In Dreams

The Commissary screen winked out and Andy stared at the blankness for a few moments, trying to gather his thoughts. Checking what upgrades and Gifts were available in the Commissary had been a wild impulse, driven by the earlier thoughts about how to better make use of his Gifts. But while there, he had noticed something, and an idea had been born. He didn’t know if it would work, but it was worth a try, even if it required him to spend two upgrade purchases. And if it didn’t, he had the other idea at least… the one he knew would work, thanks to Arabella’s oblique confirmation.

Andy walked into the Master’s Elevator and pressed the button for the Suite, fidgeting, anxious. Even with what he had figured out, there was always a chance that something would go wrong. But he hoped it wouldn’t, not this time. Too much rode on gaming the system one more time.

Inside, the Suite was as neat as always, the ocean light scattering across hardwood and cream linen. But Andy ignored the kitchen, the red sectional, the large TV, the windows or the stairs leading up to the observatory deck. He walked directly to the bedroom, and his eyes went straight to the painting, hanging above the chest of drawers like a silent invitation.

Katherine was there, as she always was—if “there” was the right term for the thin wedge of reality between the painted surface and the rest of the world. She stood in her impossible meadow, the sunlight gilding her hair and bare skin, arms crossed under her breasts, head cocked to one side with the tragic poise of someone who’d been studied for years and still found the experiment unsatisfying. Her eyes, which had once struck Andy as pure mischief, now read as a sort of omnidirectional hunger—an awareness that nothing could touch her, and that she’d be hung on this wall forever.

He stepped into her line of sight. She brightened immediately, tossing her hair over her shoulder with a little flourish that would have been flirtatious if not for the desperation at its core. He made a goofy wave; she rolled her eyes and, in perfect, silent pantomime, mimed picking up a rock and throwing it at him.

He grinned, unspooling the tension in his shoulders. “Hey, Katherine,” he said, out of habit. “Sorry it took so long. Laura… needed a minute.”

Katherine nodded with regal patience, then mimed checking an imaginary watch, drumming her fingers on the “glass” barrier that separated her from the room. She flicked her eyes to the door, then back to Andy, then shrugged: what can you do?

He stood awkwardly, hands in pockets. “Want to hear how the ceremony went?”

She raised her eyebrows in a “duh” motion.

He gave her the summary, trimming the emotional bits, because they’d both agreed a long time ago that misery tourism wasn’t their brand. Still, he could tell she wanted details. So he obliged, skipping from the highlights—Dawn’s new boobs, Emily’s vetoing, Norah’s transformations and the group’s reaction to Laura’s split. He did his best impressions for each: Claire’s matter-of-fact tail swish, Riley’s “don’t touch me” attitude, Chloe’s deer-in-headlights expression.

Katherine shook with silent laughter at that, pressing her knuckles to her lips.

“She looked like she might actually pass out,” Andy said, grinning. He paused, searching her face for any flicker of sadness or envy—being trapped in a painting while the rest of the harem became living, breathing spectacle had to be a kind of purgatory. But Katherine just gave him a sidelong, sardonic smile and gestured with her head: and what about you, smart guy?

He hesitated. “It’s good. They’re good. I mean, some of the transformations suck, but everyone’s handling it.” He looked up at her, searching for a way to say it that wasn’t corny. “You’d be proud of them.”

She looked away, then rolled her eyes and mimed an exaggerated yawn.

“Okay,” Andy said, a little hurt. “I know it’s not the same as being there.”

She softened, reached out and pressed her palm to the invisible wall, as if that could make up for it.

He pressed his hand to the other side of the glass. It was a stupid, movie cliché, but he did it anyway. For a second, he imagined what it would be like to feel her skin, not the cold lacquer of her world, but the real warmth of her palm. He let the moment linger, then dropped his hand.

It was always like this—Andy wanting to fix something for Katherine, and instead ending up pressing his nose to the glass, both literally and metaphorically. He **** himself not to look away. “Can I get you anything?” he asked, out of habit.

Katherine laughed with her eyes, then pantomimed tapping an invisible cigarette against her hip, cocking a brow in challenge.

“You know they won’t let me smuggle a lighter in here,” Andy said, grinning.

She shook her head, then made a show of wiping a tear from her cheek, like she’d just witnessed the saddest story in the world. He never knew if these bits were for her or for him, but he played along.

