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I wish I could fully remember him. My dreams only give me a tiny snapshot of the full picture.

Sometimes my dreams are clear. Other times, they’re blurry, like I’m watching things happen through a dirty lens.

Occasionally, I have dreams where everything sounds muffled like everyone is speaking into a voice distorter.

My worst dreams are the ones where I can hear everything clearly but all I can see is black.

Those are typically my dreams where Trey is screaming like he’s being attacked by vicious animals.

I can’t see that it’s him, but I know in my heart that it is, from how much it kills me to hear him in pain like that.

If my other dreams of us actually happened, does that mean my dreams of him screaming happened too? If so, why was he screaming?

“You okay?” Trey asks.

“Yeah. I’m just a little cold.” It’s the middle of July in California.

My shivers have nothing to do with being cold.

I just get chills whenever I think about my dreams of what I’m assuming is Trey getting tortured.

Who or what was hurting him? And why do I get the feeling that they were torturing him because of me?

He takes off his leather jacket and drapes it over my shoulders. His manly scent surrounds me like a warm blanket of comfort and ease. “Better?”

“Kind of.” I’m not sure if better is the right word. His jacket over me is only jumbling my thoughts more. Why is his scent so familiar to me? And why does it spark up a desire between my legs?

“I don’t mind sitting in the grass. Why don’t we wrap this blanket around you too?”

A thought pops into my head, and I say it before I can think about the consequences. “Actually, could you just hold me?”

He freezes and stares at me like he’s trying to figure out if he heard me right. “Hold you?”

“Yeah. Penguins keep warm by cuddling. They live in snow, so it must work, right?”

“Right...” Slowly, as if not to scare me, he lies down and pats his chest. “Come here.”

I don’t hesitate. Keeping his jacket around my shoulders, I scoot toward him, then lay my head over his chest. His tattooed arm circles my back and rests over my hip.

I nuzzle my face into his shirt, taking in more of his sweet scent. This is the first time he’s ever cuddled me—that I can remember—yet it feels so familiar.

At first, Trey just lies there with his body stiff. It’s like he’s afraid if he moves too much, I’ll disappear. As an attempt to make him feel more comfortable, I rest my hand over his abs the way I always do in my dreams.

“Arella?” He says my name all breathily.

“Yeah?”

“Is it okay if I put both my arms around you?”

“Mm-hmm.”

Without wasting another second, he wraps his firm arms around my back and crushes me against his chest. He does it so tight, the air leaves my lungs. This feels like it did the first time: desperate, possessive, protective.

I give him a moment, but when he doesn’t release me right away, I let out a stifled, “Trey, you’re suffocating me.”

He relaxes his boa-constrictor arms a little. “Better?”

“Yeah.”

His chest rises with a deep breath. When he exhales, it sounds ragged. He breathes in again, and on the exhale, his breath comes out shaky, like he’s trying not to cry.

“Are you okay?” I ask into his chest.

“Mm-hmm.” He sounds choked up. “I’m just—um, overwhelmed.”

“By what?”

“Happiness. It’s been so long since I’ve held you, I forgot what it felt like.”

I’ve never felt so comfortable in someone’s arms like this. I’ve never felt so safe and protected either. “When was the last time you held me?”

“That day you looked at me with recognition and said my name like you knew me. Then you asked if I could stay and hold you until you woke up.”

“I don’t remember that, but I know it happened.” Only because Caleb said so.

“I know, and that’s okay.”

“Is it though?” I tilt my head back to look at him.

His eyes are glistening with surface tears. He blinks them away, then clears his throat. “There’s nothing I can do to change the situation, so I have to be okay with it. Besides, it doesn’t matter how I feel, as long as you’re happy.”

It bugs me that he doesn’t see his happiness as something important. He matters just as much as anyone else. “How would you know if I’m happy or not?”

“You have to be. Otherwise, going through hell wasn’t worth it.”

Going through hell. Is he referring to when he was being tortured?

Or maybe when people were attacking me? A few times, I’ve had dreams of people throwing flaming objects at my face or a knife at my arm.

I’ve done a thorough check of my arms and haven’t found any evidence of a knife wound.

Then again, Caleb said I remembered Trey getting stabbed, and there’s no evidence of that either. Did whatever healed him heal me too?

“Did you leave LA because of me?” That question has been burning on my mind for years. I already know the answer; I just want to hear it from him.

“I left LA so you could be happy.”

For the most part, I am happy. I have amazing friends, I love my job, and I’m planning to open my dream bakery soon.

The only thing is that when I’m with Trey, I feel like my life is complete.

I don’t feel that way with Caleb, and now that I think about it, I never have.

Minus the past few months, Caleb makes me happy.

However, there’s a difference between feeling happy and feeling complete.

“I think you should move back to LA.”

Trey pulls me in closer and breathes into my hair. “Why?”

“Because I don’t like the idea of you living in New York just to stay away from me.

You don’t have to do that anymore. We’re friends now.

” The word friends sounds wrong to describe this relationship I have with Trey—a relationship that exists only on Sunday evenings under this tree, where it feels right to be held by him.

“Thanks, Arella. I appreciate your friendship, but I think I’ve gotta stay in New York.”

What he means is that being friends with me isn’t enough of a reason to move back. He wants more. Do I? “Is New York where you see yourself in five years?”

“Probably not.”

“Where do you see yourself then? Or maybe a better question is, What would you like to see?”

“Like, in terms of life?”

“Yeah. For example, in five years, I see myself as an established bakery owner. Maybe I’ll have a second location.

I see lots of fun employees who enjoy coming to work every day the way I do at the bakery I currently work at.

” I also see myself as a mother, but at the rate I’m going with the man I’m with, that’ll never happen.

“Do you want my realistic or unrealistic answer?”

“Both.”

“Realistically, I see myself still making music, whether that’s with my band or not. I’ve been thinking about what you said last year—about writing and producing for other artists. I’ve been playing around with the idea of starting my own production company.”

I lean back with a wide grin. “That’s a wonderful idea! Now, what’s your unrealistic answer?”

“To have a family.”

That’s what I want too. “Why is that unrealistic?”

“Because to have a wife and kids, I’d need to have a girlfriend first.”

I make a pfft sound. “Have you looked into the mirror lately? Finding a girlfriend can’t be hard for you.”

“Finding the right girl is. I don’t want to have a family with just anyone. What I want is to have a family with the one, but...” He lets out a deep sigh. “Anyway, it’s just not in the cards for me.”

But what? But she’s already with a man who spends more time with his best friend than his wife? A man who barely looks at her while he eats the dinner she makes for him every night? A man who doesn’t even know his wife’s been hanging out with another man every Sunday for the past seven weeks?

Even if I told Caleb about Trey, he wouldn’t care. He’d probably just go back to scrolling on his phone. What does it mean for my marriage if my husband doesn’t care what I do or who I’m with?