“I’m here,” I said, hoisting myself off the sofa. “Everything’s okay.”

“But you screamed.” Alarmed, she scanned the area.

“We really need to soundproof these walls.” She lived right across the hall and could apparently hear a feather drop in my kitchen.

After taking a moment to catch her breath, she leveled a cold stare at me. “Charley, damn it.”

“You know, I get called that a lot,” I said, padding toward the bathroom, “but Charley Damn It’s not really my name.”

She stepped toward my bookcase and braced herself with one hand while the other tried to still her beating heart. Then she glared. It was funny. Just as she opened her mouth to say something, she noticed the plethora of empty coffee cups scattered about the place. Then she glared again. It was still funny.

“Have you been drinking all night?”

I disappeared into the bathroom, came back with a toothbrush in my mouth, then pointed toward the front door with raised brows. “Break and enter much?”

She stepped around me and closed the door. “We need to talk.”

Uh-oh. Scolding time. She’d been scolding me every day for a week. At first, I could lie about my lack of sleep and she’d fall for it, but she started suspecting insomnia when I began seeing purple elephants in the air vents at the office. I knew I shouldn’t have asked her about them. I thought maybe she’d redecorated.

I went to my bedroom and changed into a fresh pair of pj’s, then asked, “Want coffee?” as I headed that way.

“It’s three thirty in the morning.”

“Okay. Want coffee?”

“No. Sit down.” When I paused midstride and raised my brows in questions, she set a stubborn tilt to her jaw. “I told you, we need to talk.”

“Does this have anything to do with that mustache I drew on you while you were sleeping the other night?” I lowered myself slowly onto the sofa, keeping a wary eye on her, just in case.

“No. This has to do with drugs.”

My jaw fell open. I almost lost my toothbrush. “You’re on drugs?”

She pressed her mouth together. “No. You are.”

“I’m on drugs?” I asked, stunned. I had no idea.

“Charley,” Cookie said, her voice sympathetic, “how long has it been since you’ve slept?”

With a loud sigh that bordered on a whine, I counted on my fingers. “Around thirteen days, give or take.”

Her eyes widened with shock. After she let that sink in, she asked, “And you’re not on anything?”

I took the toothbrush out of my mouth. “Besides Crest?”

“Then how are you doing it?” She leaned forward, her brows glued together in concern. “How are you not sleeping for days at a time?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t close my eyes.”

“Charley, that’s impossible. And probably dangerous.”

“Not at all,” I assured her. “I’m drinking lots of coffee. And I hardly ever fall asleep while driving.”

“Oh, my gosh.” She let her head drop into her palm.

I popped the toothbrush back into my mouth with a smile. People like Cookie were hard to come by. Stalwart. Loyal. Easy to punk. “Hon, I’m not like you, remember?”

She focused on me again. “You’re still human. Just because you heal really fast and can see the departed and you have this uncanny ability to convince the most mundane of persons to try to kill you—”

“But he’s so mad at me, Cook.” I lowered my head, the sadness of my situation creeping up on me.

She stopped and absorbed my statement before commenting. “Tell me exactly what’s going on.”

“’Kay. Need coffee first.”

“It’s three thirty in the morning.”

Ten minutes later, we both had a cup of coffee à la fresco, and I was in the middle of describing my dreams—if one could call them that—to a starry-eyed divorcée with lust in her loins. She already knew about my binding Reyes to his physical body, but she didn’t know about the dreams. Not entirely. I’d just told her about my most recent encounter with God Reyes, a being forged in the fires of hell, created from beauty and sin and fused together with the blistering heat of sensuality.

I fanned myself and refocused on her.

“He was actually—”

“Yep,” I said.

“And he put your leg—?”

“Yep. I think for ease of access.”

“Oh, my.” A hand floated up to cover her heart.

“Yep again. But that’s the cool part. The orgasmic part. The part where he touches me and kisses me and strokes me in the most amazing places.”

“He kissed you?”

“Well, no, not this morning,” I said, shaking my head. “But sometimes he does. Strange thing is, he doesn’t want to be there. He doesn’t want to be with me. And yet, the minute I close my eyes, there he is. Fierce. Sexy. Pissed as hell.”

“But he actually lifted your leg—?”

“Cookie,” I said, grabbing her arm and forcing her to focus, “you have to get past that part.”

“Right.” She blinked and shook her head. “Right, sorry. Well, I can certainly see why you don’t want to experience that kind of trauma night after night.”

“But I don’t get any actual rest. I swear I’m more exhausted when I wake up, like, three minutes later. And he’s just so mad at me.”