Page 7

Free periods ruled.

***

“Wishing you were somehow here again . . .”

Christine Daaé’s lament hummed in A.J.’s ear as he let his foot bump against Bren’s from where their legs dangled over the side of the gallery. That song had been his go-to heartbreak ballad a few hours ago, and now here he was, sitting next to Bren, still glowing from an extracurricular he never dreamed he’d have gotten up to at school.

“This is from that Phantom show, yeah?”

A soft smile crossed A.J.’s face and he bumped his foot into Bren’s again.

“OK, do you wanna explain how you got gayer after I left?”

Bren snorted.

“Jeez, I try and listen to some Broadway for my lad, and he slags me?” He scooched to the side so their shoulders brushed. “And I’m still half-and-half, thank you very much.”

A.J. laughed. Bren had adopted the phrase sometime in July despite A.J.’s repeated attempts to point out that it made him sound like something that went in coffee.

“Sorry, your creamy bisexualness, I’ll never imply you’re a one-way street ever again.”

“Kinda romantic when you think about it,” Bren said and leaned in for a kiss. “I’d love you no matter what you had going on down there, like.”

A.J. wasn’t sure how he was supposed to unpack that complement but met Bren’s lips anyway. When they pulled away, Bren was wearing a grin that never meant good things.

“You’re wondering what I’d look like as a girl now, aren’t you?”

Bren shook his head, hand trailing along A.J.’s side. “Just what you’d look like with a nice set of—”

“We’re done here,” A.J. said and swung himself around before dangling down with his hands grasping the edge of the walkway. He waited long enough for Bren’s cry of surprise and let himself fall the last few feet to the stage below.

“Grab the lights on your way down, please,” he said, trying his best to sound bored. He had long since decided to never let Bren know that even his most intrusive thoughts made him smile.

A.J. flipped a switch and the single overhead light on the underside of the gallery hummed to life. It was perpetually covered by a dark blue gel filter and bathed the wing in a muted glow as if it refused to disturb the nonexistent audience in the empty seats.

There was some grunting overhead as Bren’s legs appeared above A.J. It took a great deal of self control for him not to reach up and steal one of Bren’s shoes as he dangled.

“Couldn’t we have used the stairs, like?” Bren asked, his voice strained with effort before he dropped beside him. He stumbled and had to hop forward a couple of times to keep from falling over.

“Yeah, but I wanted to show you the stage before we left.”

He skirted around Bren and grabbed a rope that controlled the grand drape and pulled it open. The light from the gelled bulb wasn’t strong enough to make it out of the wings and the curtain opened onto a sea of nothing.

“Damn, well, uh, just imagine, like, seven hundred seats, then a balcony with more seats and a little tech booth,” A.J. said as he pulled Bren onto the stage, the echoing of their shoes in the empty room soothing to his soul.

“Still can’t believe you get up in front of people and talk for fun. You looked like you were ready to pass out when I said hi last year.”

Another smile reached A.J.’s face, but this one came with an unexpected pang. At some point Bren had grown so close to his heart that he sometimes forgot he hadn’t always been there. What might his life look like now if Bren had left him alone on that first day like he’d wanted?

“Talking’s easy when there’s a script to tell you what to say,” He eyed Bren’s outline and let their knuckles brush. “And when you’re not having to do it in front of the hottest guy in school.”

Bren scoffed, but A.J. could tell he was grinning.

“Thought you said half of us Irish lads were—what was it?—stupid hot?”

The greenhouse surged around A.J. in a ghost of memory.

“Yeah, but you were the hottest . . . unless we count Brick’s arms as their own person.”