In Between Dreams (21 page)

Sam seemed to discount her words immediately. “You don’t know what you did? That’s nonsense, Bailey, and you know it.” He turned to her, stopping his progression down the concourse, grabbing her arm. “What is it about him that turns you into the type of person who gets drunk while on a mission? And you kissed him? You are so much better than that.”

Sam’s grip tightened, and Bailey’s eyes went wide. “You’re hurting me,” she whispered in a rushed voice. “Let go of me.”

Sam let go and looked deeply into her brown eyes, his gaze intense. “Tell me you don’t feel a connection.”

“With Daniel?”

Sam shook his head. People rushed past them now. The sounds of chatter, suitcase wheels, and parents lecturing their kids in every language were filling her ears as Sam stared at her. His gaze was unwavering, uninhibited. She’d never seen him like this. He was angry, focused, and almost forceful. Sam’s stare softened. “With us. You and me. You know there is something here.” He grabbed both her hands and squeezed them. “Don’t give this up for a guy like Daniel.”

“I—”

Sam let go of her hands and swallowed. He shook his head. “Let it sink in; you don’t have to say anything now. But I thought it was time I said something.”

“And what’s that exactly?” Bailey asked, her voice quivered.

“I am in this. I get my timing isn’t great, but I want you. I want to be with you.”

Bailey was overwhelmed to hear Sam talk so plainly. Apparently the time for subtlety had passed. Sam went from hateful, to angry, to putting it all out there. “What’s gotten into you?”

Sam bit his lip and turned, signaling that it was time to start moving again. They both started to walk. “I talked to Katherine before we left, and I realized some things.”

Bailey
knew
Katherine was trouble. “You should be careful with her. We don’t really know her.”

“She was right, Bailey,” Sam said seriously, his voice rose as he said it, like a minister who believed fervently in what he was talking about that he felt the need to shout it. “I knew I couldn’t sit idly by anymore.” He sat down at a vacant seat across from their gate. He pulled out his wallet and handed her some euros. “Why don’t you go see if there are a couple English books in the shop right there? I’ll wait for Daniel.”

Bailey nodded slightly and took the money. She didn’t know what had just happened; it was all so surreal.

Daniel was able to get them seats in business class on the plane. He got his seat next to Bailey, and Sam’s was across the aisle. The seats reclined, and the airline had plush blankets and pillows. Each seat had a selection of in-flight movies to pick from. Being on Air France, most of them were French movies, with a few Chinese titles among them. Daniel’s and Bailey’s choices were limited to two movies. Sam had already started the French version of
Warm Bodies
while Bailey and Daniel were still scrolling through the choices.

“What can we do?” Bailey said. She was antsy to start on the next mission. Bailey knew they had a sixteen-hour flight ahead of them, but she wanted to start now. She wanted to help. She wanted to do
something
.

“Not much of anything,” Daniel said. “We’re stuck on this flight until the wheels touch in Hong Kong.”

Bailey chewed on her fingernail anxiously. “Tell me everything you and Halene talked about in Paris.”

Sam looked at the pair out of the corner of his eye. He huffed softly. He knew his jealousy was over wrought, but he couldn’t shake the feeling. He hated how well Daniel and Bailey got along. He forced himself to put his eyes back on the screen.

Daniel shook his head at her. “You’ve lost it,” he said, and patted her knee. “Let me think—” He looked forward and chewed on his lip as he thought of what he could tell Bailey that she didn’t already know. “We don’t really know much, besides the fact that we need to get her back.”
Something sparked in his eye, and he pulled out his wallet and his cell phone. “They have Wi-Fi.”

“What’s that going to do?”

“You can look up information on the 14K’s known hideouts,” Daniel said with a half grin. “See. I’m more than just a pretty face.”

Bailey liberally rolled her eyes. “Yes, you’re a gem.”

Daniel handed Bailey his phone, and she grabbed a pen and notepad from her purse. “Use your search engine of choice and search away,” Daniel said. “Share anything with me you think is important.”

Daniel and Bailey spent the next couple hours searching information on Yin and the 14K. It all felt so familiar to her. They discussed formalities of Triad prisoners, known hideouts of the Triad, known allies. From what Daniel and Bailey could tell, there were so many possibilities that it seemed impossible to find Mei.

