Nick puts his phone down and looks at me. “Are you choking?” he asks, leaning toward me.

I swallow. “No! Why did you think I was choking?”

He shakes his head. “Because you were staring at me without saying anything, and you looked terrified.”

I force a smile on my face. “It’s . . . been a long day.”

Nick smiles. “You wanna go home?”

I nod, and fifteen minutes later, Nick drops me off. His truck waits in the driveway as I climb the stairs and unlock the door, and I wave to him as I step inside.

But then, as soon as he drives away, I open the door again and go right back down those stairs into the cold and wet night, then get into my car. There’s someone I have to see.

* * *

Milo didn’t answer any of my calls, so I pound on Mikey Danger’s front door. There are a few drunk-looking college bros on the lawn of the duplex next door staring at me.

“Whoooooa. I wouldn’t want that chick to be pissed at me,” one of them says in what I think is supposed to be a whisper.

“You’re right you wouldn’t,” I mutter, banging on the door again.

It swings open and Fred blinks at me a few times. “Uh, Chloe?”

He’s wearing sweat pants and no shirt and he looks . . . well, he looks like a male model. “Oh, no,” I say. “You were asleep?”

He shakes his head, waking up. “Yeah, but it’s fine. Is everything okay?”

Fred is nothing but an innocent bystander in this situation, and I need to get to Milo. “Where’s my brother?” I ask.

He gestures toward their room with his head. “When I got home from a shoot tonight, he was already in bed. I guess he fell asleep early.”

I clench my jaw. The entire time I was freaking out and visiting the hospital, Milo was sleeping like an overgrown baby who has zero responsibility?

“Excuse me,” I say through my teeth as I step past Fred. “I need to go yell at my brother.”

“I’ll . . . wait here,” I hear Fred say over my shoulder.

I swing the door open, grab a pillow off the floor, and throw it at Milo’s sleeping form. When he doesn’t wake up, I use my hands to jostle him.

“Hey. Hey!” I yell. He groans and rolls over, then startles when he sees it’s me. He grabs his giant glasses off the floor and slides them onto his face. His mouth opens slightly and when he looks at me in confusion, I see him as tiny child Milo, the one who used to fall asleep on the couch in front of the television while watching cartoons. My heart softens a bit, but then I remember why I’m here.

“Dad’s in the hospital,” I say.

Milo sits up, scrabbling against the sheets. “What?”

I level a look at him. “I got out of the premiere and I had, like, a million missed calls from Brookwood and the hospital. Apparently he had chest pains and—”