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Nick studied him, allowing some of the earlier moments to click into place. Adam asking if Gabriel would hurt Nick. The tension in his eyes when he said, “You’re strong.”
Even now, he was holding himself at a slight distance.
There was more to Adam’s story, hiding behind this easy self-confidence.
Nick shifted his weight, and Adam almost flinched. Without the air to reinforce his impression, Nick might have missed it altogether.
Slowly, carefully, Nick reached his hands out and put them on Adam’s shoulders. “You’re safe here,” he said softly. “Okay?”
Adam’s eyes widened as Nick fed his words back to him.
Nick smiled, just a little. “You don’t have to watch your words or your thoughts or whatever has you so wound up.”
Now Adam was blushing. “Okay, okay—”
Nick kissed him. Not with the feverish intensity of a few moments ago, but a bare brush of lips.
When he tried to pull away, Adam caught his face and held him there, putting his forehead against his. “You’re going to break my heart. I can feel it.”
“Not if I can help it.” He put a hand over Adam’s, holding it to his cheek. “Slow?”
Adam nodded, turning his head to kiss Nick’s palm.
Then he grinned. “Well,” Adam said. “Slower.”
CHAPTER 5
Quinn pulled the hood of her sweatshirt up and shivered.
She still had her dance shorts on, but there hadn’t been time to change. Her jaw hurt like a bitch, and she knew there’d be a bruise there tomorrow.
Her older brother had welcomed her home by slamming her face into the wall and demanding to know where his money was.
Like she had a clue. Quinn would be so happy when Jake went back to college. Her little brother Jordan had already taken to crashing at friends’ houses every night, rotating through his circle of gamer buddies so no one’s parents got suspicious.
Quinn had been sitting on the curb out in front of the 7-Eleven, but the old Korean woman who worked there had come out shrieking about teenagers loitering, so now Quinn was sitting on a milk crate out back, clinging to the darkness.
She was this close to stealing food from the Dumpster.
When she’d lived within walking distance of Becca’s house, Becca’s mom had always left her a plate of food. She’d known about Quinn’s disagreements with her mom. Quinn still had a key to their house on her key ring.
But now that Becca and Chris were an item, Quinn increas-ingly felt like a third wheel.
Especially now that she knew the truth about Becca and the Merricks.
A truth she’d learned from Nick, not Becca.
Some best friend.
Hunger clawed at Quinn’s insides and she wished she’d gone with Nick and Adam for coffee. But she didn’t have any money and she didn’t want to be a mooch and a third wheel.
But now that she had nowhere to sleep . . . Her fingers traced over the face of her cell phone, and she considered texting Nick.
A metal door slammed, a little distance down the back wall.
Quinn saw a flare of light, then a cigarette glowed red. The light over the door was out, but from the person’s size, it looked like a guy. Dark clothes.
She pulled her hood down, tucking her blond hair more tightly under the covering.
