Dream Keeper (Dream Team 4)

Nope.

I didn’t understand this at all.

So I found my God and my practice and my faith in my home and life and church and world.

And I didn’t have a problem with dreaming about sharing that goodness with people.

Not pushing my God how I saw Him, but giving folks a place where they could find that peace in themselves, whatever form that would take, whatever higher spirit they turned to (if they had one).

Serenity.

Balance.

Safety.

That was what I’d do, giving that to others every day for a living.

But now, I was ending my meditation, coming back to awareness, moving fingers and toes, opening my eyes, and seeing someone standing in my bedroom door.

“Gah!” I screamed, pushing up on the sides of my feet in order to stand.

“Sorry, shit, you were so quiet, I didn’t want to disturb you,” Auggie said.

He’d been leaning on my doorjamb (like he’d been there for a while, watching me!) but when I jumped up, he shoved away from the jamb.

“What are you—?”

I stopped myself mid-question because the look on his face was…

Well…

It was downright hypnotizing.

I mean, the guy was gorgeous, but how he was looking at me now?

I stared at him.

He stared at me.

I stared at him more.

He stared at me more.

Neither of us moved or spoke.

“Mom!” Juno shouted from somewhere not close. “Auggie’s here! I told him to go up and say hi!”

That yanked me out of my Auggie-Was-Looking-at-Me-Like-I-Dotted-the-Sky-with-Stars-and-I-Absolutely-Adored-That-Look Trance.

And my first thought was, Why on earth would my daughter send a man up to our very personal space to say hi instead of calling me down to say hi to that man?

“In case you haven’t figured this out, she’s trying to fix us up,” Auggie stated like he heard my unspoken question.

He did this walking into my room.

Yes, Augustus Hero was walking into my bedroom.

“Fix us up?” I parroted, not sure what to be more shocked about. Him thinking Juno was trying to fix us up or him being in my room.

“Were you meditating?” he asked.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Does that work?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve never tried,” he told me.

“You should,” I told him.

“I’ve also never seen anything like that. You’re even beautiful when you’re completely still. Maybe more beautiful.”

Um…

First, he’d totally been watching me.

And second, wow.

I mean, I knew he was attracted to me (obviously).

But…

Wow.

“I’ve never seen a room like this,” he went on, glancing around. “It’s fantastic. Seriously. It’s the single most awesome room I’ve ever been in.”

My legs were feeling weird. Like they would soon be unable to support me.

All right.

That was it.

I needed to get a handle on things.

“Auggie—”

He’d stopped a couple of feet away.

And he didn’t get any closer when he said, “I have no excuse for the shit I said to you at Juno’s school. I’d like to talk it through with you. I’d like you to understand where I was coming from, as an explanation, not a defense. And I hope you give me the shot to do that. But we have more important shit to talk about and I didn’t know you were meditating when I came up here, but I still would have come up here. Because when we talk about it, I don’t think Juno should hear.”

Okay, I wasn’t sure what was happening. I hadn’t really recovered from the way he was looking at me earlier, definitely not him saying I was beautiful, he dug my room, the fact he was in said room and absolutely not him asserting that Juno wanted to fix us up (though, giving this cursory contemplation, considering her recent behavior, I had to admit it made sense).

But I did not forget what a jerk he’d been to me, the ugly things he’d said. And bearing in mind our shared friends, I knew we’d have to find our way beyond that to being able to be in each other’s company without making everyone uncomfortable. But that was as far as I was willing to take it.

Or at least that was as far as I was telling myself I was willing to take it.

He cut me off before I could explain any of that to him.

And he did this by saying, “I found your brother.”

At this news, it felt like the sun shone on me, warm and bright in my bedroom.

I was so happy to hear it, I bopped forward the distance separating us and grabbed his biceps with both hands, smiling up at him, saying, “Oh my God, really?”

“Baby…” he said softly, the word trailing from his lips, trailing in the room.

And trailing a finger of icy cold up my back with the tone of it and the new look on his face.

He moved his arms and I lost purchase, but he gained it, taking both my hands in his.

Uh-oh.

“Would you be comfortable with me closing the door?” he asked.

“Why?” I asked back.

“I think I should close the door.” His voice was still super soft. “Are you okay with that?”