It left Nick looking down at him. The position was casual and nonthreatening.
And kind of hot.
Nick told his eyes to stay on his frigging notebook, but they found Adam’s feet, following the line of his calves to his knees and thighs and—
Up. Up. Look up, before you get yourself in trouble.
Nick looked at his face. The darkness of Adam’s eyes, the barely-there start of shadow across his jaw. The crooked scar that dragged his lip away from perfection.
Nick flashed on what it had felt like to kiss him. He jerked his gaze back to his book. “Hey.”
Hey. Wow. Suave. Maybe Quinn should be videotaping this.
“What are you studying?” said Adam, his voice gently teasing, almost provocative. It made him sound like he wasn’t talking about studying at all.
If it had been a girl, Nick could have flirted back. You, he would have said.
Say it. Say it, say it, say it.
“Physics,” he said instead.
Ugh. Suddenly he felt like such a dork. Next he’d say he needed to get home to his bug collection.
He cleared his throat. “I enjoyed your class.”
“Thanks. They’re good kids.” Adam paused. “Did you come to watch Quinn?”
No, I came to watch you.
But he couldn’t say it.
“Come on,” Quinn called from the floor. “You guys can make out later. Let’s get this done.”
Nick slammed his textbook closed. “Damn, Quinn.”
Adam uncurled from the bench. He was smiling. “I forgot you were such an easy blush.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Adam started to move away, but then he paused and leaned back to whisper. “It’ll make for interesting conversation later.”
Nick studied the whole time Adam and Quinn rehearsed.
No. That wasn’t true.
He pretended to stare at his textbook the whole time. In reality, he never turned a page, he never took a note, and he didn’t take his eyes off Adam.
This was ridiculous. Any minute now, he’d be doodling hearts down the margin of his notebook.
An easy blush. He wasn’t usually. But he could feel his cheeks warming just thinking of Adam’s last comment.
He wasn’t the only one blushing, either. Some younger girls were clustered and giggling in the doorway, whispering about Adam.
Nick couldn’t blame them. Adam and Quinn made an eye-catching pair as they spun across the floor. His dark hair and olive skin seemed to shadow her blue-eyed-blond-peaches-and-cream complexion. Nick wondered if Adam played to that, if he’d choreographed the dance to highlight their differences.
The routine was powerful, putting Quinn in the air as often as she was on the ground. She’d told Nick she was trying to live on lettuce and saltines to spare Adam’s biceps.
From where Nick was sitting, said biceps did not need sparing.
He forced his attention on Quinn. He’d seen the first incarna-tions of this dance a few weeks ago, when Quinn and Adam had scraped it together in the back room of the Y. Quinn had been awkward, trying to keep up with Adam’s polished movements.
But she’d been working hard—now her motions looked like a perfect extension of his.
The air liked their partnership. He could feel their energy in the atmosphere like an electric current through water.
It was good to see Quinn focused on something positive.
By the time they killed the lights in the studio and Adam was locking up, it was after ten. Nick told himself he could force physics lessons into his brain when he got home. It wasn’t that late yet.
Then Adam said, “Want to grab a cup of coffee?”
He should refuse. It was late enough, and he had Mike’s truck.
Then again, Michael would never give him a hard time about staying out. He probably wasn’t even concerned. Nick never did anything wrong.
But coffee would be public. Would Quinn come? Did he want her to?
“Don’t worry about it,” said Adam, his voice easy. “I didn’t mean to throw you into an existential crisis. It’s all right.”
“No! I want to. It’s—yeah. Coffee. Yes.”
“Maybe decaf,” said Quinn. Nick shot her a look.
She yawned. “What? Drop me at home first. I need to crash.”
So he’d be alone with Adam.
Normally it took fifteen minutes to get Quinn across town.
Tonight it seemed to take three-point-two seconds. Nick was very aware of his fake-girlfriend sitting between him and Adam, providing a buffer of estrogen and snark and pretend heterosexuality.
When he couldn’t seem to generate any better than one-word answers, she turned her attention to Adam, prattling about the routine and Adam’s audition and their practice schedule for the rest of the week.
In her parking lot, Nick hoped she’d want a walk up to her apartment, if only to give him another minute for his nerves to settle.
But she didn’t ask and didn’t linger, and before he knew it, she was gone, climbing the stairs and disappearing through her door. The air in the cab was chilled from Nick’s anxiety, but not enough to make his breath fog—yet. He kicked the heat up a notch and backed out of the parking place. Once they were moving again, Nick focused on the road more closely than he had in driver’s ed. They drove in silence for a minute.
That left too much time for thinking, and really, he wanted to turn his brain off.
He cleared his throat. “Starbucks?”
“Your call.”
Adam’s voice was so calm, so sure. Nick glanced over at the next stoplight. While he felt like the slightest noise would send him shooting out of his skin, Adam looked relaxed, loosely coiled in the passenger seat. Streetlights reflected off his hair and eyes, sparking with gold.
“Relax,” he said softly.Nick let out a breath. “Sorry.”
Adam’s smile turned a little wicked. “We’re having coffee there, not getting naked.”
Nick nearly jumped the curb pulling into the parking lot.
Adam laughed.