“I do have something,” he said, feeling his face heat up. “I don’t know if it’ll work, but I want to try it, if you’ll let me.”

Katherine cocked her head, wariness and interest folding into the line of her jaw. She swept her arm dramatically—please, after you—and waited.

He leaned forward, lowering his voice even though the room was empty. “Remember when I, uh, updated your status with my Console Gift, so you’d be in my harem?”

Katherine’s face split into a wicked smile, and she threw both hands up as if to say, caught me red-handed.

He laughed, a little too loud. “Yeah. So, turns out, the Audience gave me an upgrade to my Coauthor Gift. I can edit eliminated Contestants now.”

Katherine’s eyes went wide, then narrowed in mock suspicion.

“I mean, not like—” he stopped. “I can’t reverse your transformations, or make you real. But I can add lines to your… file? Description?” He trailed off. “It’s like Google Docs for people, except the people are, you know. Alive.”

Katherine thought for a second, then mimed typing at a laptop, tongue sticking out in effort, and then drew a giant X over the imaginary keyboard.

“Yeah, I know,” Andy said, “you can’t use words.”

She paused, then with a sly slowness, tapped a finger to her temple and made a swirling gesture, then pointed at him, as if asking: mind-reading?

Andy snapped his fingers. “That’s what I was hoping for! I figured if I added a line about you being telepathic, maybe you could send me thoughts?” He checked his watch, stalling. “But when I brought it up with Arabella at the ceremony, she was weirdly evasive. Which means it probably won’t work.”

Katherine’s brow furrowed. She pointed to her mouth, then to her hand, then at Andy, and finally made an emphatic slicing motion across her neck.

He translated: “No speech, no writing, no sign, not even telepathy, because that’s just words in your head. They really closed every loophole.”

A terrible thought struck him. “Wait—can you even think to yourself in words anymore? Or did they take that too?” The idea of Katherine trapped not just physically but mentally, unable to form even silent sentences in her own consciousness, made his stomach twist.

Katherine's eyes widened. She tapped her temple rapidly, then nodded vigorously, giving him a thumbs up. Relief washed through him. At least that little mercy had been granted her. Then, with her hands, Katherine made a little heart and pressed it against the “glass” between them, looking at him with an ache so raw he almost stepped back.

Andy swallowed. “But.”

Her eyebrows lifted.

“I thought of something else,” he said. “Something that isn’t words.”

Katherine tilted her head, expectant.

“I’m going to try to update your description, just a little.” He looked at his smartwatch, pulled up Katherine’s description now that she was in his harem. He typed quickly: “Katherine can freely communicate via intentional emotion projection to other minds.”

Katherine watched, unreadable. When Andy finished, he looked up at her and tried to center himself. “Okay,” he said. “Try thinking at me. But not with words—just how you feel, right now.”

Katherine’s lips pressed together, uncertain. She closed her eyes, standing in her painted meadow, sun on her naked shoulders. For a long moment, nothing happened. Andy wanted to tell her it was okay, that she didn’t have to try, but then, all at once, he felt it—a jolt of not-pain, not-pleasure, but a sharp, bright pulse at the root of his heart. It was as if someone had opened a door in his head and let in a rush of feeling.

He staggered, then caught himself. “Whoa.”

Katherine’s eyes snapped open. She looked at him, startled, and he felt the echo—shock, fear, then hope, so strong it nearly doubled him over.

He reached out, pressing his hand to the painting, and she did the same, her palm on the other side. Andy closed his eyes, focusing. He felt the doubt, the wild hope, the longing, the **** urge to just be seen, and through it all, the low, pounding ache of loneliness that had fueled every conversation they’d ever had.

He opened his eyes. Katherine was crying—actual tears, trickling down her cheeks and staining her hair dark at the temples. She smiled at him, watery and perfect, then let out a breath, steadying herself.

“I felt you,” Andy said. “All of you.”

She nodded, lips pressed together. Her painted eyes were wet, and she was trembling. Andy smiled. “There’s another part to this I want to try. Okay. Let’s see.” He summoned the memory of what it was like to be happy, to be in the presence of someone he loved so much it made his bones hurt, and he tried to send that to her. He focused on the feeling, letting it fill him, then tried to push it out, into the space between them, using the same technique he used with Claire’s bond.

