forever.
“Hi,” Nick said, blushing and looking down at his beat-up Chucks.
“Hello,” Seth said, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Aw,” Jazz cooed.
“Oh my god,” Gibby muttered. “This is excruciating to watch.”
* * *
Owen wasn’t at lunch.
Nick thought about asking after him, but then Seth appeared, and he blushed again.
He also thought about trying to hold Seth’s hand under the table.
He couldn’t work up the courage.
Seth pressed his foot against Nick’s.
Nick thought he might burst into flames.
* * *
He took another selfie when he got home. This time, he scrunched up his face and stuck out his tongue.
Cute, Dad wrote back. Though I’m probably the only one who thinks so.
Rude.
Do your homework, kid. There’s a casserole in the fridge from Cap’s wife.
Is it edible?
No. Make a sandwich instead.
* * *
He finished his homework early.
He thought about writing more of his fanfiction.
For the first time in a long time, he found himself not caring about it at all.
Would he turn into one of those evil people that abandoned their stories and offered no resolution even though people wanted nothing more?
God, he hoped not.
* * *
It was raining when he woke up Wednesday morning. The sky was dark through the window in his room. The clouds looked heavy.
The house was quiet.
He blinked up at the ceiling before turning his head to look at the clock on his desk.
His alarm was about to go off.
Why was the house silent?
He should have heard his dad moving down in the kitchen.
He grabbed his phone.
There was a text from his dad from a few hours before. It said something had come up, and he’d be working late. Eat breakfast. Go to the nurse at school for your pill. I’ll text you when I get home.
“I’m an eighties latchkey kid,” Nick muttered to no one. “Probably messed up for life because of it.”
* * *
Thunder rumbled as he ate a banana-and-peanut-butter sandwich.
He wondered if it was going to rain all day.
He locked the door behind him when he left the house, fumbling with his umbrella.
* * *
Gibby and Jazz were waiting for him on the bench in the train station.
“Did you hear?” Jazz asked as soon as he approached.
He frowned. “Hear what?”
“Shadow Star and Pyro Storm! Apparently, something big went down last night, but no one knows what. Like, hardcore. Explosions and destruction and everything.”
Nick looked at his phone, only to remember he didn’t have internet access. He groaned. “I’m grounded. I can’t look up anything. It’s practically medieval.”
“Here,” Jazz said, holding out her phone.
Gibby snatched it away before he could take it, saying, “We’re going to be late.” Jazz looked confused as Gibby handed her phone back.
Nick glared at her. “Seth’s not even here. We can’t leave him.”
Gibby sighed. “He’s not coming in today. He texted me this morning. Sick again.”
That … didn’t make sense. “He was fine yesterday. And he didn’t text me about it.” Nick pulled out his phone to make sure, but the last text had been from the night before, when Seth had written nite xx. Nick had stared at it for a long time, smiling wider than he had in a long time.
“I don’t know, Nicky,” Gibby told him. “I just know he’s not coming in today.”
“Is it bad?” he asked, texting Seth to ask if he was really sick.
“What?”
He shoved his phone back in his pocket. “Whatever went on with Shadow Star and Pyro Storm. Dad didn’t come home this morning. Said he had to work late.”
Jazz hesitated. “Well, no one died. Or, that’s what they’re saying. All I know is that it was near Burke Tower.”
Nick sighed irritably. “We can ask Owen at lunch.”
* * *
Owen wasn’t at lunch.
Seth hadn’t texted back.
Neither had Dad.
Nick ate part of Jazz’s salad until he realized there was pineapple in it. He’d never been so offended in his life.
* * *
Later, Nick would look back and remember it was still raining when his phone started buzzing in his pocket. There was another rumble of thunder when he realized it wasn’t an incoming text as the vibration continued.
It was a phone call.
His blood ran cold as he pulled the phone out of his pocket, glancing down at the screen.
CAP
Nick’s breath hitched. He couldn’t move.
The vibration stopped.
ONE MISSED CALL, the screen read.
Maybe it was a mistake.
Maybe Cap had meant to call someone else.
He had almost convinced himself of it when the screen lit up again.
Cap was calling.
He stood. His chair scraped against the floor.
Everyone turned to stare at him.
“Nick?” Mrs. Auster asked. “Are you okay?”
He didn’t answer.
He