Page 230 of Silver Sweet

He glowers. “I don’t regret what I did. Reverse time, and I’m making the same choice.”

“Fuck you,” I curse. “I bet you didn’t even go to sleep. Didn’t take a nap. Just stared at your phone all night?—”

“Because I’m an insomniac, Tom! I don’t fucking sleep!!” His bloodshot eyes bear into me. Steal oxygen right out of my lungs.

My throat swells. Pressure compounds on my chest. “What?” I blink through the pain in my sternum.

Phoenix kneads the back of his neck. His voice is as raw as the look in his eyes. “I’m lucky on a good day to get four, maybe five hours. Otherwise, I’ll take three. Chronic exhaustion has ruined me in so many ways. The irritability. My short fuse. You don’t want that, man. One thing I willneverapologize for is letting you sleep. There are things you can sacrifice for our band, but not that.”

My anger evaporates off me slowly. I thought he needed to understand me, but maybe I just needed to understand him. “How did I not know?” I say into an agonized wince. “I just thought you were…I don’t know…like a cat taking a bunch of naps.”

“Basically yeah. Just the naps are short and shitty.”

“Dude, how long have you been without sleep?” Worry climbs up my spine, and I check my phone, trying to do mental math. He’s been projecting, right? That’s why he’s so overly obsessed with my sleep schedule.He’sthe one being mentally fucked all the time.

I hate I didn’t know. I didn’t realize…

“‘Wired,’” I name a song we wrote together, agony swelling in my chest. My eyes burn. I sing this song five nights a week. “‘I eat through time like a regnant beast, while time laughs back at me.’ You came up with that line. I didn’t think…there is pain in it?” I thought it was boastful, but Phoenix is forced to eat through time.

He doesn’t want to be awake.

“Yeah,” Phoenix murmurs, so quiet. He steps closer and slips his hand against mine just to gently take my phone away and toss it on the U-shaped couch behind me. “This is why I haven’t told you,” he explains. “You don’t need to be concerned aboutme. This has been my life for years. And my brother is already on my case. I’m good.”

I study his face. He has his normal half-moon darkened circles under his eyes. But besides that, I wouldn’t be able to tell he’s exhausted. “Okay, but I have questions.”

“I might have answers for you.” He catches my wrist and drags me down to the couch.

The cushions are stiffer back here, and I already feel myself writhing against the concrete foam. Like what else could this be made from?

Frustrated, I collapse back on the long stretch of seat and extend my legs.

“Just take up all the room,” Phoenix says dryly.

“I will. I am,” I say, a lot softer than usual.

He suddenly hovers over me—his forearms on either side of my head, his warm body pressed against mine—and a smile hooks my lips. Phoenix smooths back the hair out of my face, and being fused together with him, like this, calms me down even more.

I wonder if he feels that too.

“Do you take sleeping pills?” I ask.

“I have in the past. But I’ve always ended up building a tolerance to them, and I don’t want to rely on meds anyway.”

“What helps?”How can I help?I really want to ask.

His brown-blue eyes sweep my face. “Exercise, sometimes. Melatonin, sometimes. Cannabis, but it’s a motivation ruiner, so I avoid that.” He lets out a deep sigh. “I don’t know. Mainly I just say my nightly prayers, man, and hope for the best.”

Exercise. My mind is whirling. “What about sex?” I ask. “Does that help?”

His eyes dip from mine to my lips, then back to my eyes. “Hmmm.” He sucks a lungful of air through his nose. “No. It hasn’t. Unfortunate, really. I’m sure you would have loved tohelp me sleep. Get to be the hero, Cobalt god.” He pinches my chin.

I swat him away and flip him off.

He returns his hand to the edge of my jaw, then presses a kiss to my lips. Just one before he asks, “Are we going to talk about you?”

“What about me?”

“You just had a mini meltdown over losing maybe four hours of work time.”