Page 14 of The Underachiever’s Guide to Love and Saving the World

brYCE

It was the longest, most detailed, most vibrant dream I’d ever had.

After our visit to the dungeons, servants had escorted us back to our beds, instructing us to try to get some sleep so we would be fit for training in the morning.

Now, I shifted in my huge bed, which had to be the Chosen One’s bed and not the sidekick bed. The room was large and empty. And silent. So silent.

I couldn’t hear Courtney.

Most nights I heard her through the thin duplex walls.

She’d sing loudly and off-key in the shower.

She’d rehearse excuses for why she couldn’t come into work—no two the same, never getting her wires crossed.

And yes, sometimes, she’d make sex noises after I’d shipped her adult toys.

I hadn’t been able to decide that day if I’d made the biggest mistake or the best choice of my life.

I’d eventually decided never to speak of it, no matter how often I thought of it.

Reminding Dream Courtney of that day was fair game, though, as was sending her suggestive texts at dinner.

I wouldn’t have dared to do those things with real-life Courtney, but they were exactly the thing I needed to throw Dream Courtney off her game.

And there had been something somewhat… exciting about it.

Shadows crept across the wall, reminding me of the creepy turn my dream had taken with the kidnapping thing, and my skin prickled and crawled.

I obviously wasn’t scared of the dark. But Courtney probably was.

Then again, Dream Courtney across the hall wasn’t making a peep.

Usually, I didn’t notice being alone. It was the in-between times when it sneaked up on me.

When I’d finished work, but it wasn’t bedtime yet, and I didn’t know what to do with myself.

When my growling stomach reminded me to eat, and I cooked alone in a cold, dim kitchen.

When I lay in empty sheets at night, repressed memories the only thing keeping me company.

During those times, having a warm body shuffling on the other side of the wall gave me something to fall asleep to. I’d close my eyes and pretend I was back at my grandparents’ house, and they were down the hall, watching TV.

I rolled onto my side, the bed suddenly feeling absurdly large for one person.

Furrowing my brow, I thought hard, willing a book to materialize on the nightstand—my usual method of keeping my mind from drifting. I apparently sucked at lucid dreaming, because the nightstand remained bare.

Everything was too dark. The flickering fire cast ghoulish shadows across the wall.

I decided Courtney was for sure scared of the dark. She was probably lying there in terror, expecting a cold hand to close around her ankle and pull her under the bed.

Then I realized I was thinking about Courtney in bed, and something about that felt dirty.

Not in a sexy way. Definitely not in the way that made my heartbeat quicken and my thoughts stray to the way that dress hugged Courtney’s curves.

Dirty in the way that made me feel like I’d contracted a mental plague just from thinking about her.

Briefly, I considered the mechanics of medieval dress laces.

I’d never been great with shoelaces, but perhaps dresses could be slipped on and off without fiddling with all those strings, like a pair of old sneakers.

There wasn’t cell service in my dream, so it wasn’t as though I could google it the way you’d google “how to remove a bra with one hand.” Not that I’d ever done that.

Just like I’d never done something as absurd as sneak a slice of chocolate cake into a dungeon because some girl looked like she really wanted it.

Okay, maybe I had done that, but she’d had my back earlier, sparing me from Amy’s disgusting flask, and I had to repay her before I vanquished her from my dream. I was a gentleman.

She’s a plague , I reminded myself. I had to sanitize my thoughts before she ravaged my brain for good.

That viscount, or whatever he was, could have all of Courtney’s mind plague germs to himself, thanks.

I noticed him staring at her at dinner while a duke prattled on about oregano (I blamed that conversation on last night’s dinner).

I was disgusted with my own mind for creating him.

It probably came from reading my grandma’s romance novels, which often featured some slimy viscount lurking in the shadows, being evil and mysterious, kidnapping heroines, and, in general, bringing down the quality of life of all those around them. What a dick.

You couldn’t trust viscounts. It was the silent s that did it for me, hiding like a snake in tall grass.

A log popped in the fireplace, and I jumped. Sparks crackled and hissed. The fire burned lower, and darkness closed in.

I sat up, sheets falling to my waist. I scratched my bare chest.

By now Courtney was undoubtedly growing frightened, all alone in her room, wondering what was lurking in the dark corners and trying not to think about how well her sheets had been washed.

Since I’d established I was a gentleman, it was only right for me to check on her. I had to get out of here… to make sure she was safe.