“We’re going to have to bring someone in,” Bailey thought aloud.

“We don’t have another option,” Daniel agreed, and rubbed his forehead with the tips of his fingers. “My brain is getting mushy.”

“Movie time?” Bailey offered. Daniel nodded, and they began scrolling through the list of movie titles once again.

“All right,” he said with a sigh. “What are you going with?
Perks of Being a Wallflower
or the new Die Hard?”

“I assume I would’ve had to have seen the other Die Hards to understand it, so I’m going with
Perks
,” Bailey said and looked at him.

Sam gazed over, his eyes locking with Daniel’s for a nanosecond. Daniel smirked at Sam, as if Daniel knew what he was doing to him. Sam felt the pit of his stomach drop. Against his better judgment, he pulled the earbud out of his ear to listen to their conversation.

“Are you going with Die Hard?” Bailey asked

“No. We should watch the same movie. That way we can comment on it together. There’ll be plenty of time for Die Hard.”

Each seat had its own tablet with earbuds to connect to it. Bailey put one headphone in her ear and looked over at Daniel. “We should click on it together,” she suggested.

Sam pursed his lips in extreme jealousy.

“Good point.” Daniel smiled widely.

“One…two…three.”

Bailey’s movie started about a second before Daniel’s movie but didn’t start for three seconds leaving her two seconds behind his. “I hate when that happens.” Daniel smiled at her and patted her arm.

What is this, opposite day?
Bailey thought to herself. Daniel was being suddenly sweet. His early drinking had turned into a mellowness since he had stopped an hour or so back. Sam was cranky and intense.
Up is down
, Bailey thought to herself as she watched the previews that played before the movie. She yawned and kept her eyes on the screen, resisting the urge to look over at Daniel. She wanted to watch his reaction to the previews but decided it was inappropriate.

Once the movie started, she looked over at him. She watched as Daniel reacted to the movie, his face expressive. He leaned forward when he was interested. His eyebrows lifted when he was surprised. He lightly grinned when something happy happened of screen. And he scoffed when there was something cheesy. Bailey found herself watching Daniel more than the movie.

Sam found himself caught on the outside of what looked like a budding relationship from his seat. He watched Bailey as she watched Daniel. His stomach sunk, and he felt sick. He knew it was out of his hands. He told Bailey what he wanted; now it was up to her.

Bailey’s eyes were getting heavy as the flight attendant came by. She pulled out her headphones. Daniel and Sam were ordering beverages from the flight attendant. “Want anything?” Sam asked Bailey, and she shook her head.

“I think I’m going to take a nap,” she told them, and adjusted her airplane seat back. It was surprisingly comfortable. “Don’t fight while I sleep, okay?” she said inside of a yawn.

“Scout’s honor,” Daniel said, and presented her with a three-finger solute.

“We’ll be fine,” Sam agreed.

Bailey felt her eyes droop and nodded. “Jus’ be good,” she said in her half-asleep state.

Bailey’s eyes opened to the picture on her dresser. She reached up to rub the fog from her eyes. She breathed in and out before sitting up.
She was grateful she wasn’t as achy as normal. The sun was just beginning to come up. She reached for her phone and scrolled through her messages.

She ignored most of them, the ones from her friends inviting her out, and clicked on the one for Jason.
Called your mom and your boss. I like boss lady. She’s spicy
.

Bailey laughed a little and sat up. She needed to go to the bathroom, brush her teeth, and get back in bed before it was time to get back to sleep.

She was more anxious than normal to get back to her dream. Not only had she messed up in her dream with Mei, but she felt like she needed desperately to get back to her. It was ironic that this was the first time she felt anxious about it. Maybe that was because in her dream world she had either been drunk or hungover for the entire realization that Mei was gone.

As she brushed her teeth, she looked at her hair in the mirror. She liked it long. She didn’t want it short. She remembered how easy it had been to style in the dream because of how short it was. She also inspected her bare shoulder. There was no marking like there was in the dream. She also cringed at how radically skinny her arm looked here. She had lost a lot of weight recently due to her sleeping habits and her stress with work. She groaned. She needed some more meat on her bones. She spit the excess toothpaste in the sink and rinsed her mouth with water.

