Page 159 of 72 Hours of You

“I love what you’ve done with the place. It’s very ‘divorced dad who gets the kids every other weekend and can’t cook anything besides ramen.’”

“Hey!” Peter says. “I give those kids the time of their lives Friday night through Sunday morning.” He laughs. “I know it’s kind of tragic in here. My mom keeps threatening to take me to the IKEA in Brooklyn but … we just haven’t had time, I guess.” He gives me a sheepish shrug and pushes his gold glasses up his nose, and Christ I was not aware this guy could look more wholesome than he usually does but this whole spectacled pj-clad thing is taking it to another level. He looks like how ChatGPT would describe “the boy next door.”

I clear my throat. “Mrs. Choe used it as her sewing room.”

“No one actually has a sewing room. Sewing rooms are just metaphors for empty nesters.”

“No, I swear to god. She used to make all the new babies in town these cute little red mittens. It was a whole thing.”

“Oh. Cool.”

So, this is going very well. Very natural. Very normal.

An awkward silence stretches out between us and I wish he had some, like, Little League pictures hanging up that I could make fun of, but there is literally nothing in this room to work with. “Listen. I’m sorry I just showed up here but—”

“No, I’m glad you did. I wanted to talk to you anyway.”

“Really? Then why did you leave me on read like that?”

“What do you mean? I didn’t …” Peter grabs his phone off his bed and swipes up. “I see. That’s … a lot of messages.” A grin slides onto his face and he doesn’t even have the courtesy to hide it.

“Oh my god, get over yourself. It’s like two messages.”

“It’s eight, actually. Plus the stalking and the mulch-throwing—you still have a little dirt on your cheek by the way, and—”

“Okay, okay. Christ. Whatever. How was I supposed to know you have a geriatric bedtime?”

“Sleep hygiene is crucial for maximizing your brain’s potential.”

“Boring.”

“It’s actually pretty interes—”

“If you start waxing philosophical about the joy of peer-reviewed journals, I’m actually going to throw myself out your window.”

“Really? After how hard you tried to get up here?” Peter’s eyes crinkle in this totally self-delighted sort of way and I can feel my neck heating up and I hate both myself and him for it.

“I did want to talk to you too, though,” Peter says, his face going serious again. “About earlier. I’m sorry. I feel like maybe I pushed you somehow? And I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to make a shitty thing worse for you. In fact, that’s like the last thing in the world I’d want to do.”

“It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not.” Peter lets out a breath and drags his fingers through his hair, which makes his bed head look even more ridiculous and honestly fucking adorable, which is so annoying. “Look. You’re dealing with something big. Something no one else is dealing with and I don’t want to, like, come in and make things more complicated. It’s just … sometimes when I’m around you …”

He looks down at me through his smudged glasses, his green eyes open and shining, and I can feel the thing he’s about to say hanging between us. He takes the smallest step toward me.

I am in Peter Beckett’s room. And it is a school night. And the moon is filtering through his curtains. And his bedsheets are all crumpled up, and I can see the little dent where his head was on his pillow. And he smells like soap. And he is in his underwear.

“Sydney, I—”

“I want to give people hot dogs!”

Twenty-Five

PETER SQUINTS AT ME. “You what?”

“I mean, not literally. Well, actually. Maybe literally.” BE FUCKING NORMAL!!! God, I wish his stupid hair would just lie flat and stop being so … humble? I’m having a hard enough time trying to keep my grip on reality without having to look at his annoyingly endearing bed head.

“What exactly are we talking about here, Syd?”