I pull Bob closer, running a hand over his back.
“At least Griffin’s in good company,” DJ says, stretching her legs out in front of her. “This house is basically a monastery. Benji’s ace, Zoey’s married to her computers, and don’t even get me started on Nico.”
“What about Nico?” The words are out before I can think better of them.
“Nico has never even dated anyone.” DJ shakes her head like she can’t quite believe it herself. “He barely leaves the house and only talks to us. The idea of him hooking up with anyone is almost alien. I don’t think he even knows how.”
“Oh,” I say, trying not to sound disappointed, because that’s not what I am. I don’t understandwhatI feel. Nico’s personallife is none of my business, no matter how fast my heart is pounding at this information.
“I know Griffin wants to move on,” DJ continues, “but he was so destroyed after Bonnie that—Just be careful, okay?”
“I told you already,” I say. “I’m not interested in him.”
“Eden, I’m sorry, but you’ve been sitting outside his bedroom door for two hours. That’s not exactly the behavior of someone who’s ‘not interested.’”
“Just because I’m sitting outside his door doesn’t mean I want to jump his bones.”
“I’m not trying to start a fight,” she says. “I’m just saying… I don’t know what you want from him, but don’t expect anything more than casual. I love him to death, but he’s not in a place where he can handle more than that.”
I want to tell her she’s wrong, but last night I’d pretty much decided it would be a good idea to blow off steam with him. Tori told me once that sex was just another way to feel nothing, like drinking. She was right. Sort of. Even when it felt bad, it was better than how bad I usually felt every day, so it did what I needed it to do.
I could use some numbing.
DJ pushes herself to her feet. “Anyway, you come get me if you need anything, okay?”
By the time I finally stop vomiting as much, I’m so drained of strength that I’m careful to stand up extremely slowly so as not to accidentally re-trigger the nausea.
I chug an entire bottle of water and nap for an hour, then drag myself to the bathroom, where I spend twenty minutes in the shower scrubbing ectoplasm from my hair and skin. I brushmy teeth three times, then gargle with mouthwash so long my eyes water. A dull throbbing still lingers in my head, but DJ brings me two Tylenol tabs and those help.
I’m climbing into bed when I hear a hacking cough from the other side of the wall.
I pause, listening. I can hear the bedsprings creak through the wall as Griffin shifts. There’s a thud, and more coughing that sounds like he’s coughing his literal lungs out.
Should I go over there? Check on him?
“Nico!” Griffin bellows, his voice passing easily through the thin wall dividing our rooms. “Get your ass over here!”
My entire body locks up. I’ve never heard Griffin sound like that before. He’s always so easygoing, but right now, he sounds like he wants to murder someone with his bare hands.
“NICO!”
In a couple of seconds, I hear a door slam down the hall, followed by footsteps running past my closed door.
“What’s wrong?” Nico’s voice is low and controlled. “You all right?”
“You never should have sent me in there alone with her.” Griffin’s words come out sounding strangled, like he’s forcing them through his teeth.
Oh.
The walls are thin enough that I can hear everything, and I know I should stop listening, should give them privacy, but my body won’t move from where I’m perched on the edge of my bed.
“Donny made the call,” Nico says, and there’s steel underneath the calm.
“I don’t give a fuck whose call it was!” Something crashes against the wall hard enough to make my door rattle. “She could’vedied. She just started—she doesn’t know what she’s doing?—”
“You’d be dead right now if it weren’t for her,” Nico says. “She held her own.”
“It was thesame,” Griffin says.
