“Bedtime?” I tease.
She glares. “I’m tired.”
“Old lady.”
“Says the man who went to bed at ten when he started rehabbing.”
I open my mouth, then shut it. “Fair.”
She pushes the blanket off and stands. “I’m gonna change.”
My brain immediately supplies images I don’t need.
I clear my throat. “Bathroom’s?—”
“I know where it is,” she says dryly, and disappears down the hall with her tote bag. “I’ve been here plenty of times crashing the PCU parties.”
The second she’s gone, my room feels too quiet.
I stare at the TV, trying to focus on the movie. My mind refuses.
Because the thing about having something good is it makes you remember how easily it can be taken.
Pops’s text earlier—See you in the morning. Love you too.—plays through my head like a prayer. Like a fragile promise.
I drag a hand over my face.
Get it together.
A few minutes later, the door opens.
Sloane steps back in, and my brain goes blank.
She’s wearing my gray T-shirt—the soft one that’s been washed too many times, the one I sleep in when I can’t shut my head off. It hangs off her shoulder slightly, collar slipping just enough to show her collarbone.
And she’s stolen my boxers too.
Black. Simple. Sitting low on her hips like she owns them.
My throat goes dry.
Sloane shuts the door and turns, one brow lifting like she can see exactly what’s happening to me. “What?”
I blink. Force air into my lungs. “You stole my clothes.”
“I borrowed them.”
“That’s theft.”
“It’s not theft if you’re dating,” she says casually, like she hasn’t just kicked my heart down a staircase.
My chest tightens.
We’re not calling it that yet. Not out loud. Not officially.
But she says it like it’s true anyway.
Sloane climbs back onto the bed and settles beside me, tucking her legs under the blanket. Then she nudges my shoulder. “Relax, Brooks.”
