“Translation:yes.”
“I’m not jealous.”
“Then why’s your jaw doing that thing?”
“My jaw isn’t doing anything.”
“Oh, it’s doing everything.” Stan’s smile is as teasing as his tone. “God, you’re fun today. Remixed Kys did a number on you.”
Heat crawls up my neck like it did earlier, when I breathed in the smoky sweetness from his bed and came all over my hand.
I shove another bite of food into my mouth to shut myself up.
Stan laughs. “Yeah. I like you too, Ocean Eyes.”
We finish eating at the buffet table, standing shoulder to shoulderlike we’re guarding the food from the rest of the ship. Stan keeps talking with his mouth full, and I keep pretending I’m not watching the way his lips move when he does it.
By the time we’re done, he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and jerks his chin toward the exit.
“C’mon,” he says. “Let’s head home. I scored us a frozen coffee.”
He leads the way, sipping the drink he swipes from staff.
“Thanks, Tanner!” Stan says, bumping their fist.
I haven’t even spoken to half the people that’s part of the experiment, let alone get to know the workers on the ship. How does Stan do it?
While we walk, it’s pretty quiet. He sips his drink and offers some to me too. It’s sweet, chilled, a little spiced with cinnamon or something. He smells just as sweet. It sorta bugs me ‘cause it’s how I imagine he tastes.
We reach the door with the number four. He puts his palm on the reader. The door slides open.
I climb to my bunk to put some space between us, but Stan steps right into that space a second later. He rests his forearms on my mattress and looks up at me, chin tipped up, his expression bright enough to light up our room.
My legs are spread out. He stands between them, his eyes aimed at my face. “So,” he says, sipping coffee, “I have some gossip.”
“Yeah?”
“Yep.” He takes a swig of the frozen coffee, then lifts the straw to my mouth. “First off, Jon was hallucinating the floor melting. Tried to climb the wall.”
My brows lift as I sip from the straw. Something’s tight in my chest. I don’t know why. Could be Kys. Could be how close he is. Could be Jon’s name from Stan’s mouth. My hand drifts up, brushing my left ear.
“And,” he continues, “hallucination hour didn’t stop with Jon. You missed Marco’s meltdown.”
“Who’s Marco?”
“Tall. Buzzcut. Looks like he was conceived in a steroids factory.”
I chuckle. My fingers slip from my ear and fall back to my side.
“He took his dose and said his tongue felt fuzzy. So I told him to stop licking anything that isn’t freshly washed dick.”
I choke on a sip, coughing until he thumps my back. “Why’d you say that?”
“Becausehygiene.” He looks confused that I had to ask. “And because you weren’t there to stop me. You left me alone for one afternoon and now, I’m giving sexual health advice to hallucinating gym bros.”
My lips tilt before I can stop them. I hate that he sees it. So I distract him by asking, “Anything else happen?”
Stan starts counting on his fingers. “One, Tomas challenged the HVAC to a fistfight. Two, Sergio tried to calm him down—”
