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Tiny gas lamps glowed across the bay; this probably looked like a distress beacon. “Won’t someone see it?”
o;Enough.” Adam reached across his tiny kitchen table and took the phone. He put it behind him on the counter, next to where the coffeemaker was choking out a pot.
“I’m sorry,” Nick said.
“It’s all right. I care about her, too.”
“I’m sorry you didn’t get to rehearse.”
Adam shrugged. “I’ll make do.”
But it bothered him. Nick could tell. Adam had less than two weeks until his audition, and Quinn’s temper tantrum might not be for tonight only. “I shouldn’t have set her off in the truck.”
Adam frowned. “That’s not your fault.”
Nick blew out a long rush of breath and ran a hand through his hair. He glanced at his phone on the counter. “I just wish she’d answer.”
“She did answer.”
Nick gave him a look—but he was right. Quinn had answered.
She’d told him she was fine. Then she’d told him to f**k off.
“I’m worried she’s going to hang out with Tyler, just to piss me off.”
The coffeemaker beeped, signaling it was done, and Adam stood. “And would that piss you off?”
His tone was easy, but there was the tiniest bit of an edge hiding there. Nick blinked and realized he was being an idiot.
“Yeah,” he said. “But not like that. I want Quinn to be happy. But Tyler is not a good guy.”
“You think he’ll hurt her?”
He’d hurt her once already—but Nick couldn’t explain that without explaining everything. “I hope not. I don’t know.”
Adam fetched milk from the refrigerator and poured some into one mug, leaving the other coffee black. Nick watched this, bemused that Adam had remembered how he took his coffee.
Adam interrupted his thoughts. “How do you know him?”
Nick wondered how to answer that without spilling every secret he had. For the first time, he was tempted to tell Adam all of it. His shoulders felt tight with tension—from the fight with Quinn, from school, from his family, from living up to everyone’s expectations.
“He used to go to school with my older brother. His family and my family—we don’t get along.”
Adam turned from the counter with mugs in hand. “Why?”
Because Tyler thinks we should be put to death for something we can’t control.
Nick rubbed at his eyes. “It’s a long story.”
He heard the mugs slide onto the table, but jumped when Adam’s hands landed on his shoulders.
“Relax,” Adam said softly. “Relax.” Then he pressed his thumbs into the muscle there.
The trapezius muscle, Nick’s brain supplied helpfully.
God, he was such a nerd.
Adam’s hands felt amazing. Warm and strong with just enough pressure behind his fingers. But instead of being relaxing, his touch had Nick ready to leap out of his chair. Was this a prelude to something? Obviously, right? But what if it—