Katherine’s breath hitched. She reached up, covered her mouth, and her body shook with a soundless, delighted laugh. She mimed a round of applause, then gave him the double thumbs-up.

“Not bad for a first try,” Andy said. "Since I didn't say you can send your emotions, but that you can communicate, I think anyone who wants to do so with you, can send you emotions as well as receive them."

She grinned, then shrugged, as if to say: Could be worse.

They stood there for a while, passing feelings back and forth—Andy, uncertain but earnest; Katherine, tentative, then bold, then so exuberant it nearly knocked him over. With each round, the sense of her grew clearer: not just the mood, but the intent behind it, the history, the memory of why it mattered. It was more intimate than anything they’d ever done, and underneath it all, he felt her aching loneliness softened by the growing confidence she could communicate better now, after a fashion.

He wanted to tell her how proud he was, how grateful, so he did. But he also let the feeling speak for itself.

Katherine put her hand to the “glass” again. The loneliness was still there, but it was smaller now—brightened at the edges by something new. Andy closed his eyes and savored it: the certainty that even if he couldn’t free her today, he could, at last, reach her.

After a while, Andy let his hand fall to his side, the warmth of Katherine’s emotions echoing in his own chest. He took a breath, feeling for once like he hadn’t completely failed someone he cared about.

He was about to say goodbye—let her get back to her meadow, or whatever passed for downtime in painting purgatory—when he remembered: “Actually, there’s something else. One more thing I want to try, if you’re up for it.”

Katherine’s face brightened, hope and skepticism mixed in equal measure. She pointed at her own chest, then back at him, projecting cautious optimism.

He nodded. “Yeah, for you. I… I don’t know if it’ll work, but it came to me when I was checking out the Commissary upgrades.”

She mimed putting on a thinking cap, then gave him an expectant “get on with it” look.

He grinned, fighting back his own nerves. “The explanation is long, and I want to see if it works, first. Want to give it a try?”

Katherine nodded, first slowly, then with the momentum of a head-banger at a concert.

He stepped away from the painting and perched on the edge of the bed, facing her. He felt exposed, like someone was about to throw open the door and catch him mid-prayer. “Okay,” he said. “I don’t know how this works. I just… focus, I guess?” He made a show of getting comfortable—shoes off, hands on knees, eyes closed.

When he opened them, Katherine was watching him like a storm about to break, hope and terror and hunger mixing in her gaze. He took one last look at her and said, “If this works, I’ll see you in a minute.”

He closed his eyes.

The world fell away.

Katherine stood in a place that was no place at all. There was no floor, no ceiling, no sky. Just a swirl of color—pink and lavender and blue—like someone had poured melted birthday cake through the void and set it spinning forever. She couldn’t say how she’d arrived. For the first time in fourteen years, she didn’t feel the hard boundary of the painting, didn’t feel the stifling limit of that thin, hateful glass. She moved, and the world moved with her.

She tried to breathe, but every inhalation was a shock of panic: Where am I? What happened to the meadow? Where is the painting? Where am I? Where am I?

It was only when the colors parted, peeling away like old wallpaper, that she saw the shape of a room resolve in front of her. Marble floors. Creamy sheets on a bed. A wall window with nothing but ocean and light outside. And there, at the foot of the bed, stood Andy, his head bowed in concentration, eyes pinched shut, as if trying to pray the world into existence.

She blinked. The world stayed.

She stared at her own body, then at the room, then at Andy. She was nude, of course—she could feel the air prickling her skin, the muscles flexing along her belly, the impossible weight of her hair brushing her ankles. She was herself, but new, not frozen or painted or stuck. Not even trembling. Alive.

She turned, searching for the painting—her cage, her afterlife, her only window to the world—but the wall above the sideboard was empty. A blank stretch of white, waiting for a new story. She reached out, half-dreading the old shiver of restriction, but her hand went through the air, free.

She whirled back to Andy, her eyes wide, and in that instant she projected everything: terror, hope, hunger, disbelief, the wild possibility that this was a trick and she’d be ripped back to nothing at any second.

Andy looked up, and when he saw her, his face split in a sheepish, dorky grin. He looked like a man who had just opened the world’s greatest Christmas present and was terrified he’d break it before breakfast.

“This is going to sound weird,” he said, “but you’re not dreaming.” He hesitated. “Well, technically, you are. But it’s my dream, too.”

