Page 13 of 72 Hours of You

He laughs. “No.”

His smile is so easy. Like he’s so … unburdened. He’s got to be part of a cult. “Remind me not to drink Kool-Aid at your house.”

He looks sideways at me, his green eyes crinkling just slightly. “You’re coming to my house?”

“It’s an expression.”

“Yeah,” he says. “I’m pretty sure ‘Remind me not to drink Kool-Aid at your house’ was Gandhi, right? Or maybe it was Oscar Wilde.”

I plug his phone into his car. “Just drive, weirdo.”

“I think you mean ‘honey boy.’” He winks at me. Like an actual literal wink. I fight the urge to open the door and fling myself out of the moving car and onto the street.

Fucking hell, this fall might actually kill me after all.

Six

PETER ROLLS HIS JETTA to a seamless stop in front of my house and reaches for his seatbelt.

“Oh no. No way,” I say. “You’re not coming in.”

“You think I’m about to drop you off, bleeding from the head, and peel out of here?” he says.

“No one said anything about ‘peeling out,’ Vin Diesel. Just, you know, nicely drive. Away.”

Peter unclips his seatbelt. “Not happening.”

We get out and walk up the steps to my porch and stand awkwardly at the front door, as if this is the end to the most fucked-up date in human history. “Okay. Well. Thanks for not letting me bleed out. See ya.”

“I’m not leaving until I see there’s someone inside who can take care of you,” Peter says. I open my mouth to argue but he cuts me off. “Head wound, Sydney. Head wound.”

“Fine,” I grumble. I’ll just let him see that Jules exists so he can relieve his conscience or whatever, and then I’ll go take care of this myself. Maybe I’ll take that nap after all. “Jules!” I yell upstairs.

She doesn’t answer.

“She’s probably just using her AirPods.” I take a step inside. “Anyway, bye.”

Peter doesn’t move. This guy’s either got a hero complex or a flesh wound fetish.

“I’m fine. Really. I’ll just—” But against my will, little stars prick at the edges of my vision and I start to sway like Uncle Ira at Passover after four glasses of Manischewitz. Damn it.

“Let me just get you into bed,” Peter says.

I try to scoff and make some crude joke, but my head is so messed up—my thoughts fizzing and sloshing around like a shaken can of LaCroix—that I find myself somehow agreeing to let Peter Beckett escort me upstairs.

His eyes sweep over my room, taking in my overflowing bookshelves and the poorly made origami birds littering my dresser. He tilts his head just slightly, and for a second I panic, thinking he’s going to reach out and touch one of my birds’ crooked beaks. But he keeps his hands to himself.

I sit down on the edge of my unmade bed, the walls still spinning around me. He leans down, close enough that I can smell his mint citrus skin. Of course he smells clean and fresh after a full day at school and a curbside rescue. “I don’t think you’ll need stitches. We can probably just fix you up here.”

“Do you even know what you’re doing, or are you just White Man-ing this?”

“I know what I’m doing,” he says. “Mostly. Where’s your first aid kit?”

“Probably next to our fire extinguisher and getaway car.”

“Great,” he says. “I can use the getaway car to drive you to the hospital.”

I try to roll my eyes but it hurts my head too much. “There are some Band-Aids and Neosporin in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom,” I say, resigning myself to my fate.