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“Maybe.”
“You don’t sound happy.”
“I’ve never done the parent thing.”
“Pretend they’re new clients.”
Michael looked at him. “Yeah, okay.”
“No. Seriously. That’s what I do.” Nick never had any idea how to treat his girlfriends’ parents. He always worried they’d see right through him, and it wasn’t like he wanted to pretend to stare at his date’s boobs right in front of Mom and Dad, just to prove a point. He knew how to deal with teachers, and how to deal with landscaping customers. He treated parents the same way. They always liked him. Then again, maybe they could sense he wasn’t a threat to anyone’s virginity.
Whatever. He shrugged. “It’s worked so far.”
Michael smiled and hit him on the shoulder. “Thanks, Nick.”
He headed for the stairs. Nick watched him go, bemused. And relieved.
And a little disappointed.
“Hey,” Nick called after him.
“What?”
“I’d lose the long hair.”
Michael made a face. “If I cut my hair, that means I have to keep cutting it.”
Typical Michael. Not making a statement with his looks. Just not taking five minutes to care what he looked like. “You’re the one who wants to make a good impression. Just saying.”
Michael gestured. “I can’t do what you guys do.”
“So cut it short.”
“It won’t look stupid?”
“Right now you look like you’re trying to bring back the grunge era, so you tell me.”
Michael rolled his eyes and started up the stairs. “All right, all right.”
Nick watched him go. The camaraderie felt good. He’d missed this. So much that he wanted to call Michael back down, to take him up on that option to talk.
Then again, his older brother hadn’t really meant it. That had been BS conversation until he could get around to asking a favor.
And really, if he’d said a word about Adam, that camaraderie probably would have vanished into thin air.
Quinn woke to the sounds of a guitar strumming.
She lay in bed and listened, trying to orient herself. Darkness cloaked the room, barely letting any light through the blinds. A light was on somewhere down the hallway.
Right, Tyler’s apartment.
The guitar was muffled, probably a neighbor or something.
She was alone in bed, which wasn’t a surprise. She was in the room with the double beds, curled up under the quilt.
The whole night had been bizarre, from her fight with Nick, to the kiss from Tyler, to the drug addicts in her bedroom.
It hadn’t gotten any better.