She blinked, mind spinning. Dream. Not real. But her body felt real, more real than anything since the day she’d lost her own world.

He stepped around the bed, moving slowly, as if afraid to spook her. “I bought the Comfort Gift from the Commissary,” he said. “It lets me meet with any harem member in a private dreamscape, if we’re both asleep. That wouldn't normally work with you, because you cannot sleep. But the upgrade, it allows me to slip into a trance to enter the dreamscape, and summon a harem member even if they’re not sleeping. See, it never said it had to be an active Contestant. And since you’re… in my harem, now, I thought—maybe—I could find you here.”

She tried to reply, but no words came. Instead, she reached up and touched her mouth, then her throat, then just stood there, trembling with the effort of holding herself together. She projected a million feelings at once: gratitude, astonishment, terror that it would vanish at any second.

Andy saw it—she could tell he felt it, even if he didn’t have the words. He opened his arms, not in a “come here” but in a “you don’t have to if you don’t want to” way, and let her decide.

She did.

She crossed the room—walking, actually walking, her legs moving under her like pistons—and flung herself into his arms. He caught her, laughing a little at the **** of it, then wrapped her up so tight she thought she’d melt. The world stopped spinning. She sobbed silently, not out of pain, but out of relief, out of joy so sharp it nearly broke her ribs.

He held her, hands running up her back, into her hair, around her hips. She clung to him, wanting to memorize every second, every contour of this impossible freedom, wanting to melt into the sensation of touching someone else for the first time in fourteen years. She sobbed again, this time into his shoulder, and felt the heat of his skin on hers—real, solid, warm.

He whispered, “It’s just a dream, but it’s yours as much as mine. If you want it.” He meant it—an offering, not an escape. Escape was still beyond him, but now he had hope.

She nodded, eyes streaming. She tried to say, Thank you, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead, she projected it, like a beacon, flooding the room with her love and gratitude and the ****, animal need to never go back to silence.

Andy didn’t speak for a long time, just held her, rocking slightly. He pressed his cheek to the crown of her head and let her cry it out. The rest of his life pressed at the edges of his mind—unfinished, crowded, unresolved—but he didn’t push it away. He simply set it aside, carefully, for this.

Finally, when she could breathe again, he said, “I can’t free you from the painting, not yet. But I can do this for a little while, at least once per round. Maybe more: the upgrade didn’t say how often it can be used on non-active Contestants. It is something. At least until I figure something else out.”

She nodded again, harder, her face buried in his neck. If this was all she ever had, it would be enough. She would take it. She would take it and burn it into her memory so bright it would light up the inside of the painting forever.

He squeezed her once, then loosened his hold. She looked up at him, eyes rimmed red and puffy. He looked back, and there was nothing but admiration and sorrow and love on his face. Love that complicated things rather than simplifying them—and that, somehow, felt right.

She didn’t know how to say what she wanted. So she showed him.

She slid her hands to his face, stood on her tiptoes, and kissed him. Hard. The world exploded—colors, heat, everything. It was sloppy and wet and **** and not at all like a painted memory. His arms went tight around her waist, lifting her, and she wrapped her legs around his hips, clinging as if the dream itself would dissolve if she let go.

He kissed her back, equally ferocious, and the swirl of feeling between them was almost too much to bear. Every longing she’d banked for fourteen years, every hope she’d ever smothered, every wish she’d once made to an indifferent universe—all of it poured through that kiss. Andy let it happen, knowing this didn’t replace anything waiting outside this moment—but it added to it.

She broke away, gasping, and he just held her, their foreheads pressed together, both shaking with the enormity of it.

She projected her wonder, her awe. He nodded, eyes closed, breathing her in.

The world felt different now. For the first time in forever, Katherine wasn’t looking out at life through a sheet of glass. She was in it—messy, naked, ****, alive. She clung to Andy as if the world itself would vanish if she let go. The tremble in her arms wasn’t just nerves—it was shock, pure and animal, at the resurrection of sensation after fourteen years of stone silence. She couldn’t stop running her hands over him: his hair, his jaw, his shoulders, down his chest and up again. She sobbed, and the sound was so huge in the room it felt like it might shake the walls apart.

Andy, for his part, just let her do it. He didn’t flinch, or try to stop her, or even offer the kind of comforting noises people use to manage the feelings of others. He just held her, letting the flood happen, soaking in the aftershocks of her need. She deserved someone who would stay present through the whole of it.

