"I feel like I don't have a chance here," he says.
"You literally got my number last night," I point out.
"On a dead phone."
I open my mouth. Close it. He has a point and I hate that he has a point.
"Maybe if you came to the gym occasionally—" Declan starts.
"Don't." Finn points at him from the floor. "Don't finish that sentence. It's too early for your specific brand of motivational condescension and I won't survive it."
"I was going to say you'd be in better shape to handle mornings."
"That's exactly what I said you'd say."
From Rowan's side of the bed, without opening his eyes or adjusting position in any way: "If either of you says another word before I've had coffee, I will make both of your financial quarters considerably less comfortable."
Silence.
Finn looks at me.
"Rowan is—" He stage-whispers, as if Rowan is not directly on the other side of me, "—a specific kind of person before caffeine. Stay away from him until he's had coffee or unless you have a financial deal to discuss. Those are the two things that work."
"I heard that," Rowan says.
"You were meant to."
I look at Declan. He's sitting up now, properly awake, the sleep-roughness in his expression resolving into the specific deliberate alertness I remember from a balcony at midnight. He runs one hand through the auburn-silver hair—which does not help the situation—and reaches for his phone on the nightstand.
"What time is it?"
"Just past three."
Three in the afternoon.
Ten hours.
I slept ten hours. The last time I slept ten consecutive hours was—I genuinely cannot identify a reference point. The last time I slept eight was probably November. My body apparently took the opportunity to make up several months of deficit simultaneously and without consulting me.
"I might have work tonight," I say, the thought arriving with the cold urgency of someone who just remembered they have a life. "Danny will want to know where I am. And my phone?—"
"Use mine."
He holds it out. No hesitation, no production—just the phone, extended across the small space between us, the same matter-of-fact delivery that appears to be his baseline for everything. I take it.
Danny's number is in my head the way important numbers get in there—through repetition rather than effort, the digits as automatic as my own. I dial. It rings twice.
"Who's this?"
"Danny, it's Mila."
A beat of silence. "You're alive."
"Mostly."
"I went by the apartment this morning." His voice has shifted—Danny's serious register, the one underneath the barman's even warmth. "The door was open."
"I know about the apartment."
