Nick grabbed his hand and pinned that one, too. But then he realized Adam had tried to stop him twice. He broke the kiss. Their breathing turned loud in the space between them.
The tiniest bit of tension hung around Adam’s eyes, but his voice was teasing. “The hell with easy, huh?”
Nick blushed fiercely. He actually felt the heat crawl up his neck.
Adam laughed, but quickly sobered. He flexed his wrists. “You’re strong.”
“Sorry.” Nick let him go. But he didn’t draw back.
“I wasn’t complaining.”
Nick wasn’t sure how to read this, and it wasn’t like he had a ton of experience to draw from. “You stopped me.”
“I stopped us.” Adam paused and put his hand against Nick’s face, almost a caress. Nick closed his eyes and inhaled.
Then Adam’s voice lost the softness. “Let me up.”
What could he do? Nick shifted back, sitting on the edge of the couch. This felt like a prelude to rejection.
You’re safe here.
No. He wasn’t. He didn’t feel safe anywhere. Emotion clawed at his throat. He’d let a wall down, and now he was furiously trying to put the bricks back together.
Were they going too fast? Had he done that, or had Adam? The hell with easy.
For a breathless instant, it had been amazing to let go of thought, to let instinct rule his motions. But now he was paying for it, and he couldn’t analyze everything fast enough.
“Look.” Adam drew a hand down his face. “I don’t want you—”
“Forget it.” Nick shoved off the couch. The path to the door seemed a mile long.
“Hey.” Adam came after him. “Hey.”
Nick’s hand closed on the doorknob. Adam grabbed his arm. He was stronger than Nick was ready for, and he spun him around.
Most girls couldn’t do that, either.
“What?” Nick demanded. The air had dropped ten degrees.
“Well, you’re definitely gay. A straight guy wouldn’t be such a drama queen.”
Nick set his jaw. “Let me go.”
“Can I finish what I was going to say?”
Nick stared back at him. For all his gentle grace, Adam had a core of strength. Nick had seen it once before, and he was seeing it now.
“Fine,” he said. “You don’t want me . . . ?”
“I don’t want you to rush into something you’re not ready for.” Oh.
Adam’s hand loosened on his bicep, but he didn’t let go. “I’ve dated guys before who don’t want to be out. It’s a personal decision, and I get it, but . . .”
Nick swallowed. “But what?”
Adam looked at him, hard. “But if you wake up hating yourself, I don’t want you taking it out on me.”
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 increasingly 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.
It didn’t help. “Hey!” The sharp male voice made her head snap up. The musty scent of cigarettes burned her nostrils. He was coming toward her. “You can’t be out here.”
Quinn didn’t move. “Says who?”
“Says me.”
“And who are you, the owner of the parking lot?”
“No. The whole strip mall.”
Well, she hadn’t expected that answer. She still didn’t move. “Prove it.”
“What, you want to see the deed?” He moved like he was going to grab her, and she scrambled off the crate, dusting grit from her clothes.
“Fine, fine. I’m going.”
He followed her, taking a draw from his cigarette, clearly planning to make sure she exited his property. When she reached the sidewalk running beside the 7-Eleven, she whirled, ready to lay into him for being an asshole.
But here the light found his features. It was Tyler, the guy from Nick’s driveway. She thought of Nick’s revelations and knew she should be afraid of Tyler, but her life was overflowing with cruel people, and she didn’t carry that much adrenaline around with her.
“It’s you,” she spat.
“It’s you.” He put the cigarette to his lips and inhaled again. “Where’s your boyfriend?”
“He’s picking me up. He’ll be here any minute.” Just because she wasn’t afraid didn’t mean she was stupid.
“He was picking you up behind the 7-Eleven?”
Okay, maybe she was stupid. She gestured at the darkened storefronts lining the rest of the strip mall. “Why don’t you go back where you came from?”