After a minute, he whispered, “I’m sorry I can’t do more for you, yet. I wish I could make this last forever.”

She shook her head hard, burying her face in his neck. With no words, she projected gratefulness, contentment, joy. If it ended now, she would be grateful for the rest of her painted eternity.

But she didn’t want it to end now.

She let herself look at him—really look—, and ran her fingers across his jawline, her thumb brushing the line of his lips. She projected everything: the lust and the love, the want and the gratefulness, the greedy, selfish wish to be loved in return.

He saw it, and smiled. “Is it okay if I…?” There was a brief, quiet moment where he chose this—chose to put the chaos and overwhelm of his life aside, for a moment, to be present for Katherine and give a girl who had suffered unspeakably for fourteen years, all that she deserved.

She cut him off, hands moving to the hem of his shirt, tugging gently but insistently, her face questioning. Andy laughed—a full, bright sound—and with a thought, his clothes vanished, leaving him as bare as she was.

Katherine gasped, startled by the suddenness of it—by the way Andy’s clothes vanished with barely a thought, leaving him utterly exposed. It was absurd, indecent, impossible, and all she could do was stand there and take in the sight of him, alive and real and not even a little bit ashamed. For years, there had been rules: the rules of the painting, the rules of her sentence, the rules of what she was allowed to want. But the dream didn't abide by those rules, and neither did Andy.

She stared at him, drinking in the lines of his body, the way muscle and skin seemed to hum with some barely contained energy. She’d seen him before, of course—she’d watched him for months, in a thousand different poses, asleep and awake, sad and content, clothed and naked. But the dream made him different—more vivid, more himself, less filtered through glass and distance. More hers.

She grinned, not the shy, polite smile she’d practiced for guests, but the one she remembered from the before-times, wild and sharp, with teeth. Then, without warning, she launched herself at him, legs wrapping around his waist, arms locked behind his neck, clinging with the **** **** of someone who had nothing left to lose. Andy caught her easily, stumbling back half a step but then holding her as if he’d been waiting for it.

She pressed her face to his, urgent and greedy, and kissed him. It was nothing like the careful, arranged kisses from her old life, or the static, staged ones she’d known in her frozen years—it was electric, heedless, all tongue and teeth and warmth. She bit his lower lip and was rewarded with a gasp, then a laugh, then a growl, deep and animal, that sent a shock straight through her. Andy’s hands slid down her back, cupping her ass with open hunger, and he squeezed, hard enough she thought she might dissolve. The sensation was so raw, so real, she almost sobbed.

She felt herself getting wet, and the surprise of it almost made her giggle. She’d forgotten she could want like this. Forgotten what it was like to be a body, not just a consciousness pinned in a frame. Andy felt it, too—she could tell, not just from the way his hands gripped her, but from the heat and pressure of his cock pressed against her, thick and impossibly hot. She ached for him, wanted him so badly she could barely breathe, and she projected it at him without shame.

He answered in kind, lifting her higher with a flex of his arms and pinning her to the nearest wall. She let her head drop back in ecstasy as he kissed along her neck, down to her collarbone, and then lower, running his tongue in lazy, maddening circles over her nipples. They were hypersensitive, and she gasped again, the sound echoing through the marble-and-ocean room. She buried her fingers in his hair, digging in, urging him to keep going, to never stop.

Andy’s hands moved with purpose now—he knew what she needed, and he gave it to her, never rushing, never hesitating. He let her hips grind against him, let her take what she wanted, but also held her so securely that she felt entirely safe, even as she was being undone. She wrapped her legs tighter around him, and he shifted, lining up and sliding inside her in one impossibly perfect motion.

She screamed soundlessly, not in pain but in joy, in disbelief, in gratitude. Fourteen years of numbness, of absence, of being a thing instead of a person, shattered in a single thrust. She clung to him, nails scraping his back, and rode him, **** to make up for every second she’d lost. Andy met her with equal ferocity, driving into her again and again, pace slow at first, then faster, matching the rising wave inside her.

