Page 74 of Pretend
“Valentine, you ask way too many questions.” He shakes his hand, smirking handsomely.
Damn him.
Damn him and the way he smirks.
He unzips the rucksack just as he drops it by my feet and pulls out a folded blanket. It’s a soft, fluffy black blanket decorated with Jack Skellington and a giant pillow.
“I love this movie…” I tell him as he unfolds the blanket and places it on the floor. It mimics a bed or a picnic on the beach…but we’re in a warzone on a military base.
“Stop distracting me and tell me what we’re doing up here.”
He doesn’t face me as he makes up a bed.
“Sometimes, when the noise, or when the stress, and darkness gets too much, I escape through nature…this is the closest thing I can get to that right now.”
He lays down on the floor, throwing his hands behind him like a pillow.
“Sometimes, I watch the sky and the stars and appreciate the Earth. With our daily routine of busy work days, I think we forget that the Earth itself has a lot to offer our minds, and sometimes, we just need to sit and listen to what it has to say. Get lost in its beauty. Even if it’s just for a few moments, it helps me relax when shit gets too fucking much.”
I place my hands on my hips and do a double take at the door. I’m scared someone will come bursting through and start asking questions.
As my heart pounds, Daegan pats down next to him.
“Come on, Valentine, I don’t bite.”
After a few deep breaths, I give in to his request.
Daegan doesn’t take his eyes off the sky as I settle beside him.
We lay there in comfortable silence as we watch military aircraft land and take off for exercises or missions.
“Look, it’s a shooting star. Make a wish, little Valentine.” He points to an airplane taking off.
There it is again. Valentine.
“That’s a C17 Hannibal,” I scoff, and my lips curve slightly. I do my best not to laugh and shake my head at his silly remark.
“Close enough…now make a wish.”
“No,” my voice comes out high-pitched, and a giggle follows.
Suddenly, I feel his big hand coil around mine, and he squeezes.
“Pretend,” he turns his head towards me. I can see his movements from the corner of my eye, daring me.
I don’t want to face him…I can’t. An overwhelming urge to squeeze his hand back consumes me, and I have to fight it. But my body betrays me, and before I know it, I’m squeezing his hand back.
I twist my face, and regret immediately smacks me in the face when I see the way he sparkles…enchanting me. He’s so close I can feel his breath on my lips.
“Pretend,” he repeats, and his tone changes into something sultry and familiar, striking me hard. “Pretend it’s a shooting star.”
The memories of his house, me waking him with a knife to my throat, and the craziest way I’ve ever finished play in my head again.
The night I think about before I fall asleep every night replays, and it also flashes in his grey eyes. I know it. He’s let his wall down for the night, and I can read him so easily. I know he’s thinking the same thing. The night he made me feel so alive when my heart was so numb from betrayal.
The night we played pretend.
It feels like it’s become some type of secret code.
