AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Or do I have to drag that out of you during another dinner?”
“No,” said Nick, feeling something like relief for the first time in a week. “I’ll tell you everything.”
Michael had always made for a good audience, and he kept his mouth shut while Nick talked.
Until he started laying it out, Nick hadn’t realized how much he’d been carrying around. He felt like sandbags had been strapped to his back for weeks, and now someone had stabbed a hole in one of them: it all poured out. He told Michael about the first night he’d met Adam, the way Quinn had gotten in trouble with some bikers on the beach. He talked about Adam’s audition, and Quinn’s role, and—hesitantly at first—about the first night at Adam’s apartment.
When Michael’s expression didn’t change to disgust, Nick gained momentum, revealing Adam’s past experience and Quinn’s home situation. He talked about the way Tyler had burned her arm, how she’d called Nick to pick her up in the woods, and how he’d snuck her into the house because she didn’t want to go home.
Michael was pissed about that. “Nick, if your friends need help, you need to tell me. Don’t sneak them inside.”
“No girls spending the night, remember?”
“That’s not the same and you know it. Are you aware that when people dump their problems on you, you don’t actually have to solve them by yourself?”
Nick didn’t have an answer for that.
Michael kept going. “I’m actually more concerned with how you describe her home situation than I am about her spending time with Tyler.”
Nick flinched. “She won’t tell me all the details. I don’t know what’s going on at home half the time.”
“If she’s hiding in the woods, it can’t be good.”
Right now, after what she’d done, Nick didn’t really give a shit if Quinn was sleeping in the woods.
No. That wasn’t true. He did care. A lot.
She sure didn’t make it easy. “She says she’s waiting for her brother to go back to school. Her family is under a lot of stress since the fire.”
Michael sighed and ran a hand down his face. “Will she talk to anyone? What about Becca?”
“She won’t speak to her because Becca never told her about the Elemental stuff. Then she got all pissed at me because I told her Tyler was a dickhead who’d just hurt her. Now she’s avoiding everyone except Tyler.” Nick’s voice turned thick with disgust. “I think he was at school to pick her up. She said she has a new ride to school.”
o;Actually, it was Hannah’s guess.”
“Hmm.”
Michael centered on him. “It wouldn’t have been a bad thing.
I just—I didn’t want you to think you couldn’t tell me.”
Nick didn’t say anything to that.
Then the waitress was back and Michael was signing his name, and this little moment was ending.
Nick didn’t move. He couldn’t. He felt like he was standing on the edge of a cliff, looking down at water far below. A short flight through air, with an impact that might kill him.
Michael hesitated at the edge of his booth. “You ready?”
“No.”
Say it. Tell him.
Two words. He couldn’t even get two words out of his mouth.
You care more about what other people think than you care about me.
Adam had faced a lot worse than this.