They moved through the room together, knocking into furniture, uncaring, a tangle of limbs and mouths and fingers. He set her down on the edge of the bed, bending her back and kissing down her belly, his hands never letting go of her for a second. He tasted her, licked her, made her writhe, and then pulled her up so she was straddling him, her absurdly long hair wild and falling around them both like a curtain. She looked down and saw the awe in his eyes, the fierce, protective love, and for the first time in her life she felt wholly, perfectly known.

She rode him, grinding down, fast and frantic, and projected everything—her worship, her want, her terror that it could end, her hope that it might not. Andy met her gaze, eyes shining, and set both hands on her hips, anchoring her, grounding her, pushing her higher and higher. She could feel herself building, not just in her body, but in her whole self—sensation, memory, hunger, all spiraling together toward some impossible peak.

He shifted her higher, burying his face in her breasts, sucking and biting until she thought she’d lose her mind. She was close—so close—and she knew he was, too.

She projected her need at him: Now. Please. I want this. I want you.

When the orgasm hit, it was nothing like the polite, ladylike climaxes of her old life, or the pleasures-by-proxy of her painted purgatory. It was cataclysmic—a rupture, a melt, a thunderstrike. She saw stars, colors she didn’t have words for, and screamed again, soundlessly. Andy caught her, held her, and didn’t let her fall apart. He kept moving, relentless, until she came again, and then once more, tears streaming down her face because it was too much and not enough and she didn’t want it to stop.

Finally, Andy let go, his own climax rolling through him in a shudder that she felt deep in her own belly. He buried his face in her shoulder and groaned, holding her so tight she almost couldn’t breathe, but she loved it, loved the feeling of being completely surrounded, completely owned. He pressed his lips to her skin, kissing her again and again, until the aftershocks faded and they were just two bodies, tangled together, breathing hard.

They collapsed backward onto the sheets, still joined, her legs sprawled across his lap and her hair fanned out in a wild halo. Andy cradled her, arms wrapped around her like he’d never let go, and for a long time neither of them moved.

He stroked her hair, long and impossibly silky, letting it run through his fingers. She melted into him, her head on his shoulder, hands splayed across his chest. She kissed him, softer now, again and again, each one a thank you, a promise, a prayer. She didn’t want to move. She didn’t want to ever leave this spot, this body, this feeling.

She didn’t care if it ended now. She didn’t care if she went back to the painting and never got this again. She’d had this, and it was enough.

But Andy wasn’t finished.

He rocked her, kissing her face, her eyelids, her cheeks. “You’re amazing,” he whispered, and she believed it. She believed it with every cell of her being.

She wanted to tell him that she loved him, but the words wouldn’t come. So she projected it: the feeling, so strong it was almost blinding. She saw it hit him, saw the way his face changed, the way his eyes went wet. It didn’t make anything simpler. It made it heavier—and he accepted the weight.

“I love you, too,” he said, no shame or hesitation.

They stayed like that, wrapped together on the bedroom floor, until the colors at the edges of the world began to fray. She felt the change coming, the slow unraveling of the dream, but she held on until the last possible second.

He kissed her one more time, slow and sweet, and whispered, “I’ll come back. I promise. As often as I can.”

This time, she let herself believe him.

The world flickered, then faded, and Katherine felt herself pulled away—not yanked, not erased, but gently, like being carried to bed after a long, perfect day. She awoke in the painting, standing in her meadow. She was alone, but not lonely—not this time. She pressed her hand to the glass, expecting the familiar ache, but instead she felt a new warmth, a glow in her chest that didn’t dim.

On the other side of the world, Andy opened his eyes. He was still perched on the edge of the bed, hands in his lap, breathing hard. For a moment, he just stared at nothing, stunned and elated and a little bit broken. Then he looked at the painting.

Katherine was there, but something was different. She was smiling—really smiling, not the practiced mask but the real thing, soft and unguarded. She pressed her palm to the glass, and when Andy put his hand up to meet it, he could almost feel the heat.

They stood like that, joined by the impossible membrane of two worlds, neither willing to let go.

Andy cleared his throat. “I promised Emily I would help her, but I’ll see you soon,” he promised. “As soon as the Gift allows me to see you again.”

Katherine nodded, a single, sharp gesture, and made a little heart with her hands, pointing to him, blowing him a kiss. Andy let his hand drop. He was exhausted, but happy, the kind of happy that lasted even after you remembered all the reasons you shouldn’t be.

He blew a kiss back, and left the bedroom, heading for the elevator, and for a conversation with Emily.