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I swallowed. “Yeah, I heard you, Sparrow, but there’s no fucking way I could sleep in someone else’s bed. I can barely sleep in my own.”
She mulled that over. “Then we can all go back to the Nest. You need to sleep.”
I set the salad back down on the counter, my stomach souring. The idea of shutting my eyes for even a minute was repulsive. It didn’t matter that I could feel the exhaustion like heavy lead in my veins. It didn’t matter that behind my ribcage, my heart felt like it was slogging through mud one minute and fluttering like a caged bird the next. And the voices…
I knew they weren’t real.
Just audio hallucinations. Like before. Distant whispers like radio static that would only become clearer the longer I deprived myself of rest.
I knew now not to fear them. I knew they didn’t mean I was crazy. Just tired.
But sleep wouldn’t come. Not now. Not with all this shit going on. There was no point in trying.
“You aren’t even listening to me, are you?” Sparrow asked, her gaze darkening. “I’m warning you, Bones. I haven’t had my coffee yet. Don’t fuck with me.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, a frustrated heat rolling off my back, but I couldn’t even fully feel that. My body not wanting to cooperate with connecting the proper neural pathways. “Look, Ava Jade, there’s no way I’m going to sleep right now so—”
“What if I sleep with you?”
“What?”
She shrugged, dipping her head to hide the slight flush in her cheeks. “Neither of us thought we were going to sleep that night I stayed at the Crow’s Nest with you. You fell asleep sitting up, and I wound up passed out in your fucking lap,” she laughed uneasily. “So, maybe we can recreate whatever weird shit happened to make us both able to sleep like babies.”
“So you can drool on me again?”
Her face scrunched up, and I felt a smile on my lips, tugging at the stitches in my cheek.
“If that’s what it takes,” she said, recovering with a grimace. “It’s, what…” she looked at the clock on the stove next to me. “Just past seven. So, I only slept for about three hours. I could use a power nap.”
She came over to me, leaning on the counter to look up at me through her lashes. “You’d be doing me a favor, really.”
“You’re relentless.”
“It’s why you love me.”
Something in my core tightened at her words, and I had to bite down on my own tongue to keep from saying yes.
She might’ve been joking, but looking down at her now, her face soft from sleep, eyes slitted, hair an absolute fucking mess, I knew it was far from a joke.
I loved her.
She cocked her head to the side, considering me. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
I wrapped an arm around her waist and drew her into my chest, laying a rough kiss to the top of her head. Maybe it was the exhaustion talking, but right then I’d probably do anything she asked me to. It was terrifying.
I surrendered to no one.
…apparently no one but her now.
I let out a shaky breath. “If Diesel doesn’t need us, then fine, Sparrow, I’ll take a power nap with you. I’ll try to.”
“Would you be opposed to sleeping pills?” she whispered into my chest. “Because I’m pretty sure Becca has—”
“No pills.”
She hesitated. “Okay.”
Becca’s door creaked open across the room and my Sparrow pulled away from me to see her friend exit her room, already dressed and ready for the day. I kept from smirking at her outfit. Fitted Lycra pants, combat boots that looked like they were from a designer label, a loose fitted tank top and ball cap that she’d pulled her long brown hair through in a tight ponytail. Not her usual attire. It looked like something Ava Jade would wear if she knew she might run into trouble.
