Page 148 of Ex Somnis

“If you try to steal my place in bed next to Lennon, I’ll turn the lights off in my room.”

I wouldn’t. Ever.

“You wouldn’t.” The traitor actually smiles. “Ridge?” he questions, the joking falling away.

“Yeah?”

“You’re my best friend. I wouldn’t do any of this with anyone else.”

My throat closes completely.

Fantastic.

Love that for me.

I force my gaze from the fruit back to the television.

“Same.”

A long silence settles between us, but it’s a comfortable one. I’d forgotten what that felt like.

“The Shaw boy,” I say after another long while.

Paul looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “What about him?”

“He’s all right too. When he’s not appearing from the kitchen in his boxers and subtracting years from my life.”

“Yeah.” Paul’s smile returns when he shifts back on the television. “The Shaw boy is all right.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Nevan

My room is dark except for the small lamp on my dresser, and I can’t sleep, which is unfortunate because that’s the entire reason we’re in my room.

My room. My dresser. In Paul Bennett’s house.

Yeah, that’s weird for sure.

Lennon is curled against my side, warm beneath the blanket, her head on my shoulder.

She is here.

Actually here.

I keep checking. Not consciously, but every few minutes, my arm slightly tightens around her, and my brain goes, yep. Still there.

Outside this room, everything is quiet, but inside my head, nothing is.

I stare at the ceiling, and it stares back. We’re learning about each other.

After a while, Lennon stretches against me. “You awake?”

“No.”

She snorts. “Okay.”

“Are you?”