I whirl around, and see him leaning against the doorway in a pair of black drawstring pants and … nothing. It never in a million years would’ve occurred to me that Salem Grayson sleeps shirtless, and the fact that he does and that I am staring at a wall of lean muscle is very unsettling. “Hi,” I say, because I have to say something, and also I have to look up into his eyes. His eyes, which look sleepy and soft and a little concerned, long lashes slightly fluttering, and all of this is very confusing.

It is really not a good time to be noticing any of this.

“Hi?” He scratches his chest, giving me permission to glance again. It’s not a broad chest, or a particularly defined one, and yet. The urge to feel it under my palm is obnoxiously strong. “It’s like three A.M.”

“I know. Sorry. I just … I’ve been having a really weird night, and I was dying to talk to someone, and then I heard you moving, so I figured I’d see if you were up. But it’s really late. You probably wanna get back to bed. This was stupid.”

“Nah, I’ve been having a weird night too, and then I heard you skulking outside. You wanna come in?” He holds open the door. “Don’t worry—once Matt’s out, he can sleep through a zombie apocalypse. I’ve stuck so many things in his nose to test this theory.”

I smother my laughter in my hand and join Salem on his bed, curling my legs up underneath me in the corner while he sets his pillow behind his back and sits up to face me. “Are you okay?” I ask. “You know, before I dive into talking about my stupid shit for an hour.”

“Yeah, yeah. Also stupid shit, but not the kind worth talking about.”

I take him at his word, mostly because I’m about to break. “My sister’s in rehab. That’s why my parents weren’t here this weekend. They were checking her in.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Yeah. And I don’t even know how much she’s actually using or anything, but apparently, she was dealing, and this was part of the arrangement they made, along with her license getting suspended.” I fix him with a dark look. “Please tell me you were never that stupid.”

“No way, that would’ve been way too much work. My dealer was just one of the guys in my band back home.”

“You were in a band? God, I really did call it from the beginning. I can’t believe you lied about playing guitar. Who lies about that?”

“I didn’t lie about playing guitar; I said I wasn’t going to be giving an emo acoustic performance, and that my guitar’s name wasn’t Betty.”

“Okay, so what’s her name?”

He sniffs. “Janis.”