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The smile vanished. “No. You don’t.”
“I do. A little.” Nick faced forward and rubbed at the back of his neck. A girl in pointe shoes was twirling across the stage.
“You really hurt me. A lot—a lot more than I thought was possible.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Nick didn’t say anything. He didn’t know if he wanted this apology.
“I wish I could take it back,” Gabriel said. “You have no idea—”
“Don’t. Don’t do this here.”
Gabriel shut up as if Nick had smacked him. They watched the next routine in tense silence.
Then Gabriel leaned in. “I read your text messages.”
“You what?”
Half a dozen people turned around and hushed him.
Nick clenched his fists and glared at Gabriel. “What are you talking about? When?”
“When you left the phone in the car. At first I just plugged it in to make sure it wasn’t busted. But when it powered up, I saw it was on the text chat with Adam, so—”
“So you read them? ”
Gabriel met his eyes and didn’t recoil from his anger. “Those things I said—I didn’t mean them. I didn’t know, Nicky.” He winced. “Nick. I didn’t know. I never meant to hurt you.”
Nick didn’t say anything to that. Was this enough? It didn’t feel like enough.
He turned his head and asked the question that had reverberated through his head since the instant he’d felt his twin’s fist slam into his face. “How could you, Gabriel?” His whispered voice almost broke. “How could you do what you did?”
“I didn’t know what was wrong,” Gabriel said, his words rushed, as if he worried Nick would cut him off again. “I didn’t know your secret. And then—then this complete stranger was apologizing to me, and I knew you were so upset. It was—that night, it was all wrong. I was keyed up from the fight with Tyler.
It was a misunderstanding. And then you were fighting me, and I figured out that you had been keeping this huge monumental secret, and I just—I snapped.”
“That’s not good enough.” Nick gritted his teeth. “You shouldn’t have been fighting him. You shouldn’t have put your hands on him.”
“I know. And I apologized to him.”
Nick’s head was reeling. “What? When?”
“This morning, when I called him and asked what time his audition was.”
Nick stared at him.
“I told him not to tell you,” Gabriel added. He hesitated. “I didn’t think you’d let me come.”
Nick wouldn’t have. He had to clear his throat. “What else did you talk about?”
“I asked him why you thought you had to keep this a secret from me.”
Nick glared at him. “You know why. You showed why.”
“No.” And on this, Gabriel’s voice was firm. “I acted like a total shit that night. I apologized for it, and I’ll do it a hundred more times if I have to. But you went to a lot of trouble to keep this secret, way before we went to that coffee shop. Jesus, Nick, two weeks ago you and Quinn were making out on the floor of your bedroom.”
Nick looked away.
