Nights are the worst.

I stare up at the rafters, my mattress hard beneath my back. I can’t turn onto my side. Can’t curl up into a ball or shift for a better position. With my injury, I suffer on my back every damn night. If the pain ramps up, it usually takes me an hour to drift off.

Tonight, it’s different.

Legs aren’t intertwined with mine. My head doesn’t careen onto someone else’s shoulder. I don’t feel the presence of another body. It’s just me and my thoughts, and I can’t say it’s been an enjoyable experience.

Farrow is at the hospital, working a long shift, and I won’t see him until the afternoon. The clock glows an annoying 3:02 a.m., reminding me that I’ve been trying to fall asleep for three excruciating hours.

I’m not used to being in bed alone, and I crave for those days on the FanCon tour bus where I could easily crawl into Farrow’s bunk.

Three years.

That’s how long Farrow’s residency will last. Three years where I’ll have nights where he’s not around. And goddamn, I miss him. Talking to him. Having him annoy me until I’m a smiling idiot.

I also feel like a whiney bastard silently complaining about some nights where he’s gone. There are people dealing with worse separation over longer time periods and distances. And I don’t envy that. I don’t even like stomaching this.

I pinch the bridge of my nose. Needing my brain to shut the fuck up. I reach over and grab my cell off the nightstand. No missed texts. No cousins or siblings messaged me since the last time I checked. They’re probably all asleep.

Pulling myself up, I lean more against the headboard. Floorboards and brick walls creak loudly inside the old townhouse. Tonight, heavy gusts of wind beat at the window, and my gray curtains sway back-and-forth. Tiny lights that are wrapped around the ceiling rafters start flickering.

Power might go out soon.

To restrain myself from texting Farrow, I scroll through my little sister’s tweets. She roasts me daily on Twitter. One time I was on a late-night talk show to promote a charity event and the host had me read Kinney’s tweets out loud.

And I was happy to.

I smile at some new ones.

She included a yawning sloth gif.

I love that my youngest sister likes Farrow. But I slow down on another tweet.

She added a poll for fans to vote, but she included the same three options: bowling, bowling, and bowling.

Kinney already texted me, our cousin Tom Cobalt, and then Oscar and Farrow the details about the meet-up. She picked a date in June. LGBT Pride Month.

I think about how my little sister will be deathly furious if Farrow is late. And I told him, “If you can’t make it, don’t let Kinney scare you.”

He chewed his gum with a rising smile. “Man, I’m not afraid of your thirteen-year-old sister. Especially because she thinks she can commune with dead people,” he said. “I promise I’ll make it.”

That image of his amused smile is cemented to my cerebral cortex.

Fuck it.

I text him. He already told me that if he’s busy, he’ll just ignore me. So I’m not really worried about disturbing him.

Quickly, I type and send: thinking Of u

I purposefully fuck-up the grammar to piss him off a bit. Wind wails, and power suddenly cuts, my clock goes blank. Room darkened, I instinctively reach for my end table—my right arm fights against the sling, fuck me.

I bite down, and I’ve had it with this thing.

I reach behind me and tear off the Velcro that attaches the sling to my abdomen. And I pull the strap off my head. Slowly, I free my imprisoned right arm, and I throw the red sling onto the floor.

Then I gradually lift my right arm off my thigh. The higher I go, the more pain shoots into my collarbone and batters my shoulder.

I drop my arm back and try again.

Better. Or maybe I’m just smothering the pain with determination. I don’t know.

Whatever the case, I reach for the end table again with my bad arm. Purposefully this time to stretch the muscle.

I breathe a measured breath through my nose and slide the drawer open. Grabbing a flashlight. And my switchblade for extra precaution.

Leaning back, I pick up my phone.

No new text.

