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“You should be sleeping.”

I whirl around so fast I don’t clear the fridge door and my head cracks into it.

“Motherfucker,” I hiss, one hand flying up to my scalp, eyes watering as pain explodes behind my eyes. “What in the ever loving fuck—son of a—Jesus Christ⁠—”

“Are you okay?” He sounds concerned.

“I’m fine.” I’m not fine. My scalp is going to have a knot the size of an egg and my head is going to hurt like a bitch tomorrow.

Irritation floods through me even though I can’t really see him through my tears. “You could give a person a warning,” I snap, fighting the urge to cry out. “You could clear your throat. You could turn a light on.”

“I did try ‘you should be sleeping,’” he suggests unhelpfully.

Is he fucking serious right now? “That’s not a warning,” I snarl, my fingers nimbly moving through my hair until I can feel the tenderness on my scalp. Yep, that’s going to be a nice goose egg. “That’s a sentence out of the dark. Who does that?”

“I’m sorry.” He doesn’t sound sorry. He sounds like he’s trying not to laugh.

I blink hard and wipe my eyes with the back of my wrist, before I get my first clear look at him since he spoke.

That’s when I catch the tail end of a sheepish smile.

I nearly startle at it, even though my head hurts.

It’s warmer than anything I’ve seen on his face before, and something in my chest does a stupid little flip that has nothing to do with my throbbing head.

I hate that I noticed. I hate that he’s beautiful when he’s trying not to smile.

“I really didn’t mean to scare you,” he continues.

I turn my head, needing to not look at him right now. “Yeah, yeah,” I mutter before I decide to be brave and look at him again.

He’s sitting at the far end of the island in the dark, one hand wrapped loosely around a glass of water, watching me.

Now that I know where to look, the light from the still-open fridge is enough to see him.

He’s wearing low-slung gray sweatpants, a plain black t-shirt, with one bare foot hooked around the leg of the stool.

His hair is wet from a shower and pushed back off his forehead.

His jaw is shadowed with stubble.

The shirt is thin enough that I can see the shape of his shoulders through it, and one long line of ink where the sleeve rides up on his bicep.

My mouth dries.

I let the fridge swing closed.

The kitchen goes dim again, half-lit by moon and half by a little under-cabinet strip I hadn’t noticed was on. My scalp still hurts and my pulse is still hammering. My dignity is somewhere on the floor.

“Congratulations,” I mutter, rubbing at my head. “You succeeded.”

As Nico’s eyes also adjust to the dim light, I can feel his gaze sharpen.

His eyes slowly drop from my face down my throat, over my collarbones, over my tank top, over the strip of bare skin between the hem and the shorts, over my legs. Then back up.

I remember I’m not wearing a bra.

Oh Jesus H Christ, just kill me now.