I shuffled down a little more on the settee by the fireplace and crossed my ankles, my legs straightened out over his lap. “I wish we could do this every night.”
Jason smiled down at my wedding ring, twisting it around on my finger for the hundredth time. “I'm sure my brother would approve of that.”
“We’re just talking. I don't think he’d mind.”
He looked at my legs. “I’d mind—if I was him.”
I laughed. “Only because you know you have all the wrong intentions. Whereas, I, on the other hand, don't.”
He shook his head, his eyes small, his tight lips blossoming into a full grin. “You are a terrible liar, Ara-Rose.”
“Me? A liar?” I said, crossing my ankles the other way. “You’re just reading into it wrong. And why do you keep doing that with my ring?”
He grinned down and brought his other hand up slowly, pinching the white-gold band between his fingertips. “I'm taking it off you.”
“Why?” I straightened my finger, letting him slide the ring over my knuckle.
“Because it looks wrong. We’re supposed to be a couple, yet you wear this like some shrine to your supposedly dead husband.” He slipped it into his pocket. “Removing this will give the people some hope.”
I kept my eyes on his pocket for a few seconds. “Fine. But don't lose it.”
He laid a hand to his chest. “I've never lost anything I hold close to my heart.”
“So, your heart is in your back pocket?” I joked.
“No. It’s on my sleeve,” he said.
I rolled my eyes, but inside, thought that was really sweet.
In the background, an acoustic playlist of my favourite bands kept time to our magic little world; each song bringing this closer to an end. We sat quietly then, both hearing the words to a song about being in a dream together, and Jason smiled, because they fit so perfectly to our situation.
“Who’s this by?” he asked.
“Gavin DeGraw.”
The corner of his lip turned up sharply and his smiling eyes focused on nothing, as the words played out around us. “Do you think he wrote it just for us?”
“Maybe he did and he doesn't know it.”
“Maybe.”
I ran the tip of my thumb over his nail, feeling the melody fill me up like Jason’s mere presence did, and neither of us had words for a while, because everything we wanted to say was being sung to us by a person we’d never met. But the song ended with the rise of day, and the sun reached out to all corners of the manor, blowing away the intimacy of candlelight with the cold light of truth.
“I should go,” he said, rubbing a hand over my leg, warming it a little. “It’s not really right for me to be in here with you like this.”
“How noble of you.” I rolled my eyes. “Yet it was okay while it was dark.”
“I'm sorry, Ara. It’s just—I forget sometimes, you know.” His eyes narrowed as if he was thinking really hard. “I'm so used to you being mine, so used to being in that world of neither here nor there that it’s automatic for me to love you as my own. But it’s wrong, and I don't wanna be that guy.”
“I know. And I don't want to be that girl, either.”
He brushed his thumb over my jaw, smiling. “I know you don't, Ara. And when we were in those dreams before, we were both so caught up in the confusion of it all, and, honestly, I never cared if I hurt David, but, somehow, throwing him on a fire to burn alive kinda mended the hatred I had for him.”
“Then why didn't you try that in the first place—instead of ruining the first ball I ever went to?”
“Ooh, low-blow,” he said with a grin, his lovely dimple showing. “Well, if I could go back, I’d do it all differently.”
“I know that, Jase.” I patted his hand. “And you’re right, you know—David would be very pissed-off to see us sitting like this.”
“It’s just so hard, though,” he whined. “I want to be this way with you, and I know you want it, too. And maybe that’ll change when you’ve got David here to love you like you need, but, right now, while he’s not, and while you’re willing to let me be close with you, I will have to fight incredibly hard with myself not to put us in situations like this.”
“Situations?” I looked down at his hand on my lower thigh, his fingers falling softly between them.
“Yeah, you know, getting closer, hanging out like we’re in love—spending the night together.”
“It’s not like we slept together.”
“It will happen, though, Ara,” he stated. “If we keep this up, I won't be able to let you go when he comes back, and neither will you.”
I laughed then because, as he said that, a song playing said, “I won't let you go,” as if my playlist had been perfectly selected to musically portray our emotions. If Highway to Hell came on, I’d be very concerned.
Jason laughed, obviously having read all that in my thoughts. “Speaking of highway,” he said, shifting my legs as he stood up. “I’ll hit it—leave you to sleep.”
“I'm not tired.”
“Liar.” He grinned and wandered over to my fireplace.
I sat up. “Um, Jase, the door’s the other way.”
“I know,” he said, then just stood there, rapping on the wall.
“What are you doing?”
“I have a theory about this wall.”
“What about it?”
“Well, my room has only one window, right?”
“Yeah.”
“But, from the outside of the manor, there are exactly sixteen windows on the west wing’s second floor. So…where is the last room, if my window is number fifteen?”
“Urm…I don't know.” I walked over to stand beside him.
“Exactly. So, I got to thinking, and I did a little digging around.” He pushed on the wall panel. “When I was a kid, we used to find secret passages all over this place.”
“Really?”
“Yep.”
“Can you show me some?”
“Sure.” He pushed another spot on the wall and smiled. “One thing we came to learn was that most secret doors were a push-release panel; you shove it, it pops out, then you can open it.” He stood back and revealed a small opening where my wall was a second ago.
“It’s a secret passage.”
He nodded. “Leading into whatever is beside my room.”