The party didn’t stop. When Jamie stepped back into the apartment, it was like the last minutes had vanished into a black hole. The air still buzzed with music and liquor. A minute later, Tino came through the door, slamming it hard enough to make half the room flinch. A few heads turned, a few whispered. But then the music got louder, another drink was poured, and the night carried on like nothing had happened at all.

Jamie stayed, mostly because it was easier than leaving. Walking out would’ve made a scene, and after the one Tino just dragged him into, the last thing Jamie wanted was to hand out an encore. He kept his distance from Tino for the rest of the night, and from Emma too. He moved from conversation to conversation, nodded when it made sense and cracked a joke or two. Like everyone else, he did a few lines, just enough to stay in the flow of the room, but he didn’t overdo it.

Though under the surface, he was seething.

Meanwhile, Tino had the room in his pocket again. He laughed too loud, slinging stories with that easy charm everyone bought when they were drunk enough. He danced with two different people, snorted something off the kitchen counter and yelled about a song he liked. His voice was rougher but he played through it, didn’t give anyone room to ask. Jamie watched it all for what it was, a performance.

He didn’t say anything as he watched Tino spiral higher and higher. All swagger and noise, teeth clenched around a cigarette, shirt clinging to his skin. The kind of high that looked like momentum but always ended with collapse.

And sure enough, sometime past three a.m., Tino disappeared into the far corner of the room, dropped onto the mattress on the floor, and didn’t get back up.

The room thinned out slowly. People started leaving in twos and threes. Someone threw up in the bathroom. Someone else took the aux and ruined the vibe. Emma was already gone, thank God. By five, the apartment was quiet enough to hear the fridge humming.

Only four were left.

Caleb was slumped deep into the small couch. Some guy named Ray or Ron, was curled up on the other end, both of them lying opposite ways, heads at separate ends like neither had wanted to give up the whole thing but weren’t about to share a pillow either. A half-eaten slice of pizza rested on the guy’s chest, forgotten.

Jamie never went home. He told himself he was just tired. Blamed the late hour, the dark streets. But the truth was harder to admit; that it was some stupid, lingering instinct that kept him close. A stubborn part of him that wanted to make sure Tino didn’t choke on his own tongue in the middle of the night.

Tino was still knocked out, half on his back, one arm flung over his head like he’d been hit with a tranq dart mid-sentence. His other hand rested loosely on his stomach, fingers twitching now and then like his body hadn’t gotten the message that the night was over.

His chest was bare, ink curling over his skin in dark lines. A piece of script sat just above one collarbone, the shape of it unreadable in the dim light, with another resting beneath it, sharper and almost buried in shadow. His arms were marked all the way to the shoulder, and the gold ring in his nose glimmered with each slow breath. His sweatpants hung low on his hips, waistband loose, a trail of hair disappearing beneath. There were faint smudges under his eyes, a cut on his knuckle, glitter from someone else’s skin stuck to his neck. His face was slack, peaceful in a way that didn’t belong to him, like he’d been unplugged.

Jamie hated how still he looked. Hated that even like this, wrecked and unconscious, Tino somehow took up more space than anyone else in the room. His eyes flicked between the front door and the mattress, reminding himself it wasn’t too late for him to change his mind. He could still walk home if he really wanted to. He could use the long walk to burn this whole night off. But in the end, he settled on the edge of the mattress.

The sky outside the window had started turning that bruised shade of blue that came just before dawn. One of the speakers was still glowing faintly red. From where he sat, Jamie could see the couch and the two guys passed out on it. Close enough to hear them shift, far enough to feel separate. He lay back slow, settling as far to the edge of the mattress as the space would allow. There wasn’t much room, but he left inches between them anyway.

He had learned the hard way that Tino never woke up gently. Jamie had seen the pattern on the rare nights they’d crashed in the same place, cheap motel rooms during out-of-town jobs, or the floor of some safehouse after a long night. Either Tino knocked himself out with something chemical, or he didn’t sleep at all. And when he did sleep, it was never quiet. He’d jolt awake as if someone had called his name and pulled a trigger at the same time. Like a dog trained to snap the moment a sound crossed his threshold. Once, a rookie named Jules had made the mistake of trying to shake Tino awake before a job. The kid got a fist to the jaw and a knife to the throat before he’d even finished saying his name. Jamie had stepped in before it got worse, but the look in Tino’s eyes had stuck with him. It wasn’t normal, but nothing about Tino ever was. It was sleep like a battlefield, something you fought your way into and clawed your way out of.

He stared at the ceiling. His whole body felt wired and wrong, too much tension curled up under his skin to rest. He hated this. Not just the cramped mattress or Tino's friends sleeping just a few feet away from him. He hated being here, again. Lying next to a guy who’d spent the whole night pretending he hadn’t detonated a bomb in the middle of his own apartment. There was no real reason for Jamie to stay. No loyalty left that made this make sense. Just habit and tiredness. A creeping, pathetic instinct to clean up after Tino even when there was nothing left to fix.

Tino suddenly shot up, spine snapping straight, as if some invisible hand had pulled him upright. His breath came hard and fast, chest rising like he hadn’t caught up to where he was yet. As the room slowly came into focus, he dragged both hands over his eyes, wiping away whatever had followed him from sleep, then sank wordlessly back down beside Jamie, muscles still twitching with leftover tension. He didn’t ask why Jamie was there, and Jamie didn’t ask what ghosts had crept into Tino’s sleep.

After a moment, Jamie sensed eyes on him. He didn’t look back at first, but focused on the slow sound of the other two breathing on the couch and the faint electronic hum still lingering somewhere in the apartment. But when the weight of Tino’s gaze didn’t lift, Jamie finally turned his head slightly, just enough to see him.

Whatever was left in Tino’s system made him look weightless, like someone who hadn’t fully landed yet. He looked softer like this. Not harmless, not even close. But unguarded in a way Jamie wasn’t prepared for, with eyes half-lidded and glazed. The bruising at his throat had deepened, a shadow wrapped around the base of his neck like a collar.

Jamie exhaled through his nose and turned his head away, pressing the back of it into the pillow. He closed his eyes, wanting to shut the night out and fast-forward through whatever hours were left until he could get the hell out of here without it looking like he was running.

Then something brushed against him. Fingers, lazy but certain, sliding over the front of his jeans.