I breathe out and click into some articles that Uncle Ryke sent me. All for stretch rehab on my collarbone. I’m not supposed to try any of these until eight weeks post-surgery. It hasn’t even been four weeks yet, but maybe one workout won’t be that strenuous…

A lube ad on the sidebar distracts me, and I immediately imagine Farrow. Buck-ass naked, pirate ships, skulls, and sparrows inked all over his six-foot-three body.

He’s standing at the end of my bed. Grinning because he knows he’s aggravatingly sexy.

My veins pulse, skin hot to the touch. I rest my head back. And I try to stop myself from fantasizing by unscrewing the flashlight with two hands. Dumping out the batteries and refitting them in.

These past few weeks, sex has infiltrated my mind like hot-and-bothered battalions. I’ve always had fantasies. Always drifted. And it’s never affected my job or relationships.

But I’m more concerned that it will now that I have all this free time.

My phone pings. I desert the broken apart flashlight and click into the text.

I almost rock back. Goddamn, I did not expect that response. We’ve sexted before, and I gauge the healthiness of it now. Seems enormously normal.

It’s not disrupting my life. And he initiated it. All pros at the moment. So I type and retype a sentence before settling on this:

Under me. On top of me. All over me.

I send the text, and something thwacks my window. I point my cellphone’s light at the window since I dismembered the real flashlight. My curtains blow softly, and I strain my ears.

No street hecklers tonight.

Huh.

There are no trees near my window. So it couldn’t have been a branch. I remember that I checked the front door after Janie and Luna went to bed. It’s locked. They’re safe.

My phone buzzes.

I groan in frustration. Sexual and just plain annoyance. I type two words fast:

Fuck me.

Sent.

My mind tries to crawl into my spank bank and pluck out images of Farrow sliding his dick between my lips—another text comes through.

I don’t overthink for once and just text:

You’re putting your cock in my mouth. I can taste you beneath my tongue.

I send it.

He replies even faster.

I’m smiling and glaring as I text back: or I just don’t like them.

My dick is starting to throb, especially as I picture Farrow straddling my shoulders with me lying back. His inked abs right up against my face, along with his cock. I take him between my lips, and Farrow clutches the back of my head. Gripping protectively. Tightly. I bring his length to the back of my throat—thwack.

What the fuck is that?

I reassemble my flashlight in two seconds. I shine the bright beam onto the gusting curtains.

If I stand up and go shift the curtains, it means I’ll need to peek out the window. And to peek out the window means there’s a good possibility paparazzi will snap a photo of me. Then I’ll draw hecklers to the area, and it’s been nice not hearing a bucket load of bullshit about me and Farrow tonight.

I listen for the noise again, but it’s quiet. So I check a missed text.

His absence.

Being alone with my own head.

My collarbone that refuses to heal at the speed of lightning.

All of the above.

Just can’t sleep. I send that text. And then I think about the lube ad, and I wonder…

I send him another message: I’m going to watch porn.

If he thinks it’s a bad idea, he’ll tell me. Maybe porn will exhaust me, and I can’t deny that ever since I started dating Farrow and he admitted to watching it, my curiosity has piqued.

Maybe I’ll see porn in a new way now that I’m in a committed relationship. I don’t know. My brows furrow in heavy contemplation.

I text back: never mind.

He’s calling me.

I knock my head back on the headboard. Fuck. Either I worried him or he’s pent-up now, and both options, I’m just feeling fan-fucking-tastic about.

I put the call on speakerphone. “I’m not trying to interrupt you at work—”

“You didn’t. Relax, wolf scout. I’m just charting in the on-call room.” Papers shuffle on his end. “You watching porn or not?”

“I don’t know yet.” I open an internet browser on my phone. “What’s a good site?”

He pauses. “Maximoff.” Somehow, his husky voice contains his forever-widening smile. “I’d love to watch it with you since it’s not something you do often, and I’m not saying this because I believe you shouldn’t do it alone. You can do it alone if you want, but it’d be more fun with me.” He adds, “Everything usually is. Even sleep apparently.”

I blink slowly. “Thank you for those unnecessary additions.”