I pried myself out of bed and slid on my jeans from earlier. The floor was frigid under my bare feet as I crossed the room. My walk turned into a run as the feeling of something creeping in the darkness washed across my back. I needed to check on her. Now.

I flung open my bedroom door. One, two, three, four steps later I’d crossed the hall. My shoulder hit her door as my hand twisted the knob, and I half fell inside.

Courtney shot up, clutching blankets to her chest. Even in the orange light from the fire, the familiar look twisting her face was unmistakable.

Only Courtney could simultaneously look delighted and enraged.

“What do you want?” she asked, practically sharpening her fangs, which was a weird way to swoon and say, My hero .

“I wanted to confirm I got the Chosen One’s room,” I said. “I did, by the way. This room sucks.” To be totally honest, the rooms were identical. Except her fire did seem brighter. Warmer. Cozier. Damn her.

“You mean you’re scared of the dark.” She smirked her annoying smirky smirk. “You can’t just barge in here. Fuck off.”

I should have fucked off. After all, I’d checked on her and confirmed she was perfectly fine—well, fine was a kind word for what Courtney was. Vile was more fitting.

But as I considered returning to my cold, dark, ominous, foreboding, probably haunted room, I decided that, since I was the hero, staying was the only noble choice. To ensure Courtney’s safety.

I strode across the room and hopped onto the bed, shouldering her aside and taking her covers. She punched me in the arm, and I laughed as obnoxiously as I could. It felt nice to forget about the kidnapping part of my dream for a second and get back to our usual verbal sparring.

“Why are you here?” she asked, half to herself, like she was baffled as to why she was letting me this close to her.

“We both know you’re the damsel in distress who can’t be left on her own for more than two minutes without getting kidnapped. I’m here to protect you from yourself.”

Her dark eyes narrowed to slits. “If you’re such a gentleman, then you’d offer to take the floor.”

Ignoring her, I pulled the blankets over my shoulders and hunkered down. Her pillow smelled like her shampoo—jasmine and honey.

I especially hated Dream Courtney. Dreams seduced me with their harmlessness until I loosened my control, and Dream Courtney was always there, eager for me to slip up. Not that Dream Me minded. Which was troubling.

“Bryce?”

My eyes flew upward. Arms crossed, Courtney glowered down at me like I was something unpleasant pulled from a shower drain.

“Huh?”

“Take the floor.”

I scrambled upright, sheets sliding to my hips. Her eyes tracked the movement, and I tried not to notice her noticing me, even if it did make me feel warm and nice inside.

“It doesn’t matter if I take the floor.” I yawned.

“I’ll wind up here in the end. Haven’t you ever read those books where there’s only one bed, and the couple has to share?

It doesn’t matter if I start on the floor because you’ll beg me to join you for some half-baked reason we both know is an excuse for you to have your wicked way with me. ”

By the time I’d finished, her brows were buried so deeply in her hairline, it would have taken an archaeological dig to find them again. “Into romance novels, are you, Bryce?”

My skin felt sticky. I pushed the blankets off my legs. “An ex left one at my house, and I may have perused the pages,” I said, because that sounded cooler than I learned everything I know about sex from sneaking my grandmother’s romance novels .

“Huh.” Her eyes sparkled.

I scooped the wad of covers off the end of the bed and dumped them on her head. “Women sleep with guys who read romance.”

She shoved the blankets off, hair mussed in an irritating way that gave me a weird urge to lick my hand and smooth it back mom-style.

Why was I thinking about licking Courtney?

Holy hell, that was a thin, thin nightgown.

My throat tightened. This was it. Even in my dream state, I was allergic to Courtney, and I was about to die. It was the only acceptable explanation for why sitting close to her had this effect on my body.

“You’re no hero,” she said, snapping me out of it. “More like some kind of beta-bro, b-plot villain. You certainly fit the bodice-ripping-womanizer bill.”

I tried very hard not to look at her very see-through bodice. “And you fit the personality-of-a-damp-shoelace sidekick bill.”

Her nose wrinkled up. “I do not. I’m full of wit.”

I threw a pillow at her nose so I wouldn’t notice it again. “Then you’re clearly the sidekick. Sidekicks are the witty ones.”

She shoved the pillow back at me. “You said sidekicks have the personality of shoelaces.”

I tossed the pillow. “Mind your prejudice. Shoelaces are witty.”

“That was pretty witty for a supposed Chosen One.”