about to burst. “So the kissing! We should talk about the kissing!”
Seth winced. “I would really rather not, if it’s all the same to you.”
Nick patted his foot under the comforter. It felt like he was wearing boots, but it must have just been the blankets. Seth would never wear boots to bed. That would be ridiculous. “Too late. It’s already out there.”
“It’s not that big of a deal.”
That caused a strange twist in Nick’s stomach that almost felt like disappointment. “Oh.”
“I mean, friends do that all the time.”
“They do?”
Seth shrugged. “I read they do.”
“What? Where?”
Seth was sweating even more. “The internet.”
“Where did you find that?” Nick demanded. “I tried to look it up, and all I could find were quizzes about what I’d be like in bed that I absolutely did not take!” He’d taken three of them. According to one, he was a modern woman in the streets, and a tigress in the sheets. He didn’t know what to do with any of that. Tigers were cool and all, but he didn’t think he had the posture to be a modern woman.
The comforter dropped a little. “Why were you looking that up?”
Nick blanched. “Um. For reasons completely unrelated to the topic at hand.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” Nick said, suddenly defensive. His skin felt warm, and he wondered if he’d already been infected. “You know I like to look things up. It’s one of my things.”
Seth was looking at him strangely. If Nick didn’t know any better, he’d have thought Seth was almost … hopeful. “I just—I don’t know. It felt like the right thing to do. I was going to face … all that flooding, and I didn’t want to do it without saying goodbye.”
“All that flooding,” Nick repeated.
“Right.”
“So you kissed me.”
“On the cheek. You’re acting like I stuck my tongue down your—”
“Whoa,” Nick gasped. “I wasn’t acting like that at all.”
Seth paled. He must have been really sick. “I didn’t mean it like that!”
Then a thought struck Nick that made him frown. “Do you go around kissing a lot of people?”
“What? No!”
“What about the secret girlfriend and/or boyfriend you have?”
Seth groaned. “I don’t have a secret girlfriend and/or boyfriend. How many times do I have to tell you that?”
“Many more times,” Nick said. “Because I don’t believe you. I know I can be dumb about a lot of things, but you can’t expect me to believe that you were at the animal shelter volunteering all summer.”
Seth said, “I was. There was a shortage of volunteers, and I had to do my part!”
“For the animals.”
“Exactly.”
Nick was starting to get a little annoyed. “Why, though? I get that it’s the right thing to do because cats and dogs are cool and all, but do they need you all the time? I mean, there was a flooding problem, and you were the one they called? It’s like they own you.” Then Nick was struck with another thought. “Do they own you? Is there some kind of secret ASPCA no-kill-shelter mafia that you belong to now? Have they bugged you? Are they listening right now?” He glared up at the biplane, sure it was the perfect place to hide a recording device.
“Oh my god. How the hell did you get from volunteering to the mafia?”
“It’s best not to question such things,” Nick said. “And I notice you didn’t deny it. If we need to get you to a safe house, cough once. I don’t actually have a safe house, but I have forty dollars in singles under my mattress, and that should be enough for one of those hotels downtown that rent by the hour.”
“Nicky, there’s no mafia.”
“Maybe that’s what they want you to—”
“Nick,” Seth said through gritted teeth, and that shut Nick right up. Because Seth, tolerant and wonderful Seth, looked exasperated. Nick had seen it before, though never on Seth’s face. He’d gotten it from teachers. He’d gotten it from other kids. He’d gotten it from random strangers. It was the look. Like Nick had spoken too much. Or had gone too far. Or had said something so stupid and crazy and out there that it was impossible to understand how such words could have come out of a normal, sane person. Yeah, Nick had gotten that look from many, many people in his life, but never from those he loved.
Until today.
Dad. Seth. The two people he counted on most.
He didn’t know how to handle that. It hurt in ways he wasn’t expecting. It wasn’t like he could help it, and maybe