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Adam must have noticed the sharpness in his voice, because he gave the return directions flatly, reciting his address by rote. The hearts were gone from his eyes, and he was studying the windshield with almost as much focus as Nick.
Nick didn’t like that.
He dulled the edge in his tone. “You sure you don’t mind her sleeping it off at your place?”
“Nah,” said Adam quietly. “It’s nothing.”
Adam lived in a basement apartment at one of the aging brick complexes on the edge of Annapolis. The apartment was small, practically an efficiency. One bedroom, one bathroom, and a kitchen–living room–dining room combo. All beige carpet, white walls with dark photography prints everywhere, and minimal furniture. A tiny two-seater kitchen table was tucked into the corner by the oven, and there was a couch and an end table, but no television. Just piles of books everywhere. Cluttered, but neat and orderly.
The air was peaceful here, and Nick took a long breath for what felt like the first time all evening.
“You can put her on the bed,” Adam whispered, though they’d been speaking normally in the car and she hadn’t stirred.
Nick shouldered through the doorway and eased Quinn onto the bed, pulling a black and blue–checked quilt over her sleeping form. Her breathing still felt regular, and the air whispered nothing of danger, so he felt pretty sure she was fine.
Then he straightened and realized he was in Adam’s room. Alone.
It felt quiet and intimate and smelled like oranges and cloves, and Nick didn’t want to leave.
But what was he going to do? Sit here?
God, he felt so selfish. Quinn was lying here, practically unconscious. He should have just taken her to his house initially.
But then Adam wouldn’t have called.
He reached for the normal mental barriers to tell himself to shut up, but here, in someone else’s space, it was a lot harder to lie to himself.
He needed to leave.
Adam stuck his head through the doorway. “I started some coffee. How do you take it?”
This would be the perfect opportunity to decline, to get out and go home.
“Just cream,” he said.
When he was sitting at the little table in the kitchen, his hands wrapped around a mug, he fought for something to say.
But all he could think about was the way Adam’s hands had poured cream into the mugs, or the graceful way he moved about the kitchen, or the shape of his mouth or the brown of his eyes or the—
Adam sat down and Nick jerked his eyes back to his mug. He took a quick gulp.
“How’s the coffee?” Adam’s voice was amused. And close.
This table was too damn small.
“It’s great. Thanks.” Nick still couldn’t look at him. His cheeks felt warm, and he hoped that was just the steam from the coffee. He doubted it.
dn’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?”
