Seven Days

Chapter Twenty-Five

December 13th & 14th

Monday Night/Tuesday Morning

It was odd, stretching out in her bed with Frerin, with Riley curled up in a ball at the foot of it after she'd sniffed the daylights out of every corner of Syd's room, but as Frerin draped his arm about her shoulders and pressed a kiss into the top of her head, she found she didn't mind it so much.

The television was on, the volume at maybe five, and she sighed as she tucked her head against Frerin's chest, smiling when he tightened his arm about her shoulders. "What's on your mind, Syd," he murmured, his fingers sweeping lightly along her shoulder.

"I'm just... comfortable."

"Yeah? Me, too."

She smiled into the semi-darkness, draping her arm over his hips, her fingertips brushing along the smooth, warm cotton of his boxer briefs. "There's something to be said about being comfortable."

He murmured something that sounded like an agreement, then pressed a kiss into the top of her head. An equally comfortable silence descended upon them, broken up only by the sound of Scott Van Pelt's voice as he gave the day's highlights in sports—basketball and hockey mostly.

"Syd?"

She lifted her head to gaze up at him. "Yeah?"

"What do you want for Christmas?"

"Truth?" She sighed softly. "For this to be over with. With Tori, I mean. It bothers me that she's back, so to speak."

"Yeah, me, too." His fingers went still. "You think Gram will figure out how we deal with this?"

"I do, yeah." Syd slid her hand up along his firm stomach, along the trail of soft hair that swirled around his navel and then upward toward his chest. She had faith in Gram, and if all else failed, Syd was pretty sure she had an idea that might work as well. She just wanted to run it by Gram before she said anything to him.

The bed creaked softly as he shifted, coming up to cover her, smiling as he said, "You think they can hear us downstairs?"

"No one else is awake at this hour," she told him. In the soft glow given off by the television, he looked almost sinister, his eyes pale slivers of ice beneath his dark brows, the St. Florian medallion throwing off flashes of light, the nazar a millimeter from his skin, the leather cord not long enough to allow for much more. "I think we're good."

She waited for the that feral look to come to his pale eyes, to lift the corners of his lips into that sinful grin she'd come to know so well.

But instead, he just gazed down at her. "I love you."

"I know," she told him, tracing her fingernails lightly along his back. "And I love you, too."

He bent to her then, his lips teasing as they met hers. SVP melted into the background as Syd lost herself in Frerin's kiss, which came slow and teasing and deep, and when he pulled back, he whispered, "Let's get married, Syd."

"What?"

"Let's just do it."

"Frerin, we talked about this and—"

"I know," he cut her off softly, "I know it's fucking crazy, but I don't know... I just feel like we should, Syd."

"You feel like we should?"

"Yeah. It's just... a feeling I have. And don't ask me to explain why because I don't think I can, but it's there and I just think we—"

She silenced him with a finger pressed to his lips. "Before you pass out," she whispered, holding his gaze, smiling as his eyes softened. "By feeling, do you mean like when you have the feeling you should play a certain number combination in the lottery or you should maybe go a different way to work than usual?"