“You’re welcome.” His voice fades with the shuffle of papers.

I think about experiencing this with him, and it’s more appealing. Maybe it’s what I really wanted all along. And I click into a “news headlines” tab on my browser.

Thwack. I swing my head.

“What was that?” Farrow asks.

“A noise,” I say dryly. With the constant stream of hecklers, it’s been more difficult to secure the outside of the townhouse lately. Someone could be chucking something at my window from the street. But rocks and pebbles sound more like pinging against glass.

Whatever hits the window is heavier, but not enough to shatter through.

“Shit,” Farrow curses, and I hear papers scatter.

“They make you chart on paper?” I ask. “I thought they would’ve moved onto some space-aged technology. Like astral projections.” Looking at my phone, my brows knot at an article series, not on Celebrity Crush but on its more reputable parent site and online magazine called Famous Now.

I pause before clicking into the articles. Farrow lets out a vexed breath, his stress or maybe just frustration ekes over the line. He’s great at living inside hectic situations, but whenever he calls me at the hospital, I feel this wound-up tension inside Farrow that he normally never carries around.

He won’t say much about his shifts there, but sometimes I think it’s worse when I press about it. So I haven’t really dug in yet.

“If you need to get back, we can talk later—”

“I have time,” Farrow interjects and finally answers me. “There’s an old attending in internal who refuses to move onto tablets, and since half the hospital thinks he’s Jesus, all Med-Peds first-years are required to chart on paper because this old fucker said so.”

My face twists. This sounds like a rule that Farrow would break. He’d consider tablets more practical and efficient to do better work, and he’d disobey the paper-only requirement, even at the cost of angering the staff and damaging his reputation.

It’s just who he is. Risking it all to do the best job he can.

“Why not just say fuck this rule and use a tablet?” I ask.

“I haven’t thought much about it,” Farrow says distantly.

Thwack. Thwack.

“Maximoff?” Concern deepens his voice.

“It’s just the wind.” I shine my flashlight at the creaking ceiling rafters, then down at the window. My curtains dance more madly, and I’m tempted to stand up and peer through the closed blinds.

“That’s not wind,” Farrow says. “Where are you?”

“Bedroom.” I balance my flashlight on my thigh. Keeping the beam aimed at the curtains. And I focus back on the internet and these daily articles on Famous Now.

Each one compiles all the public photos of Farrow and me. Some pictures are from my Instagram like a selfie at the grocery store. I mockingly flip off Farrow who’s smiling insanely wide behind me, also he’s biting into a nectarine. He was eating the fruit in the store, all before we checked out.

Yeah, he still does that.

Other pictures are from my family’s social media, and then there are paparazzi photos. Like one where we’re on a date at a baseball game. Waiting in the ticket line. Choosing to be normal and not bypass the crowds.

Paparazzi were everywhere, but I didn’t care. Neither did he.

In the photo, his hand is in my back pocket, and I’m laughing. I didn’t see his smile or his expression in that moment, but I look at it now.

Farrow is staring at me with palpable, overwhelming love. Enrapt with my whole essence. Like I’m joy and his happiness.

It knocks me backward.

“Have you seen these articles of us on Famous Now?” I ask Farrow while I take a screenshot of that baseball photo. I like it.

A lot.

I screenshot more pics. I like this site since there’s no malicious intent attached. The intro summary at the top is brief to describe us, and it doesn’t bother me.

Farrow shuffles more papers, and then says, “Alphas Like Us?”

“Yeah.”

That’s the title of the daily series.

Alphas Like Us.

Based off the summary:

“Donnelly sent me a link,” Farrow says. “You should scroll and see if you can find the photo where you look infatuated with me. That’s my favorite one.”

He might be fucking with me, but I scroll anyway. Quickly, I realize that I look sickly in love in practically every damn one. Like I’m sixteen again with a major crush on Farrow Redford Keene, a crush that needs to be restrained.

