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Geri’s in dreamland when the bed starts shaking. It takes her a moment to figure out what woke her. Cordell must be having a bad dream, because he’s tossing beside her, distress evident on his face. She starts to reach for him, but before she can make contact, he sits up with a gasp and then pivots to sit on the side of the bed. He clenches the edge of the mattress, his knuckles turning white. His breath is rough and unsteady.
“Cordi?”
She crawls across the bed until she’s behind him. She puts her hands on his shoulders and leans against him. His body is slick with sweat and his whole body’s tense. He’s trembling.
“It’s ok,” she says, softly. “You’re safe. I’m here.”
He nods tersely.
“So—sorry to wake you.”
“Don’t be sorry. Must’ve been some dream.”
She hates to think of all the times that he must have woken up with nightmares like this and been all alone. She rubs his back gently, trying to get him to calm down, trying to help him realize he’s safe.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
He shakes his head. “Not, ahh, really.” He reaches back and pats her knee. “You should go back to sleep.”
“Will you?”
He swallows hard and looks away.
He’s afraid to go back to sleep.
She slips past him, off the bed. “Come on; I’ll make you some tea.”
Cordell starts to protest, but she doesn’t take no for an answer, reaching for his hand and pulling him downstairs to the kitchen with her. He leans back against the counter, watching her as she puts water on to boil and grabs them each a mug. She takes care to be quiet so they don’t wake August at two in the morning, although she probably doesn’t need to; one thing she’s learned since moving in is that teenage boys are sound sleepers.
“Some of the meds I was on as a kid for my heart gave me terrible night terrors sometimes. Frank’d make me some tea or some hot chocolate. Always made me feel better.”
She hands him a mug and their fingers brush as he takes it. He gives her a small smile.
“Thanks.”
She leans back against him and he puts an arm around her. They stand there and drink their tea in silence and she can feel him start to relax a little.
At last, Cordell puts his mug down with a soft sigh. He reaches for her hand. “Let’s go back to bed.”
But once they’re upstairs and she’s tucked back in bed, Cordell is still standing beside the bed, staring down at it with unease.
She pats his spot on the bed beside her and reaches for a book off her nightstand.
“Climb in; I’ll read to ya.”
“What?” He looks at her and the book in her hand—a rather hefty nonfiction book on the history of Prohibition, something she as a bartender/bar-owner takes personally—skeptically. “Are you planning on reading that to me or using it to knock me out?”
“Well, with any luck, it should bore you to sleep. But if not, I’ll use it to knock you out. Come here.”
He looks amused, but does as directed. She settles him against her, his head resting on her chest, her arm around his shoulder . She kisses the top of his head.
“Close your eyes.”
She reads out loud to him, one hand holding her book, the other gently running through his hair and down his neck. His breathing evens out and it’s not long until he’s asleep.
I’ll watch over you , she promises silently.
She keeps reading, though, because now she’s not in a good stopping place in her book.
-
Geri’s warm and comfortable under the covers and not-really-awake, when the bed shifts and she makes an involuntary sound of protest because Cordell’s letting cold air in under the covers. He leans over and kisses her cheek.
“Don’t get up yet,” he whispers.
“Wasn’t planning on it,” she murmurs, burrowing down further under the covers.
He chuckles softly and she drifts back to sleep.
She wakes up sometime later to the scent of bacon and Cordell pushing open their bedroom door. He’s balancing a tray full of food. She sits up, surprised.
“You made me breakfast? In bed?”
He shifts slightly, grinning shyly at her and she thinks there’s even the faintest of blushes on his cheeks.
“To thank you...for last night.”
She wants to tell him that he doesn’t need to thank her, but she doesn’t want him to think she’s dismissing his appreciation.
“Well, bring it on over here. And you better be joining me.”
He hands her the tray and then slides onto his side of the bed. “You think I would have made this much bacon if it was just for you?”
“I’m not sharing the bacon.”
He laughs and snatches a piece before she can stop him.
“Hey!”
And then he has the nerve to kiss her with his bacon-stealing lips, honestly.
They eat breakfast together and Geri thinks she could get used to this. She might never leave this bed, as long as Cordell keeps feeding her. They finish eating and Geri leans back against the pillows, content.
“That was delicious, baby.”
He grins. “Glad you liked it.”
Then his expression turns serious and he shifts closer to her.
“Geri,” he reaches for her hand, “...About last night.”
“It’s ok, Cordi, you don’t have to talk about it—”
“No, no, I want to.” He takes a breath. “I...ahh, still, ahh, go back to—to my time in—in captivity with Grey Flag. And it, ahh, feels very real, even though I know it isn’t.”
He sighs, frustrated, she thinks. “It feels like—like I should be over it by now.”
She raises her eyebrows at him.
“ No, I know. Not over over it, but it’s done now. Coop’s in—in, ahh, jail, Kevin’s dead , Grey Flag’s done. I don’t—don’t want to spend the rest of my life being... afraid of this specific boogeyman.”
S he reaches a hand up to push his hair off his face. “Well, they did a real number on ya.”
She hates thinking about that night; how she’d been so glad to have him back, but how she could see the pieces he was in, how she wasn’t sure that he was really back, that there wasn’t still a piece of his soul locked in that cell he’d been held in.
“Yeah.” He takes a breath. “I’m just, ahh, a little more... dented than I was the—the last time that we, ahh, tried this and if that’s more than—than you bargained for, then I understand.” His words come out in a rush.
S he pushes the tray away and reaches for his other hand with her free one. “I’m not the same person anymore, either, Cordell. I went through a life-changing experience of finding out that my mother is, well, Gale. And finding my sister that I didn’t know about who...well, it’s a work in progress. And then I found out that Hoyt had a daughter that I—and he—didn’t k now about. And,” she shrugs, “There’s the break-in. I know it’s not the same , but we all have stuff , Cordi.”
“ Yeah. That—that doesn’t change how I feel about you, Geri.”
“It doesn’t change how I feel about you, either. I’m … all in , Cordell Walker.”
H e stares at her, his brown eyes full of hope, looking to see if she’s serious. She stares back, because she is.
His eyes light up and a grin takes over his face. She smiles back and then he leans forward to kiss her.
“ I’m all in, too, Geraldine Broussard,” he whispers against her lips.