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Adam looked out the window. “I thought we were having a conversation.”
Yeah—if a conversation was like stumbling along a dark hallway, wondering what your hands would find if you reached out.
Then again, they weren’t talking about anything serious. He’d had more personal discussions with the cafeteria ladies.
Nick flexed his fingers on the steering wheel again and wished he’d brought Gabriel along instead.
No. He didn’t.
“I’m not going to jump you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Adam said, a shred of humor in his voice—but a shred of sadness hid there, too. “I promise, I have some self-control.”
“I’m not worried about it.”
“You look like a strong guy. You could probably fight me off.”
Nick cut him a withering glance, but his brain was all too willing to suggest images of what Adam was suggesting.
Stop it, stop it, stop it.
If the thought of college was enough to drive a wedge between him and his brothers, thoughts like these would hammer it home. He’d been fighting with this for years, and here one drive in the truck was about to undo him.
Nick drew a ragged breath. He wished for some traffic or something to steal his attention, but the highway was mostly deserted this late at night. He wished for different thoughts. Silence swelled in the cab of the truck again, taunting Nick to look at his passenger.
He didn’t. But he had to talk or he was going to make himself crazy. So he picked up the earlier conversations. “I think my younger brother—Chris—is waiting to see what happens if I leave. He might be thinking about college, too, but he won’t say anything until he’s sure about it.”
“The cautious type.”
Nick smiled. “Gabriel and I call him the brooding type.”
“Gabriel. Number three?”
That killed the smile. “Yeah. My twin brother. He says he doesn’t care if I go away to school, but I know he does.”
“Identical twin?”
“Yeah.”
“Niiiiice.”
Nick cut him another look, and Adam smiled. “Sorry.”
A street sign announced the park entrance, and Nick hit the turn signal. The gates were closed and padlocked, so he parked on the side of the road. He’d been here before with his brothers, dozens of times. He could find the path to the beach blindfolded. Good thing, too, since there were no lights overhead.
Wind was coming in from the water, just this side of too cold. Nick didn’t mind the sharpness against his cheeks, knowing his element would steal the warmth left over from his conversation with Adam. He asked the air for information, trying to determine if there was any sense of danger here.
But the wind only seemed willing to carry the scents of the night: the richness of the pine trees lining the road, the heavy scent of the distant sea, and whatever cologne Adam was wearing, something musky and warm, like oranges and cloves. Somehow it was stronger out here than it had been in the truck, and once his brain identified it, Nick wanted to get closer, to bask in the scent and bury his face in it.
No girl had ever affected him this strongly.
No guy had, either, but this was the first time he’d been alone with a boy he felt attracted to, and it was like his senses were trying to latch on to the opportunity.
A boy who thought Nick felt threatened by his presence.
Nick wondered what would have happened if he’d lost the defensive looks in the truck. If he’d sat in the cab for two minutes. If he’d—
Quinn, he thought. Focus on Quinn.
Right. His girlfriend. Who needed rescuing—both from boys and herself, apparently.