Immediately.

But I start thinking…

I got the guy.

I’m with my crush.

My crush wants marriage. And kids.

With me.

Eventually.

I rub my face; my cheeks hurt as my grimace becomes a smile. “This must be an imaginary photo,” I tell Farrow because there’s no way in hell I’m admitting to the truth.

“Not imaginary,” Farrow says. “It’s all of them—”

Thwack, thwack, thwack, thwack. My back straightens, and I smack my flashlight that flickers.

“Maximoff? Talk to me.”

“Do you have access to the security cameras outside?” I climb off the bed and leave my phone on the mattress, still on speaker. Then I grab my switchblade in my right hand, flashlight staying in my left.

“No. Not anymore.” Long strained silence passes through the line. I know Farrow hates that he’s not able to protect me, and he’s stuck across the city. “I’m texting Bruno to check the cameras,” he says. “Don’t open the window.”

My floorboards squeak beneath my weight, and I near the blowing curtains. Thwack.

Thwack. That can’t be a rock. It’s all I can think. Not a rock.

Not a brick.

Not a baseball.

“Are you scared?” Farrow asks since I’m not speaking.

“No…” My pulse pounds, but not out of fear. “I just want to know what the fuck it is.” I turn off my flashlight, and I draw open the curtain. Revealing the shut blinds.

Thwack.

A hard object bangs the glass, and I hear something else from outside. Buzzing. But not like a phone vibration. More like whirling…

“Shit, this is killing me,” Farrow says, close to pained. His unsaid words: I wish I were there.

I glance back at the phone on the bed, my stomach coiling. If he were here, he’d be right next to me, and he wouldn’t stop me. We both would do exactly what I’m about to do. Only we’d do it together.

“I’m not opening the window,” I assure him. “It’s probably nothing.”

“Stay on the line with me.”

“I will.” Wind howls, and I use the blade of my knife and lift up a blind. And then I peek out. Thwack. I don’t flinch. The heavy, whirling object…

“It’s a drone,” I tell Farrow as this mechanical helicopter thing flies into the window again. Thwack. “It has a sign. It says…” In big bold letters, someone wrote on a piece of paper. “…I see you.” A chill pricks my neck.

I see you.

Farrow goes quiet.

I back away uneasily, the blind shutting. “I think there’s a camera on the drone.” It could belong to anyone, and I don’t care which human decided it’d be fun to film me in my bedroom.

It’s fucked up.

Flying drones over private property is a gray legal area, but coming onto private property to shoot footage of me is pretty much illegal.

Paparazzi always stay on the sidewalk for a reason. As long as journalists don’t use telephoto lenses to look into my bedroom and don’t harass or trespass, they can get away with a hell of a lot on public property.

“You okay?” Farrow asks.

“I’m going to check on Luna and Jane, and then I’ll call the Tri-Force to handle it.” Anything that veers into lawsuit territory, they deal with.

“Okay, but that’s not what I asked,” he says in that matter-of-fact voice. I miss the face that goes with it.

I stand in a darkened room with wailing wind, creaking wood, and a camera drone thwacking glass. And the only thing that frightens me is loneliness.

I wish you were here.

I can’t tell him that. I can’t make this harder for him than it already is. Because I know it’s already destroying him that he can’t be next to me. I’m not stabbing another blade into the wound.

Three years.

“Yeah,” I say, “I’m fine.”

“I’m going to try to come home early—”

“No,” I cut him off. “You don’t need to do that, man.” I toss my flashlight on the mattress and pick up the phone.

The line deadens for the longest second. “Can you spend the night in Jane’s room?”

If it gives him peace of mind while he’s at work, then my answer is a no-brainer. “Yeah. I can do that.”

“I’m being paged…I have to go,” he rushes.

“See you—” I cut myself off before I say soon. I’m not sure when his shift will end.

“I love you, wolf scout.” It’s the last thing he says. Five longing words that ache greater than silence.