In Between Dreams (32 page)

Sam leaned his forehead against Bailey. He loved the feeling of holding her, of being close to her. It was nice being with Bailey. Once they had come out of the sleep attack, their relationship had progressed so smoothly. Sam tried to slow things down at first, in an attempt to make Bailey comfortable, but it was hard not to spend every waking moment with each other. They were more to each other than partners; they were each other’s comfort in Seattle. They leaned on each other. Bailey made Sam’s life feel more meaningful. And Bailey thought that Sam filled the apartment out nicely.

Bailey brought her lips to his, kissing him softly. He put his hand on her waist and returned the kiss quickly, pushing his body into hers. She sighed into the kiss. She loved being able to kiss him. She loved that he was real. So many questions still surrounded their situation, but this seemed stable. Happy. Good. Sam broke the kiss, and Bailey stuck out her lip in an exaggerated pout.

“You have to turn in your article,” Sam reminded her softly. He brought his hand to her cheek and stroked it softly. “Plus, I’ll burn the sauce.”

“We couldn’t have that.” Bailey feigned terror. Sam shook his head and kissed her nose.

“Go on,” he remarked, and pointed to the door, as if dismissing her.

“See you in thirty?” Bailey asked, grabbing the papers on the printer.

“I’ll be here,” Sam promised. Bailey loved knowing that he would.

Bailey rubbed her lips together; she could still taste Sam’s kiss. Cherry ChapStick and coffee; his usual flavor. She smiled to herself. She liked sharing the apartment with Sam. It was nice having him there. Someone she really knew, someone who truly knew her and all of her secrets.

Bailey checked her phone before she started driving. Halene told them Daniel needed his space; Bailey had been doing her best to give him that since the last mission. Bailey didn’t understand why he needed time. She was the one who’d been lied to. Bailey did understand that the mission in China was a particularly difficult one, and maybe getting shot took a lot more out of his consciousness then she’d thought. She wasn’t awake for hers. She’d been shot but was immediately back in Seattle. Daniel, however, was present. In the car on the way to the hospital, he was there.

She had to respect his space; she didn’t have another choice. He didn’t answer when she called the number Halene had given her. Her choices were limited. And the questions continued to pile up unanswered and festering. Sam had grown impatient as well, though he wasn’t in a rush to have Daniel back in their lives.

She dialed his number and put the phone up to her ear. The phone rang once and went to voice mail. “Hey, mates, I’m not here right now. Leave a message after the—”

Beep!

“Hey, Daniel. Thinking about you. Call me when you get second. I, I, uh, I miss you.” She paused awkwardly. “I know I said I’d give you your space, and I have. I just…I want to hear from you. Tell me how you’re doing, if nothing else.”

She hung up the phone and continued to drive to the office. She felt better than she had in years. She finally felt like she could live a normal life. She felt grateful that the people she felt so close to did not only exist in her dreams. She was going to be able to have more control over her time in and out of the missions, so she suspected work would go better as well.

Bailey pulled into the parking garage at her office. She found an empty spot quickly and parked. The wind blew as she got out of the car, and she could hear the thunder roll. She jogged to the door and saw Mike, the security guard. He was in his usual stoic stance; he was always friendly to Bailey.

“Hi, Miss Bailey,” he said politely. “How are you doing today?”

“I’m doing good, Mike,” Bailey said honestly. Though a knot in her stomach pointed out to her that something was missing.
Someone
.

“You look well,” he agreed with her, and put his fist up. She bumped her fist to his. “I read your article about China; you know your stuff. This is coming from someone who served in Beijing.”

“Well, I do my research,” Bailey offered. Mike pulled open the door for her. “See you around?”

“I’ll be here,” Mike deadpanned. His face turned forward to his workday view of the world on a swivel.

Bailey climbed the stairs once inside the building. She knocked on Sierra’s open door, making her aware of her presence.

Sierra looked up and clapped her hands together. “Chica!” she exclaimed. “I love having my little worker bee here all the time.” Sierra reached out for Bailey’s article. Bailey walked in the office and shut the door behind her. She laid the papers in Sierra’s hands and sat down.

