54

Marianna.

Sleep, when it finally comes, is not the polite kind.

This is the kind of sleep that tackles you. Grabs you by the ankles and drags you under like a riptide with a personal vendetta. The kind where your body says I'm done, we're shutting down now, you don't get a vote and your consciousness just... surrenders.

My body has never felt this heavy. Since I was—

The thought dissolves before it forms. Sinks into the dark warm space where I'm falling, falling, wrapped in something solid and real. His arm is across my waist. His chest is against my back. His heartbeat is slow and steady against my spine,

I sink deeper.

Somewhere in the dark—minutes later? Hours?—there's a voice. Low.

He's saying something. Words I can't parse because I'm too far under, too deep in whatever dreamless canyon my brain has finally let me fall into. His mouth is near my ear—I can feel the warmth of his breath against the shell of it—and the words are just... sound.

What did you say?

I need more sleep.

Whatever it is, I'm hoarding it. Rationing it. Filling every empty reservoir in my nervous system. And for the first time in as long as I can remember, nothing follows me down.

"MARIANNA!"

The voice detonates like a flashbang inside my skull.

I jackknife upright so fast I nearly dislocate something—cervical vertebrae, probably, or maybe just my grip on reality—and my arms fly up in that instinctive defensive posture that my body defaults to when startled awake. Hands in front of face. Elbows tucked. The fetal position's aggressive older sister.

My heart is hammering. Four hundred beats per minute. Maybe five hundred. I'm a hummingbird. I'm a cardiac event with legs.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck—

That voice. I know that voice.

Marco.

Standing in the doorway of my room—the guest room, Duane's guest room, the room where approximately four hours ago I experienced a sexual and emotional revelation that rewrote my entire understanding of my own body—wearing gym shorts and a Georgetown Law t-shirt that's so old it's basically tissue paper, grinning like a jack-o'-lantern with a law degree.

My hand claws at the sheets. Yanking them up to my collarbone. A reflex so violent it's practically military.

Am I wearing clothes?

The question fires through my neural pathways with the urgency of a five-alarm fire. Because if I'm not—if Marco just walked in on his naked sister in his best friend's guest bed, sheets that almost certainly smell like—

I'm wearing clothes.

A t-shirt—Duane's, black, obviously—and underwear. The underwear I was definitely not wearing when I fell asleep, because I was definitely not wearing anything when I fell asleep, because—

He dressed me.

"What the fuck, Marco!" I grab the nearest pillow and hurl it at his head with the aim of someone who played JV softball for exactly one season before quitting because the coach yelled too much. The pillow sails wide by approximately three feet and hits the doorframe with a pathetic fwump. "You can't just—you don't just walk into someone's room without knocking!"

"I did knock." He's still grinning. Leaning against the doorframe now, arms crossed, the very picture of a man who's enjoying himself far too much at 8 AM. "Three times. You were dead to the world. I thought you'd slipped into a coma."

"So your solution was to scream my name like the apartment was on fire?"

"My solution was to wake you up before noon, which—" He checks his phone. "—it's 8:15, so you're welcome." His eyes narrow slightly. That micro-expression I know from a lifetime of being his sister: the precursor to teasing. "You were really out, though. Like, clinically. Like someone slipped you a horse tranquilizer." His grin widens. "Or you were having a really good dream."

My face catches fire.

"I was not—"

"You were smiling," Marco says. He's enjoying this. He's savoring this. "In your sleep. Like a creepy little cherub. I haven't seen you smile in your sleep since you were twelve and dreamed you married that guy from—what was that boy band? The one with the hair?"

"Get. Out."

"Was it a sex dream? It was a sex dream, wasn't it? You have the sex dream face." He points at me. "I recognize it from that time I accidentally walked in on you watching—"

"MARCO ANTONIO REYES, IF YOU DON'T LEAVE THIS ROOM IN THE NEXT THREE SECONDS I WILL TELL MAMI ABOUT THE SPRING BREAK INCIDENT."

His grin vanishes like someone pulled a plug.

"You wouldn't."

"Try me."

He retreats—one step, two steps—but not without a parting shot: "For the record, the Spring Break Incident was a misunderstanding, and that yacht was already on fire when we got there."

"OUT."

The door closes.

I fall back against the pillows. Press my hands over my face. Try to convince my heart rate to return to a number compatible with human survival.

Where is Duane?

I check the bed. His side—when did I start thinking of it as his side?—is empty. Not just empty: neat. The covers have been smoothed. The pillow is fluffed. Like he was never there at all.

When did he leave? It must have been before Marco woke up—which, knowing Marco and his jetlag from the red-eye, probably means Duane left at six, maybe earlier. Got up, dressed me without waking me.

I check the nightstand.

The condom wrapper is gone. So is the tissue box. The water glass—which I don't remember using but which is half-empty—has been placed on a coaster.

He cleaned up. Dressed me. Smoothed the evidence. Disappeared.

I don't know how to feel about this.

I shower. Then I get dressed and emerge from the bathroom to find Marco sitting on my bed.

Not just sitting. Sprawled. Like he owns the place. Which, technically, his best friend does, but still.

"So," he says.

"So."

"I have news."

"If it's about my sex dream face, I will end your bloodline."

"Tempting, but no.I talked to my landlord this morning. The apartment's been sitting empty since I left for Monaco. Everything's still there. Furniture, Wi-Fi, the works."

I stare at him. "Your apartment."

"My apartment." He grins. "In Wynwood. Twenty minutes from your fancy new workplace. Two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen that technically qualifies as a kitchen if you squint."

"Marco—"

"You're moving in."

The words land like a verdict. Not unkind—not at all unkind—but final in a way that makes my chest do something complicated.

"Today," he adds. "I figured we could pack up your... uh..." He looks around the guest room. At the plastic Target bag that still constitutes the entirety of my worldly possessions. "...stuff. And be over there by this afternoon."

"That's—" I swallow. "That's great, Marco. Really. Thank you."