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I bump my shoulder against his. “You could give me more than one word occasionally.”

“Could.”

“Asshole.”

His quiet laugh mixes with the sound of the waves, and I smile as I look back toward the water.

A streak of light suddenly cuts across the sky and disappears almost as quickly as it came.

“Oh!” I point like an idiot. “Did you see that?”

“Yeah.”

“Make a wish.”

Jude looks at me. “Don't do wishes.”

“Of course you don't. Miserable man.”

His mouth twitches.

“Come on. One wish.”

“Got nothing.”

“Everyone wants something.”

His eyes stay on mine for a second too long, and something shifts in my stomach before he looks back at the sea.

“True.”

“Well? Make one.”

“Already did.”

I grin. “What did you wish for?”

“Can't tell you.”

My mouth falls open. “You asshole!”

His quiet laugh mixes with the waves, and for a while we just stand there, my shoulder resting against his, neither of us moving away. The sea disappears into the horizon in front of us, and above it thousands of stars stretch across the night sky.

“Jude?”

“Yeah?”

I don't know why I want to tell him. Maybe it's because it's three in the morning and everything feels different at three in the morning. Maybe it's the sea or the stars or being back here after so many years.

Or maybe it's just him.

Because somehow Jude has become the person I can say the ugliest things to without worrying he'll try to make them pretty.

I keep my eyes on the water.

“I wanted to take my own life.”

He goes completely still beside me.