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Quinn hates him, and I wish I could fix it. But he can be sharp—
cruel. He speaks without thinking, and it gets him into trouble.”
“You’re close?”
“Yeah.” Nick hesitated. “I think we’re growing apart this year. A little.”
“And he has no clue you’re into guys?”
Despite the fact that he was sitting here holding hands with Adam, the instinct to reject the notion was so strong that Nick almost denied it. He had to clear his throat. “No. No idea.”
“Do you think he’d hurt you if he knew?”
Nick blinked in surprise. “What, you mean physically?”
“Yeah, I mean physically.”
Nick had never worried about his brothers beating the shit out of him over something like this. Anger, isolation—those he expected. Not violence.
His eyes zoomed in on the scar pulling at the edge of Adam’s lip. Years ago, someone had slammed Adam’s face into a locker at school, causing enough damage that he’d needed plastic surgery to put his face back together.
But Nick couldn’t imagine Gabriel hurting him. Not with his fists, anyway. Disappointment and rejection were another story.
Nick shook his head. “I don’t think he would. But he might not take it well. Gabriel is very . . .”
Adam waited.
Nick ran a hand through his hair, feeling it stand up in tufts.
How could he explain Gabriel? “He plays on four varsity teams at school. I think he knows most of the cheerleaders intimately, if you catch my drift. He’s got a girlfriend now, but if anyone’s a player, it’s him. He’s brave—I mean, he’s trying to get into firefighter school. Just very . . . I don’t know.”
“Alpha?”
“Yes. Perfect word.”
“You admire him.”
Nick shrugged.
Adam smiled. “You do. I can hear it in your voice.” He paused. “How old are you?”
“Seventeen. How old are you?”
“Nineteen.”
Two years. It felt like twenty. Nick didn’t know how to explain that it wasn’t just his brothers, that school would take on an entirely different feel if he had to walk down the halls with all his classmates knowing the truth. Adam could be himself, and he had a safe place to go if the world started to crumble around him.
Nick wasn’t sure he had anything. He didn’t think his brothers would throw him out of the house, but he didn’t want to live there feeling their resentment, their unease. Their judgment.
And he couldn’t stop going to high school. Education was his only way out of this town.
But he still couldn’t bring himself to tear open those college letters hidden in his desk. What if they didn’t want him, either?
“Do your parents know about you?” Nick asked.
“Yes.” Adam smiled. “I was obsessed with dance from day one. I used to make up routines to show tunes in my living room. I asked my parents for hot pink legwarmers for my ninth birthday. I’m a walking cliché. I think they knew before I did.”
“And they were all right?”
