sense,” Jaxon says, then slides from the barstool and rushes down the hall toward his room. The slam of the door makes me feel a bit guilty. I don’t like being the one to drop the bomb on them.
“Well, that will be exciting, if they are. I love kids,” Heaven sighs. “The laughter is going to be so cute.”
“I hate the crying.” Owen gets up from the island and slaps Grayson and Heaven on the back before he strolls around the island and stands next to me.
“They are babies! They cry,” Heaven defends the children that aren’t even here yet.
Owen wraps an arm around my shoulder and guides me away from the kitchen and down the hall where my room was. It’s just me and him. The motion lights turn on with every step. The more we walk, the more the whiskey sets in my bones, and my mind starts to feel numb.
“Listen, I don’t know what you’re going through. I won’t ever know, but I do know this, I’m here for you, okay? You want to comb every section of forest and water surrounding us to look for her, I’ll be there.”