Sydney shifted again, tilting her head slightly to look at me. “You guys fight a lot?”

“Something like that.”

She ran her fingers over my chest, slow and lazy.

“She seemed pretty mad,” she said after a moment.

I turned my head to look at her. “Can we not do this?”

She studied me for a second, eyes soft, searching, like she was trying to figure me out. Then, mercifully, Sydney nodded. “Fine. You don’t have to think about her right now,” she murmured. “I’m here.”

I swallowed. Let my eyes drift shut.

Sydney was easy.

And Beverly…

Beverly was gone.

So I let it go. I let Sydney keep tracing invisible patterns against my chest. I let my body relax into the bed. I let myself forget, just for a little while, that there was anything outside this room.

Because what was the point of thinking about someone who hated me?

“You should get some sleep,” she said.

“I don’t sleep much.”

“Yeah, I figured. You’re always at the gym at like, four in the morning.”

I glanced at her. “You been keeping tabs on me?”

“No, you’re just hard to miss.”

I didn’t answer.

“You don’t talk much, huh?”

I shrugged.

“Good thing I like quiet guys,” she mused. “Less exhausting.”

I arched a brow. “Less exhausting?”

“Yeah. Most guys just talk to hear themselves talk.”

“You do enough talking for both of us?”

“Exactly,” she murmured. “See? We’re already compatible.”

I huffed out a breath, shaking my head.

“You don’t have to be tense, you know. I don’t bite.”

I didn’t answer.

Her fingers traced the edge of my palm, slow and deliberate. “You don’t have to be alone tonight.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

Maybe she was right. Maybe I could let someone else take up space in my head, even if it was just for a night. Even if it was just for a few hours of relief from the noise in my mind.

“You wanna talk about something else?”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Anything,” she replied. “Tell me something random. Like… I don’t know, what’s your favorite cereal?”

“I don’t eat cereal.”

She gasped. “What? Who doesn’t eat cereal?”

I shrugged.

“That’s actually kind of sad, Blake,” she sighed. “No childhood nostalgia for Frosted Flakes or Froot Loops?”

“Never really had that kind of childhood.”

She didn’t pry. She just hummed, like she was absorbing the weight of my words, and then nudged me again. “Okay, fine. What’s your favorite color?”

Blue.

But not just any blue. The exact shade of Beverly’s eyes when she was excited. The color that made everything around me blur, as if time itself stopped when she looked at me.

The one that had ruined every other color for me.

I sighed. “Don’t have one.”