She walked to the kitchen and put a bagel in the toaster, watching the process as if it would somehow go faster. She ran her hands through her hair again and promised herself she’d never cut it.
Dream Bailey needs extensions
, she thought.
Maybe Daniel will buy them for me
. A smile came to her lips.

The bagel popped out of the toaster, and she slathered it with strawberry cream cheese. This would help her with her weight and energy problem. It wasn’t a weight problem she could mention to anyone. She would hear things like “Must be nice” and “I wish I had
that
problem.”

She grabbed the DVD case of
The Big W
and sat back on the bed. She scooted against the wall and grabbed the remote. She read the back of
the case what felt like the millionth time and flipped it over. The cover had a picture of George and Walter. Walter was leaning down and lighting a cigarette. She couldn’t see his eyes, because they were covered by his fedora. Walt was grinning mischievously and looking at George. She looked at the actor’s names as she took a big bite of her bagel. Rodney Clearwater and Humphrey Rains: two completely unknown actors.

She looked at the name Rodney again. She wondered for a moment if she had realized that before. The actor who played George was named Rodney. She swallowed the bite in her mouth and went in for another big bite. “Hmm,” she said. She put the DVD case down and pressed play on the remote.

Every boyfriend she had ever had wondered why she could watch this movie over and over again. She always said the same thing. “It reminds me of my dad.”

That wasn’t 100 percent true. It did remind her of her dad, and she did love it. But truthfully she didn’t really watch it over and over. She never really finished the movie in one sitting. She was always falling asleep. It’s like pausing a TV show in the middle; she’d have to go back to it before she could watch anything else. It provided her with comfort during her sleep attacks. It was a constant in a sea of unknowns. Bailey finished her bagel and went back to the kitchen to grab a carton of orange juice. She poured the juice down her throat and gulped a couple of times before screwing the lid back on and walking back to her bed.

She straightened her bed linen and lay down. She wrapped herself in her big, fluffy blanket and thought of the soft blankets on the plane. Her eyes drooped a bit. Her sleep attack was taking back over sooner than expected.

“Bailey?” she heard Sam’s voice, opened her eyes, and looked across the aisle. “Hey,” he grinned at her.

She yawned a soft “hey” back.

“Want something to eat?”

“I just ate,” she said instinctively, and Sam raised his eyebrow at her. She thought for a second and laughed.

“You were sleeping,” he noted.

She sat her chair up and saw the flight attendant. “They’ve got salmon,” Sam told her. She was starving. Her stomach was aching from being empty.

She looked at Daniel, who was also asleep. “Did you order him something?”

Sam shook his head. “Guess I should,” he said with obvious repulsion. It reminded Bailey of asking an unwanted, unexpected visitor to stay for dinner. He mumbled a couple words in French to the flight attendant and pointed at Daniel.

“How was your nap?”

Bailey yawned. “Okay,” she said, and stretched. “Short.” She noticed an energy drink on Sam’s fold-out table.

“Tell me that’s for me,” she said, and clapped her hands together. Sam passed it to her.

“Thought you might need one. How’s your head?”

“Better, I think. Not too bad,” she reported. He threw a small bottle of painkillers toward her, and she nodded a small thank-you nod before pouring the pills in her hand and swallowing them with help from the energy drink.

Bailey peeked over at Sam; he was looking down at an in-fight magazine. She studied his serious expression, the way he moved his lips slightly as he read. She looked at the freckle on his jawline and the way he pulled at his earlobe in a habitual way. She thought of his words in the airport. A piece of her longed to reach over to him and hold his hand in hers. She felt the need to kiss him on his pouty lips and tell him she was “in this” too.

But she couldn’t. There was too much going on. There were too many moving parts. Her mind was going every which way. She didn’t want to tell Sam she could be with him, when she didn’t know that she could. Because, even though she didn’t want to admit it, she had strong feelings for Daniel. She felt an incomparable pull when she looked into his eyes. Her feelings for Sam didn’t change the fact that there was a strong attraction between her and Daniel.

She swallowed hard, as if it would hide her feelings for the two men, and looked straight ahead. Bringing her mind to think about someone else. Mei. That was all she could focus on for now.