“I told Quentin you had a man now. He wasn’t too happy about it.” Sierra smiled knowingly as her eyes moved to the papers on her desk. Bailey would always e-mail her articles to Sierra, but the ritual of the hand delivery was a little game they played. Sierra liked to edit on paper before transferring her edits to the electronic version. This was a throwback to her early days in the editing business.

“He can get over it,” Bailey joked.

“Speaking of your man, I want to meet him,” Sierra said wryly as while she looked over the papers in her hand. She tapped her pen on her desk absently.

“I’m in the honeymoon phase with Sam. We’re spending a lot of one-on-one time together. You know how that is,” Bailey said with a light shrug. “Soon though. I promise.”

“One-on-one, huh? You’re such a little heartbreaker.” Sierra looked up from the paper in her hands. “Did you put all the revisions I asked for into this?”

“I did.” Bailey nodded. “I changed the last paragraph completely, though. You might want to take a close look at it before you go to final.”

Sierra flipped through the pages and squinted her eyes to focus. Bailey kept quiet, letting Sierra review her work. She looked around Sierra’s office briefly. She eyed a picture of Sierra and her sisters and
remembered the fun night they had when they went to that bar. It seemed like a lifetime ago. So much had happened since then.

“How about margaritas and tacos?” Bailey asked, still looking at the picture. “You can introduce Sam to all your quirks at once.”

“Sounds good,” Sierra agreed. “If your white boy can handle me, he has a chance of keeping up with you.”

Bailey rolled her eyes liberally at Sierra, teasing her. She bit her lip for a moment before changing the subject. “You know, I was thinking you could get me set up with a desk here.”

“One month without a sleep attack and you think you rule the world, huh?”

“Not exactly,” Bailey explained. “But I think I have a little more control over them now. I have a couple tricks up my sleeve.”

“Okay.” Sierra shrugged. “Maybe you can share a desk with the advice-column girl.”

Bailey wrinkled her nose. “Ew. Jillian? Jillian is the worst,” Bailey complained. “She has the whiniest voice, and she is constantly having trouble with her Netflix queue of boyfriends. Not to mention her fake interest in anything I talk about.”

“Yeah, but if you shared her desk, you would never have to see her,” Sierra said, tapping the side of her head. “I’m not head of this department for nothin’.”

“I guess,” Bailey whined. “But you know Jill is the type of girl to leave annoying Post-its for me.”

Sierra laughed loudly rolling her head back slightly. “Holy shit, she totally would do that. God, I’m totally setting you up at that desk now. I need to see that.” She had a totally self-satisfied look on her face.

“You’re evil, Sierra.”

“I know. And I try to use my evil genius for good. And to entertain myself, of course,” she quipped. “Now get out before people complain about me picking favorites…again.”

As Bailey drove home, she played Fleetwood Mac on her way back to her apartment and thought about the day in that hotel when they group all connected over one song. “Dreams.” The calm before the storm.

C
alm before the shit storm would be more accurate
, she thought as she pulled into her parking spot at the apartment complex. She hummed as she ran up the stairs. She unlocked her door and walked in.

“Have you any dreams you’d like to sell? Dreams of loneliness…”
she sang softly.

“Bales?” She heard his voice and whipped around.

There he was. Daniel. Sitting at her kitchen table next to her
now
boyfriend. “Sorry I didn’t answer your call, love,” he said, standing and walking toward her. “I was on a plane.”

Sam squinted at Bailey in irritation. He made it clear that he was uncomfortable with her calling him, so she did it when he wasn’t around. But now she’d been caught. She’d been leaving Daniel voice mails for weeks in private, and here he was, standing in her living room with Sam. It was a jarring scene.

Her jaw dropped and her lips formed into an open mouth shocked smile. “Daniel…what are you—oh my God.”

He put his arms around her and pulled her into a big hug. “Hi,” he said sweetly into her ear. She wrapped her arms around his waist taking him in. Of course Daniel would show up, opposed to doing the normal thing and calling her back first.

Sam crossed his arms and sucked in a breath as he looked away from the two in front of him. It was almost painful to watch Bailey greet Daniel with open arms, but he couldn’t be mad at her for doing so. Daniel had a place in her life. Sam had to start believing that his place was more important than Daniel’s. Or else he’d drive himself nuts.

“It’s good to see you,” she whispered. Her arms felt around his back and she pulled away from him. “You’re all healed?”

