Stars Dancing [Dreams-To-Lovers Romance]

** PIRACY WARNING: This story is free to read on RoyalRoad.com If you are reading this on another site it is a pirated copy. If you enjoy the story please read it on Royal Road here: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/122374/stars-dancing-dreams-to-lovers-romance **

"God, Sam. Stars above, how is it this good?"

"I dunno, Cor. I guess this is what it's really like when two people have known each other for time beyond their imaginging. You watched the cartoon, right?"

She nodded, and her face contorted. Her voice came out in a whisper. "I had no idea anything like that existed. I could've watched that Dream With Me Now show when I was younger, and I would've known I wasn't the only one. That girl, Crystal, met her soul mate in her dreams, and it took her years to find him. And all the while, he was dreaming of her and writing her love songs on his guitar."

A tear trickled outta Cora's eye, so I kissed it away. "If I'd seen that. If I'd known. . . I wouldn't have been alone, Sam."

"Were you alone, Cora?" I whispered. "Or was a part of me there with you? You said before that it was like I'd walked in your dreams and written them in my book. What if that's true in some way? Even if I didn't fully know?"

She sobbed, pulling my head against her heart. "Say it again, Sam. Tell that inner part of me that I wasn't ever truly alone."

I wrapped all of myself around her, holding Cora as tight as I could, and wishing I had magic words that could erase every sad day she'd ever known.

"Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high. There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby. . . . And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true," I whispered against her skin.

"Coraline, I titled my novel Moons Dancing, which is a little bit of a joke about neo-pagans running around moon clad and getting up to no good at night, but if you can look past the superficial reference, it means so much more." My voice was soft and light, and every word felt like an incantation.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"The moon symbolizes the part of ourselves that we can't always fathom. The inexplicable and mysterious. The incorporeal wanderings and intuition that defies rational explanation."

"And Cora," I lifted my head to look in her eyes. "It's the nature of mysteries to be connected in ways we don't understand. What some people call 'coincidence' others call 'serendipity.' It was never a mistake that you dreamt of a woman you cared for, and I wrote stories of a woman who found a love deeper than she could've ever known in her sleeping state."

"Maybe I didn't see you in my dreams, but isn't it possible that the very thing you're wishing for is actually true? That some mystical aspect of me was connected to you all those years, and you were just attuned enough to it to remember when you woke? I was so buried under grief that I only saw the things that were right in front of me, but that doesn't mean that was all that was happening," I finished.

Cora pushed to her elbows, and I sat up cross legged. "You really think so, Sam? That all along, we were connected in some way?"

"Why not? I mean, it's not a coincidence. All of this. I dunno about HC's theories that I have prophetic dreams, but he's not entirely wrong either. I wrote a poem when I was seventeen about the line between this world and the next, and then that night I dreamt of my dead parents. Like they were right there with me, Cora. Not that different from the woman who was a presence in your dreams."

"Recently I dreamt about setting myself on fire, and HC interpreted that metaphorically. Then my life in Cheyenne blew up royally. I can't pretend to understand all of this, but I know that I went through something no child should have to face, and I've never been like other people, Cora."

"I just don't care about superficial things like other people do, and small talk evades me. You asked if I'm always intense, and yeah, I think I pretty much am. But that's because I grew up when I was young, I think."

My head cocked as I looked at her. "But what about you? Did something happen to you as a kid? What made you start having mysterious dreams, Cora?"

She grimaced. "Yeah, we're gonna need to talk about that. But let's order dinner first. You like pho? Vietnamese?"

"Love it!" I grinned.

"Perfect," she nodded.

Cora placed our dinner order, and we got dressed and moved to the living room sofa so she could tell me a story I wasn't really prepared for but needed to hear.