“That’s when we’re forced to share a room. There are two rooms here.”

“Technically three,” Wyatt says, walking right through to get to the bathroom.

The fact that the only entrance to the bathroom is through my room is an issue that I’m not ready to tackle just yet. I suppose it would be rude to ask him to use the public bathrooms on the lobby floor.

“What?” I sit on the edge of the bed, unbuttoning my own shirt, trying not to look at Wyatt where he stands in front of the bathroom mirror, shirtless, putting toothpaste on his toothbrush.

“Bathroom’s a room,” Wyatt says, goofy grin on his face. “Even has ‘room’ right in it.”

I don’t want to laugh, but I can’t help the chuckle that escapes. “Shut up.”

My eyes keep getting drawn to his bare back, which I’ve seen a hundred times before, but this time, there’s something about the lighting. I wonder if Wyatt’s ever dated any boys.

“I’m going to go out on the balcony, call my parents,” he tells me when he’s finished brushing his teeth.

“Okay.” I lie back on the bed. I should brush my teeth too; I’ve definitely got garlic breath. I pull out my phone. There are a few missed texts, mostly ones from our group chat, the one that includes Josh.

I scroll for a bit; Samuel tells us about a man who got on the subway without pants on, and Mark’s parents apparently decided to go visit family in Scotland, so he’s taken some amazing pictures of rolling green hills. Julien tells us that he hasn’t left his PC in at least ten hours and that he reached a new rank in League, and Hoon sent pictures of what he wore today when he went out.

And then there are texts from Josh, finally breaking his silence.

It’s not much, not at first. Just that he landed in California safely. Then he and Julien get into some new skins that were released for this game they play together. After that, the conversations became normal again. All of them talking about everything and nothing at the same time. Hoon sending TikToks, and Samuel liking every single one of them, like he couldn’t make his crush on Hoon more obvious. Mark logging on to play games with Julien and Julien posting a video of Samuel’s avatar diving off a cliff and dying just to avoid going down stairs.

And I haven’t said a word.

They all sank back into normalcy, as if nothing happened, as if Josh and I hadn’t had a huge fight, as if a foundation of all our friendships hadn’t changed in some way.

Now it feels like it’s not Josh who’s the outsider—it’s me.

Well, this isn’t exactly a great feeling.