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Tears form on my lashes so damn fast I can’t blink them back. This isn’t happening. I’m not going to start sobbing like some—some dumb freshman who got turned down at homecoming.

“Just…” He sighs and motions his hand at me. “Scoot over. We can both be under the covers.”

I shift to the right, and he sits down beside me. The comforter goes over both of our heads, pooling around my shoulders and hips. His hand touches my knees, then moves away.

He smells like vanilla lotion and amber under here.

I’ve been waiting months to find out who my best friend is, and he’s… he’s been four feet away the entire time. We sleep in the same room. We pass notes all the time. Hell, Asher forced us to bake a red velvet cake together two years ago during Christmas. And I still couldn’t tell Beckett was under the ski mask.

Tears slide down my cheeks before I can stop them.

“Little bunny something-something hopping through the forest,” he mumbles, and I choke out a watery laugh.

“Shut up. You’re ruining the nursery rhyme.”

“Choking out the field mice—”

“It’s picking up the field mice.”

The tears are coming too fast to wipe away.

I chuck the pillow at the foot of my bed and lie down on it—Beckett follows less than a second later. He wrestles with the comforter until it’s covering us again, then rolls onto his side.

His hand finds my shoulder, then arm, before he pulls me closer.

“Stop being sad and tell me about the iron,” he whispers.

I press my face into his neck, breathing in vanilla lotion until I can taste it. “I grabbed it because it was close.”

“That’s it?”

His chest rises and falls against mine. Steady. Solid. Warm and comfortable in a way that relaxes my body bit by bit.

“It worked, didn’t it? That—that was fucking awesome. Tell me it wasn’t.”

“Yeah,” he laughs. “It was satisfying.”

My arms loop around his waist, and I feel the towel holding on by a string and a hope. But if Beckett’s paying attention, I can’t tell. His hands stay on my upper back, wiping the shower water leaking off my hair onto my pillowcase.

“Why are you crying?” he murmurs into my temple.

“Why aren’t you?”

“I’m shocked, not upset.” His fingers press into my shoulder, pulling me down so he can roll on top of me. He grabs the comforter with his other hand and yanks it off our heads.

Cold air spills back in. It’s so fucking bright, and I’m just… I’m tired of the real world. I’ve had enough of it for one night, thank you very much. I try to reach for the edge again, but his hips press into mine, and I can’t get my arm to move any higher.

“Let me breathe,” he says. “There’s enough C-O-2 under there that I felt my lungs suffocating.”

It’s a cocoon of warm joy. Oxygen and carbon dioxide don’t exist in cocoons. Breathing is optional, not mandatory. He doesn’t understand that I’m basically synthesizing safety inside there.

I drag my eyes up to him, and the edge of his thumb wipes away another tear.

Why couldn’t my pen pal be this nice…?

“I bought you conversation hearts.” My voice comes out thick and broken. “Not—not you. But my best friend. Which happens to be you, but with a ski mask. But he—you—”

“You called me your best friend?” he cuts in. “I’ve been cycling through monikers for you. I think Easter Disaster’s in first place. Silver has to go to Neon Menace. Bronze is… It’s a toss-up. Psycho Crayon or Pinky.”