Page 56 of Night Shift

Nina looks like she wants to argue, but nods. “Fine. I accept that. Because I’m working on not meddling and pushing my friends’ boundaries so much. What about you, Kenny? What do you wanna do?”

“I don’t think it matters what I want,” I admit, and voicing it out loud makes the fear I’ve been trying to stifle all week wash over me like a tsunami. “Even if I was wrong about everything, and he really did just like me and all his friends were just trying to support him”—the words make so much sense out loud that it physically hurts to hear them—“I still told him to fuck off and leave me alone. I mean, you saw his face, Nina. He was . . .” I shake my head. “I really hurt him. I don’t know how we come back from that.”

“You could start with an apology?”

I scrub at my eyes and groan. “I want to know what he’s thinking without having to put myself out in the open. This is terrifying.”

Nina reaches out to pinch my cheek. “It’s never going to be a dual point of view novel, Kenny. You just have to talk to him and sort it out. That’s all you can do. Try not to overthink it this time, all right? You get way too in your head about everything.”

I sigh then, abruptly, snort.

“What?” Nina asks.

“I’m trying really hard to think of a good joke about head.”

She shrugs. “It’s not too hard once you open your mouth.”

“Fuck. How are you so good at this?”

“It’s a skill. Much like—”

“All right, all right,” Harper shouts. “We get it!”

• • •

We end the night on the couch, all tangled limbs used as makeshift pillows and hair in one another’s faces, with Pride & Prejudice on the TV. It’s Harper’s request this time. She figures we could use a little bit of comfortable, predictable, satisfying romance. She claims she just wants something to put her to sleep so she’s well-rested for her flight tomorrow, but I catch the flicker of bittersweet emotion cross her face at Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy’s first meeting.

I let my eyelids flutter shut sometime after the disastrous first proposal, when Elizabeth is left alone in the gardens, rain-damp and utterly distraught. I’m too tired to stay awake, and I don’t need to worry about how it’ll turn out.

I know they get a happy ending.

Twenty-three

Our apartment looks like a thrift store ransacked by influencers. Nina’s clothes and toiletries and textbooks and electronics are everywhere. I stand in the kitchen, clutching my coffee, and watch her try to shove an inflatable dinosaur costume (which she’s assured me is an improv party thing and not a sex thing) into her carry-on.

Harper left early this morning. She landed safe and sent us a selfie from her childhood bedroom, with its pink curtains, glittery butterfly stickers pasted directly onto the wall, and faded poster of Harry Styles in his One Direction era.

This never leaves this chat, she captioned the shot.

“You can FaceTime me if you get lonely,” Nina tells me as she stands on top of her suitcase, using her body weight to crush the contents down so I can tug the zipper shut. “I sent you the festival schedule. Seriously, any time we’re not onstage, you can call.”

“I’ll be fine,” I grunt. “I have my shift at the library tonight. I’ll pick up some new books to get me through the weekend.”

Nina jumps off her bursting suitcase and smiles sadly.

“I know I said I’d respect your choices and stay out of this—”

“But you won’t.”

She shakes her head. “You owe it to yourself to talk to Vincent. You’re a storyteller, Kendall. You need the closure.”

I pull her into a hug—the kind that’s so tight it almost hurts.

“I hate when you’re right,” I mumble into her hair.

Nina squeezes me tight. “Now, as your whore best friend, I’m ordering you to go get your happy ending.”

• • •

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