Page 65 of Warrior's Walk
Maybe… maybe this time it’s not Brian’s.
Rain beats down on my shoulders, pelting my face like bullets. It stains my goggles red. But it’s not rain, it’s blood. It’s raining blood.
I know what comes next, and I brace for it, the impact that will crush every bone in my body to dust. Blinding pain that will seize every function except my breathing.
I wish it would take my breath.
Maybe if I die in my dream, I won’t wake up and remember that he’s gone. Maybe I won’t have to dream this again tomorrow night.
I swipe the blood from my goggles and look up into the face of my best friend. His face is frozen in death, staring back at me like the Grim Reaper, like he’s coming formysoul next.
The piercing scream rips from my throat and the sound of it wakes me from my sleep. Before I can catch my bearings, I flail wildly and roll, banging my head against the nightstand.
“Holy fuck!” That hurts. But it stops me from falling on the floor.
A dark shadow appears, and I can barely make him out, but I’m relieved to see Riggs’s face instead of the one from my nightmare.
“Rhett, are you hurt?”
I try to straighten out and roll over, but my legs are tangled in the sheets. “Turn the light on,” I rasp, my throat raw and dry.
He reaches for the bedside lamp and a soft glow chases away the dark shadows that haunt me.
“You’re sweating and pale. Are you okay?”
“I don’t know. I guess, I mean, I didn’t hurt myself, but I feel—” anything I might have said dies a quick death on my tongue when I raise my head and realize… Riggs isnaked. His cock is soft and dangling, and he’s uncut.
He follows my gaze and curses. “Shit, I rushed in here without thinking.”
“I’m not complaining. You’re—”thick…“You’re—”trimmed…“You’re—”perfect.
“Naked. And leaving.”
“No, wait. I?—”
“I’m not gonna stand here while you eye fuck me. Let me grab some pants. Christ, what did you think I slept in?” he mumbles.
“Do you wanna see what I sleep in?”
“Do not pull that cover back, Rhett,” he warns, choking on his laughter. He runs out of my room and reappears a minute later, wearing an old, worn pair of gray sweats.
How disappointing. I used to love a man in gray sweats, but now that I’ve seen him naked, sweatpants don’t hold a candle to birthday suits.
Riggs surprises me when he spreads out on the bed, occupying the cold, empty space beside me. Unfortunately, he’s lying on top of the blanket while I’m underneath it. My heart is still racing as if I ran a marathon, and my stomach feels off like I swallowed sour milk.
“That’s not the first time you dreamt that, is it?” He’s more stating a fact than asking.
“I wish.”
“Tell me what you see.”
If anyone would understand, it’d be Riggs, but that doesn’t make the words flow any easier. “I see his face. But it’s not his face, not really. More like some grim death mask. He bumps into me mid-air, which really happened, and his blood splatters on my face.”
Riggs sneaks his hand across the divide between us and takes mine in his grip, softly squeezing. “Did that happen, too?”
I nod, swallowing past the hard lump constricting my throat. “But in my dream, it’s night instead of day, and it’s raining. After I see him dead, the rain turns to blood, and by the time I crash, I’m soaked and slippery with blood.”
“Is it his blood?” He brushes his thumb across the back of my hand, sending a wave of electric heat up my arm.