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I laughed, taking a careful step closer. “Of course, I can talk.”

Daphne bent at the waist as a giggle racked her entire body. “I would have taken psychedelics a long time ago if I knew the hallucinations would be this good.”

Even though I loved the sound of Daphne’s laugh, it wasn’t landing the same on my ears.

Not now.

Leaving her chuckling like a lunatic, I turned toward Avery. “What the fuck did you do to her?”

“I was trying to break the news softly,” Avery rushed out, pulling down on the wrists of his long-sleeved shirt nervously. “That’s what they told me to do. But I said something about being sorry and I think she took that as me saying you were dead. I tried to tell her, but she just kept sayinghe’s deadover and over again and then started pacing.”

Fucking hell.

We’d spent most of our lives being friends. I might have hated that fucking word. I might not be sure what we were to each other now, but she didn’t deserve to think I died.

I tried to keep my voice on the right side of calm as I said, “Avery. Get the fuck out.”

“Oh, thank the Fates,” Avery muttered and then ran past me and out the door without another word.

I turned back to Daphne, who had stopped laughing and was standing still. Watching me like I was an animal that could be spooked away.

“Daphne,” I said, reaching for her. I pulled back at the last moment. Touching her was an instinct I had to carefully control.

“You can touch me,” Daphne said, looking at my hand where it hovered in between us. “I won’t be able to feel it. You can’t feel hallucinations.”

That permission was all I needed to hear.

I stroked her skin slowly, only stopping to reach a hand up and tuck her hair behind her ears. “I'm alive. You wouldn't be able to feel me if I wasn’t.”

I kept doing it, if only to calm my own racing heart. Daphne might have thought I was a hallucination, but she was the one who looked like a ghost. Standing there in front of me, absolutely sucked dry of the personality that made her.

I never wanted to see that shit again.

While my skin was sparking from the feel of her under my hands, Daphne still looked shell shocked. It was like she was looking right through me.

“You wouldn’t be able to feel me if I was a hallucination,” I repeated as softly as my voice could manage.

Daphne shook her head. “That doesn’t prove anything. My mind knows what you feel like as much as my hands do.”

Fuck. I almost kissed her right then and there but restrained myself at the last second.

She was standing in front of me like a shell of herself and I felt desperation clawing at my throat. But I kept my voice low, low enough that it sounded like there was gravel in my throat when I said, “I’m alive.”

Daphne shook her head, messing up that beautiful red hair so that strands fell over her face.

I tried again, this time with my hands hovering an inch over her arms. “Daph, baby, I’m alive.”

She hitched in a small breath, her eyelashes fluttering. Like maybe that had gotten through to her a bit.

It lasted for just a second before she shook her head again and said, “No. You aren’t.”

“I’m here. I’m okay.” I let my hands fold around her arms again, the silk soft texture of her skin sending bolts of sensation up my own.

Daphne shook her head again, forcing me to resort to more drastic measures. I grabbed her hands and placed them on my chest, then my shoulders, then my face.

Somewhere around my jaw, I could feel life start to find its way back into her hands. They started moving on their own accord, tracing softly over my nose, my brow, then back down over my shoulders and arms.

It was at that moment that I changed my mind. I was a hero. Because only the most honorable of men could stand here, letting the woman they loved have free reign to trail their hands down their body, and not lose their fucking mind.