“Always.”

“The other week, that night I wouldn’t let you stay over—”

“You’ve come to your senses and want to apologize?” he broke in, cracking a smile. “It’s okay; I forgive you. You didn’t need to call a summit for that.”

He paused, clearly expecting me to laugh. Any other time I would have, but instead I shook my head and said, “Let me finish. After you left, you went home, right?”

He cocked his head to the side. “Are you asking me if I hooked up with someone else?”

“No, I don’t care about that.” Nick looked offended and opened his mouth to say something, but I cut him off. “Wherever you went when you left. You didn’t come back, right?”

“No, of course not. You know I didn’t.”

The tightness in my body started to subside. There was no ear tugging, no shiftiness, no indication he was lying. Nick’s face was an open book—a confused book, but an open one nonetheless. He had no idea what I was talking about.

“And you didn’t … linger in the alley before you left?”

“What? Why would I do that?”

“And the flowers …”

“Audrey, what’s going on?”

“Something really weird happened,” I admitted, pulling my phone from my bag and opening the Luna Listen app. “Here. Listen.”

Nick clicked the “play” button and held the phone between us. The thump of the door sounded, followed by a brief silence.

He turned to me curiously. “What is this?”

I shushed him as the footsteps started.

Hi, my voice said on the recording, loud enough to make my body erupt in goose bumps. I would never get used to hearing myself talk in my sleep.

“That’s you,” he said. He glanced down at the app’s interface and started to smile. “Wait a minute, I know what this is. This is one of those sleep-tracking apps. Are you sleep—”

“Listen,” I commanded.

You’re dreaming, the soft voice said. My stomach rolled unpleasantly and I looked to Nick, but he didn’t even flinch.

Oh, my voice said.

“There you are again,” Nick said. He smiled triumphantly and pumped his fist. “I’ve been telling you for years that you talk in your sleep. Vindication at last!”

Too preoccupied to correct him that I’d never doubted I talked in my sleep, only that I said the filthy things he claimed I did, I said, “You didn’t hear it?”

“Hear what?”

“Really listen this time,” I admonished him, using my finger to rewind the audio and restart it.

Nick gave me a strange look but obeyed. When the recording finished, he looked at me and shrugged. “I don’t know. All I hear is some noise, and then you saying ‘hi’ and ‘oh.’ ”

“You heard nothing between my words? Nothing at all?”

“Maybe some mumbling, I guess. Nothing clear.” He frowned. “Was I supposed to hear something?”

“You have to listen again,” I said, starting to rewind it once more.

“Audrey.”

I startled when I heard my name behind me, suddenly aware that I was in the lobby of my place of employment, playing a recording of me talking in my sleep for anyone within listening distance to hear. I swiveled in my chair to find Lawrence hovering behind me. He was staring hard at my phone, and the expression on his face made my skin crawl.