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“Can I revel in this first-to-know status and get the whole story?
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.”
“What about Adam? Will she talk to him?”
Nick looked down at the table. “Maybe, but she hasn’t been showing up to dance.”
“Could you ask him to reach out to her?”
Nick picked at the edge of his place mat and didn’t say anything.
“Come on,” said Michael. “Don’t leave out part of the story.”
So Nick told him about the previous night. About Adam.
And Hunter. His cheeks were on fire, and he didn’t go to any great detail, but he talked.
“Wow,” said Michael, dragging the word into three syllables.
“No wonder you’re so keyed up.”
Nick shrugged. His mood darkened as his brain replayed shoving Adam again. “Guess I’m aggressive sometimes, huh?”
Michael hesitated. “I didn’t mean that as an insult, Nick.”
He didn’t need to. Nick got it. He couldn’t help Quinn, he couldn’t fix things with Adam, and hell, he couldn’t even stand up to frigging Tyler.
