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4
The party was in full swing as they descended the stairs. Nick could hear the thrum of voices above the sound of Jazz’s favorite pop travesties filling the air, the beat thumping. He peeled off from his friends at the large hallway closet near the front door, planning on grabbing lip balm from his backpack before joining the party. Nick reminded himself to take as many pictures as possible as he pulled open the closet door.
Only to see two people inside, stepping apart quickly, clothes in disarray.
Nick blinked, unsure of what he was seeing until it came into a sharp and horrifying focus.
There, on the left, wearing an ill-fitted suit and a guilty expression, was Chris Morton. Officer Rookie, the cop Dad had taken under his wing and worked with at the Extraordinaries Division before he’d resigned. The Rook’s face was flushed as he coughed, looking anywhere but at Nick, lips shiny, hair in disarray as if hands had been running through it. He had grown out his beard, too, and it wasn’t quite as patchy as it’d once been.
Nick turned his head slowly to look at the other person standing in the closet, a slender, tall figure with short black hair and dark eyes that sparkled with barely disguised mirth.
Mateo. AKA Miss Conduct.
“What,” Nick said stupidly. “What. What.What.”
Mateo grabbed Nick by the arm, pulling him into the closet and shutting the closet door behind him. Distantly, Nick wondered why the Kensingtons needed a closet large enough to fitthree people—one looking like he wanted to sink into the floor, another gaping and sputtering in shock, and a third who was obviously trying not to laugh.
“Nicholas,” Mateo said, failing to smother his laughter. “Thank you for joining us. So, I’m sure you have questions about what you just saw. You see, when a consenting adult meets another consenting adult, sometimes they—”
“You’re ahomosexual?” Nick hissed at Officer Rookie. “When the hell were you going to sharethatpiece of important information? How dare you keep such a necessary thing from me!”
The Rook sighed, looking toward the ceiling. “You’re going to make this a thing, aren’t you?”
“Myexistence,” Nick groaned, clutching his head in his hands. “It hurts. Everything hurts.”
Mateo sobered slightly. “Nick, this may come as a surprise, but not everything has to do with you. Chris and I are—”
“Chris,” Nick said. “You’re calling himChris.”
Mateo squinted at him. “Well, yeah. That’s his name.”
“I know that! But you’re saying it like…Chris.Like how I saySeth.” His eyes widened, so much so that he thought they’d pop out of his head and land wetly on the floor. “Oh my god, you like him!”
“I do,” Mateo said. “Quite a bit, in fact.”
The Rookie shuffled his feet. “Ah. That’s… um. So. There’s—me, too,” he managed to finish with a strangled gasp.
Nick narrowed his eyes as he glanced between the two of them. “This is real? Like, you’re serious about this?”
“We are,” Mateo said. “Still early days yet, but we’re…”
“Doing this,” Officer Rookie said firmly.
Nick glared at him. “If you doanythingto hurt Mateo, I’ll kick your ass.”
He blinked. “Uh, noted. And that threat works a bit more now that you can… you know.” He wiggled his fingers. Nick wanted to scold him for reducing his powers down to a finger wave, but he was on a roll.
“Good,” Nick said, staring a beat longer before turning toMateo. “And you, you’re wonderful and perfect and I still sort of wish I could be you when I grow up.”
“As you should,” Mateo said with a sniff.
“But ifyoudo anything to hurt the Rook—Chris—you’ll have to answer to me. He’s one of the best people I know, and I’m really protective of him. He deserves everything good, especially after getting dragged into all this bullshit.”
Chris softened, smiling as if relieved. “Thanks, Nicky. That means a lot, coming from you.”
Nick nodded. “You deserve it.” He looked down at his hands. “It… helps, you know? Knowing you don’t care about Mateo being an Extraordinary.” Then in a quieter voice, “You don’t care about that, right?”
He relaxed slightly when Chris wrapped an arm around his shoulders, tugging him close. Nick went willingly, even if Chris’s beard needed to make friends with a razor immediately.
