Weirdly, these conversations were getting-to-know-you conversations that, if we were normal, we would have had during dates. He learned about the vacation I took last winter. He learned I loved snowboarding. I learned he hated onions and thought Jerry Seinfeld’s standup routines were funny. And we planned to go to Crested Butte when the snow started falling and to find a beach when winter turned bitter and we needed to escape to the sun.

Needless to say, learning about Raiden and planning getaways and vacations was awesome.

When he was home, life fell into a rhythm. I knitted. I did my thing with Grams. We all went to church and ate breakfast together at the Pancake House. I saw to my business. Raiden saw to his in Denver and in the back room of Rachelle’s Café, where I learned he met with his “crew”, who I did not, however, meet… yet. This last was Raiden’s word when he told me he would introduce me to them when “shit slowed down”. He was also a good neighbor, and at his sister or mother’s request, would go off to do things like the yard work for Grams.

This meant between jobs he wasn’t idle. It also meant we had our own things to do, but ended our days together like we would if we were normal.

That was awesome too.

In fact, everything was awesome and had settled in a good way without anything rocking my world.

Except one thing.

Deep into the night one night at my house, the bed moved with such force I woke, sensed Raiden awake and I pressed my hand resting on his chest into his skin.

He shifted swiftly, taking me to my back and reared back a fist like he was going to strike me.

I gasped and tried to scuttle out from under him but got nowhere. Then his arms closed around me and he tucked me under his big body.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

“What’s happening?” I asked anxiously, my entire body tense, but I felt the tension in his and it wasn’t like mine.

I was freaked out.

He was strung tight.

“Fuck,” he repeated.

“Raid—”

He let me go, rolled to his back, lifted both hands to his face and rubbed.

I got up on an elbow and watched.

Then I urged, “Talk to me. What just happened?”

I half-expected him to evade my question, but he didn’t.

He dropped his hands.

I felt his eyes on me in the dark and he shared, “I dream.”

Oh boy.

“Dream?” I pressed gently.

“Snippets of memories. Sometimes shit is warped and not what happened at all. But I dream.”

“About—?” I didn’t get it out, but he knew what I was asking.

“Yeah.”

He dreamed about what happened with his unit.

God.

Worry suffusing me, or, it should be said, more worry, I placed my hand light on his chest and asked carefully, “Does this happen often?”

“Not anymore. Not since you. But it happens.”

That felt good, but it was also bad.

“Have you talked to anyone about it?” I asked.

“Yeah. Just now. You.”

I was his “reward”. I gave him whatever it was he needed to feel like he might begin to battle the burn.

I loved that. I loved it a lot.

But I was no miracle worker.

“I was thinking more like one of your buddies,” I suggested.

“That’s not gonna f**kin’ happen.”

I went silent.

Macho man, too strong to share, to release, to let go.

Darn.

“I’ll get a handle on it,” he told me.

I stayed silent.

He lifted up, his arms closed around me and he moved us to our sides, face to face.

“With you, it’s goin’ away,” he assured me.

“Okay,” I replied.

“Give it time, they’ll be gone.”

“Okay, honey.”

His lips found mine in the dark for a touch before he rolled to his back taking me with him so I was tucked to his side. Then he lifted a hand and sifted it through my hair again and again, and as he did this, I felt the tension ebb from his body. So I lay there with him, cuddled close, holding him tight.

Eventually, his hand stopped sifting through my hair and his arm wrapped around me. Minutes later, it went slack and I knew he was asleep.

I didn’t sleep.

I prayed Raiden Miller found it in himself to get a handle on his dreams.

Because if he hadn’t come to after he reared back to strike me it would absolutely not be good.

It was a useful reminder to me that hellfires burned all the time.

Even in sleep.

And I was no miracle worker, but if Raid didn’t get a handle on these dreams I was going to have to find a way to learn to be.

For him and for me.

* * * * *

In the last six weeks I also had time to check in with KC and fill her in. I didn’t go for the gusto, but I did share that things were good in a way they’d be that way for what could be ever.

She was beside herself with glee.

But I waited until Raid was away on a job before I went to her house for dinner and laid it out.

KC had been at her stove, stirring while I sat at her kitchen table with her baby girl, Samantha. Samantha’s feet were planted in my thighs, her chubby fingers gripping mine and her plump legs were bouncing when I shared what I could. That was to say, not much of anything, including Raid’s dreams, but I shared my concerns about Raiden being scary bossy, and adding getting physical to that scary.

This got me a weird response.

KC burst out laughing.

I turned to look at my friend with her shining, to-the-shoulder light brown hair, her bright, wide hazel eyes and seven months pregnant belly and I said quietly but with meaning, “KC, seriously. It freaks me.”

She trained those hazel eyes on me, still smiling. “Okay, babe. But get over that.”

“Sorry?” I asked.

“Uh… with your, mine and the female half of Willow’s citizenry avid contemplation, I don’t think it’s lost on any of us that Raiden Ulysses Miller has got a big dick.”

He did, this was true. I had seen the physical evidence up close (and felt it, sucked it, stroked it, etc.), but I was hoping the female half of Willow’s citizenry had not.

“You might want to explain that,” I suggested as Sam lunged forward and giggled, so I wrapped my arms around her and took over the bouncing.

KC’s eyes moved to her daughter then took in her daughter with me and her face got soft.