“Not exactly,” Daniel reminded her. It hit her again. This Daniel wasn’t shot; it was his shadow self who took the bullet. This was a version of Daniel who she really didn’t know anything about.

“Oh yeah,” she said, ineffectively shrugging the awkward feeling off. “Well, sit. We were just about to have dinner.” She looked at Sam, who glared at Daniel openly. “There’s enough. Right?”

Daniel leaned down and covered his mouth like he was going to whisper but talked in his full pitch. “I think I’ll eat off your plate. Wouldn’t want to get poisoned.” She felt her face temperature rise a bit out of embarrassment.

Bailey swatted his arm and grabbed a fold-out chair from the edge of the room and set it up so the table had three places to sit, instead of its usual two.

The three sat down, and Sam served his Alfredo dish he’d been working on before Bailey left. He placed Bailey’s plate down before placing his own. He got a mismatched plate from the pantry and put a small portion of pasta on the third plate. He aggressively placed it in front of Daniel. Daniel smirked at Sam as he did so.

“Thanks, mate,” Daniel mumbled through pursed lips. “I’m sure it’s brilliant.”

“Play nice,” Bailey said as she set out three red plastic cups. She grabbed a bottle of red wine from the back of the pantry and uncorked it before setting it on the table. “Drink up.”

Sam pointed his fork at Daniel. “Are you going to start talking?”

Daniel shoveled a forkful of pasta in his mouth. He chewed slowly, taking his time. Sam’s eyes squinted as he watched Daniel’s jaw move up and down. Daniel had a glimmer in an eye as he chewed slower.

Bailey nudged her elbow into Daniel’s side. “Just talk. Stop teasing him.”

Daniel let out a short laugh and gave Bailey his winning smile. “Just having a little fun,” Daniel said. His face softened, and he looked down at his plate, moving his food around mindlessly. “Halene is giving us a break for a while,” Daniel said. “After everything that happened, she wants to make sure you’ve both come to terms with your newfound knowledge.”

“I have so many questions still,” Bailey said honestly.

“I’m sure you do,” Daniel answered, and took a long drink of his wine before looking at Sam. “I’m sure you both do.”

“Why don’t you save us the trouble of asking them and just come out with it?” Sam asked, his eyes drilling into Daniel.

“I think I’ll need a stronger drink than this,” Daniel said, and looked at Bailey. “Got any booze, love?”

“You can stop calling her that,” Sam said through clenched teeth.

Bailey’s fork fell out of her hand. It clanked loudly against the plate, and both men looked at her. “You are both adults. We’re not doing this anymore.”

“What exactly
are
we doing?” Daniel asked, eyeing her skeptically.

“You can’t tug on me like a rope anymore. I’m a person. I’ll make my own decisions. Your fighting isn’t going to make me choose. It’s going to make me hate you both.” Bailey couldn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth. Sam looked at her with hurt eyes, and Daniel lifted his cup to her, like a salute.

“Didn’t think you had it in you, kid.” Daniel smirked, looking longingly at the last remnants of his wine.

Bailey breathed out a shaky breath. “We’ll head to a bar after this, for now, you can answer the easy questions.”

“Fair enough,” Daniel agreed.

“How do we always have a hotel room in the missions? How is stuff always paid for?”

“I’m wealthy. I’ve told you that before,” Daniel explained. “My grandfather lived on top of a copper mine in Australia. He sold it for a lot of money. There was enough old money that his family, his children, and his children’s children would be set for life.”

“Set for life? More like spending whatever money you want,” Bailey said. “You pay for all of our meals, rooms, and flights for four people every month or so.”

“Set for life wasn’t good enough for my father; he wanted more. He started an online marketing business that he eventually sold to Google.” Daniel poured the remainder of his cup into his mouth before pouring himself another serving. “I haven’t worked a day in my life. I’ve put my personal fortune into bond and money-market funds that pay me a large yearly income, and that’s what I live off of. That’s what we use for the missions.”

Sam poured himself another cup and gulped it down. Halene had said Daniel had lightened up on his drinking, but it seemed that he was at it just as hard as ever. “We’re going to need some more alcohol.” He looked around the room to see if a bottle of bourbon had suddenly appeared in the sparely decorated apartment.