Even this late at night, the Starbucks was packed, and they moved to the back of the line. Nick worried that Adam would hang close or drop quasi-sexual banter, but he kept his distance, and his conversation barely strayed from the mundane. Questions about school, about Quinn, about the weather they were having.
Worse, now that Adam was doing what Nick thought he wanted—what he thought he needed, this safe distance—Nick found himself missing the charged teasing, the blushing, the warmth of Adam’s breath on his neck when he whispered things about later.
The air in the restaurant changed, enough that Nick froze. It didn’t feel threatening, just watchful. He looked around, shuf-fling forward when the person in front of him moved ahead to order.
Danger? he thought, seeking answers from the air.
But the air only carried the scents of ground coffee. Nick took a second look, trying to be discreet about it.
Silver was in prison. The middle school Elementals had been convinced to lie low. Calla was missing, but this didn’t feel like a Fire Elemental.
Then the sensation was gone, so subtly that Nick wondered if he’d really felt it at all.
The barista gave him a bright smile when they made it to the counter. “One of the Merrick twins,” she said. “Which one are you?”
Nick blinked, surprised, then realized he knew her from school. Cute, with almond-shaped eyes, carefully highlighted hair, and clothes just tight enough to get a second glance from most guys. Courtney or Carrie or something.
Nick felt himself sliding into the familiar, doing what was expected. He had to, or people might talk. He returned her flirtatious smile and gave her their typical twin line. “Does it matter?”
She gave him a mock pout and probably thought she looked sexy. It did absolutely nothing for him. “What’s going in your cup?” she said.
He met her eyes and gave it right back. “Surprise me.”
“Something hot and sweet coming right up.”
“Make the same for me, sugar,” said Adam.
While she smiled and grabbed a second cup, Adam leaned close enough to whisper to Nick. “I can play this game, too.”
He was teasing, but Nick felt the undercurrent of . . . something else. Admonishment? Sadness? Disappointment? All three?
Before he could puzzle it out, Adam drew back and pulled out his wallet.
“I’ve got it,” said Nick.
“No way. You’re doing me a favor. I got it.”
“A favor?”
“Giving me a ride home.”
Oh.
Nick felt like he was stumbling through his evening, and every step was wrong. When Courtney-Carrie-Whatever handed them their cups, he could barely get it together to thank her.
She’d written her number on the cardboard sleeve. Along with her name—Courtnie—with a big heart over the I.
“Ready to go?” said Adam.
“Yeah. I—” Nick hesitated, not even sure what he was going to say. “Yeah. I’m ready.”
Their breaths fogged when they stepped outside. After the warmth and bustle of the Starbucks, the sudden silence closed in around Nick.
“I’m not chasing you off,” said Adam. “I just knew we couldn’t talk in there.”
“Okay.” Nick thought he should apologize, but he couldn’t quite nail down why. The truck rumbled to life, and he reached out to twirl the dials to get the heat going again. Cinnamon and vanilla wafted from the paper cups to filter through the cab, warm scents that pulled some of the tension from his shoulders.
“So what’s it feel like?” said Adam.
“What’s what feel like?”
“The back wall of that closet you’ve buried yourself inside.”
His voice wasn’t unkind, but Nick heard an echo of what he’d felt inside the coffee shop. Not quite judgment. But almost.
Nick wrapped his hands around his cup and inhaled the steam. “It sucks.” He paused. “Sorry—in there—”
“It’s all right. You don’t have to apologize.” A hesitation.
“Your family still doesn’t know?”
Nick shook his head.
“But you came to the studio.”
“Yeah.”
Adam took a drink of his coffee and stared out the windshield, a musing smile on his face. “When I saw you walk in with Quinn, I almost forgot what I was teaching.”
“I didn’t think you noticed.”
As soon as he said the words, Nick wished he could kick himself. He sounded sulky, for god’s sake. Sulky.
Adam didn’t let it go, either. His smile widened. “Don’t you worry. I noticed.”
Nick busied himself with backing out of the parking space, grateful for the darkness, because he was sure heat sat on his cheeks again. But then he got to the edge of the lot and sat there, wondering where to go.
If Adam invited him back to his apartment, he had no idea what he’d say. An invitation equaled an opportunity to say no.
A choice. Making one decision led to more complicated ones.
Worse, he felt Adam watching him, probably deliberating over the same thing.
But Adam didn’t offer an invitation. “My place,” he said firmly. “Drive.”
CHAPTER 4
Adam’s place looked exactly like Nick remembered. A simple one-bedroom walkout in the basement of an apartment building. No television, but three packed bookcases and an impressive stereo took up the main wall. Nothing else was note-worthy: a small kitchen with a two-seater table tucked in the corner, a tiny bathroom, and a bedroom dwarfed by the queen bed crammed in there. But the living room was huge and open, especially with the wide sliding door leading to the outside.
Nick had gone to friends’ houses before. Parents would either be home, or there’d be plenty of evidence they existed. Parental involvement was a reality. Even his own house had Gabriel’s sports equipment stacked in a corner of the garage, or Michael’s bills and papers always left on the kitchen counter, or Chris’s laundry flung at the bottom of the basement stairs. Always a reminder that no matter what, being alone was practically impossible.