Page 50 of Riding the Sugar High

Once she leans back in the chair, I exhale.

This will be a while.

* * *

I twist and turn in bed, my blanket now entangled in a rope by the side of my body. Though I’m exhausted, my thoughts keep running to the three-hour-long informal interrogation I went through today.

God, I just want to sleep.

Logan always goes to bed early, and tonight was no exception. Once we got home from the police station, we had dinner and swapped information, and after that, he left for his room. From what I could tell, it looks like we didn’t contradict each other—dare I say we made it unscathed?

Still, no sleep. It’s like the tension won’t wear down, and I keep replaying every second of it in my head, expecting to remember something I said that’ll destroy our alibis. Is Logan doing the same? Is he really sleeping like everything’s fine?

Fooling myself into thinking he might still be awake, I walk to his room and knock on the door.

Nothing.

Maybe it wasn’t loud enough.

I try again, and this time I hear the squeak of his mattress springs, then the piglets grunting. “What’s...What happened? Are you okay?”

Opening the door, I’m met with a pitch-black room and Logan’s eyes squinting against the light coming in from the corridor. Does he always sleep without a shirt on?

“I didn’t say come in, did I?”

“Sorry,” I say as I enter the room and close the door behind me. “I can’t sleep.”

He sighs, dropping his face into his pillow, and though his words are muffled, I hear him clearly as he says, “Could have just abandoned you to that fire.”

As if. He needed me to escape the crime scene.

“I keep thinking about today. What if I said something that will lead them to us?”

“Peter said everything went fine, Primrose. Go to sleep.”

I sit on the edge of his bed, propping my leg up and under me as he studies me with a cocked brow. “You can’t be sure.”

“No, I can’t. But I’m sure if you don’t let me sleep, I’ll deliver you to the police myself.”

I press my lips tight, my finger drawing circles on his sheet. “Just five minutes? Please?”

With a sigh, he throws his head back on the pillow. “Fine.”

“Tell me something to distract me.”

He hums, eyes closed. “You know what’s fascinating? The suspension system on my bike."

He launches into a detailed explanation of damping rates, rebound adjustments, and preload settings, whatever all of that is, his voice taking on a hypnotic quality. Try as I might, I struggle to muster up even a hint of genuine interest.

“Oh my god,” I burst after a while. “Please stop.”

He cracks one eye open. “Hmm?”

“This is the most boring combination of words I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s meant to make you sleep.”

It might, but it’s also killing any will to wake up.

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