Michael leaned back in his chair. “Sure. I’d probably like it. I could do a job with someone who won’t give me a load of crap at the dinner table or sneak out of the house.”
Nick studied him. “You sound like you’ve been thinking about that for a while.”
Michael paused, and now he looked a little hesitant. “At dinner, Hannah’s father had some thoughts about how I could expand the business . . . maybe do more with it . . . I don’t know. It’s something to think about. Maybe this college course is a sign.” He grimaced. “And honestly, Nick, you’ll need all the help you can get. You know we don’t have a lot of money for college.”
“Well,” said Nick, “maybe I can help with that.” He shoved his original stack of letters across the table.
Michael read the first. Then the second.
He didn’t even get to the third.
He was too busy pulling Nick out of his chair to hug him.
CHAPTER 35
Nick sat in the darkened auditorium, watching auditions, feeling the music as it rolled through the theater. Adam and Quinn had been sitting with him, offering running commentary on every dancer to take the stage. He’d nodded along and pretended to understand half the stuff they gossiped about, but now they were due on stage themselves, and they’d left him out here to watch.
He could feel their nerves from here.
Nick tried to feed positive energy into the air.
A hand grabbed the seat-back next to him, then someone swung into the seat beside him.
Nick almost did a double take. Gabriel.
It was enough to shock him out of silence. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Shh. People are performing.”
“You shouldn’t be here.” Nick’s chest felt tight with rage. “This is important. This isn’t a joke, Gabriel.”
“No kidding. Would you calm down?”
“Get out. Now.” His breath was shaking and the air had dropped a few degrees. That his brother would use this—that Gabriel would show up here—this was—this was—
Nick swallowed and tried to keep it together. “If you mess with him—if you screw this up—I swear to god—”
“I’m not messing with him. And I know it’s important.” Gabriel turned away from the stage and met Nick’s eyes. “I came here to support my brother’s boyfriend. That okay with you?”
Silence hung between them for the longest moment.
It poked the tiniest hole in Nick’s anger. He quickly plugged it up. “I’m not falling for this.”
Gabriel sighed. “All right. Don’t, then.” He got up, shifted into the aisle, and started walking toward the exit.
No, he moved down a few rows, easing into a new seat.
Nick sat there and watched him. He could feel his twin’s disappointment, his anguish. He felt it himself.
Damn you, Gabriel.
He finally sighed and moved down a few rows to sit beside his twin brother.
Gabriel offered a wicked smile. “I knew this would get you.”
“I hate you.”
The smile vanished. “No. You don’t.”
“I do. A little.” Nick faced forward and rubbed at the back of his neck. A girl in pointe shoes was twirling across the stage. “You really hurt me. A lot—a lot more than I thought was possible.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Nick didn’t say anything. He didn’t know if he wanted this apology.
“I wish I could take it back,” Gabriel said. “You have no idea—”
“Don’t. Don’t do this here.”
Gabriel shut up as if Nick had smacked him. They watched the next routine in tense silence.
Then Gabriel leaned in. “I read your text messages.”
“You what?”
Half a dozen people turned around and hushed him.
Nick clenched his fists and glared at Gabriel. “What are you talking about? When?”
“When you left the phone in the car. At first I just plugged it in to make sure it wasn’t busted. But when it powered up, I saw it was on the text chat with Adam, so—”
“So you read them?”
Gabriel met his eyes and didn’t recoil from his anger. “Those things I said—I didn’t mean them. I didn’t know, Nicky.” He winced. “Nick. I didn’t know. I never meant to hurt you.”
Nick didn’t say anything to that. Was this enough? It didn’t feel like enough.
He turned his head and asked the question that had reverberated through his head since the instant he’d felt his twin’s fist slam into his face. “How could you, Gabriel?” His whispered voice almost broke. “How could you do what you did?”
“I didn’t know what was wrong,” Gabriel said, his words rushed, as if he worried Nick would cut him off again. “I didn’t know your secret. And then—then this complete stranger was apologizing to me, and I knew you were so upset. It was—that night, it was all wrong. I was keyed up from the fight with Tyler. It was a misunderstanding. And then you were fighting me, and I figured out that you had been keeping this huge monumental secret, and I just—I snapped.”
“That’s not good enough.” Nick gritted his teeth. “You shouldn’t have been fighting him. You shouldn’t have put your hands on him.”
“I know. And I apologized to him.”
Nick’s head was reeling. “What? When?”
“This morning, when I called him and asked what time his audition was.”
Nick stared at him.
“I told him not to tell you,” Gabriel added. He hesitated. “I didn’t think you’d let me come.”
Nick wouldn’t have. He had to clear his throat. “What else did you talk about?”
“I asked him why you thought you had to keep this a secret from me.”
Nick glared at him. “You know why. You showed why.”
“No.” And on this, Gabriel’s voice was firm. “I acted like a total shit that night. I apologized for it, and I’ll do it a hundred more times if I have to. But you went to a lot of trouble to keep this secret, way before we went to that coffee shop. Jesus, Nick, two weeks ago you and Quinn were making out on the floor of your bedroom.”
Nick looked away.
Gabriel leaned close, and his voice was very quiet. “Please. Please, talk to me.”
Nick had to swallow. He felt his brother’s pain in those words, how much this imposed distance had hurt him. If Nick was being strictly honest with himself, it had hurt him, too. He missed his brother.
He kept his voice very low. “What did Adam say?”
Gabriel grimaced. “He said I needed to ask you.”
“I knew you already thought of me as . . . as something lesser. I didn’t—”
“Nick, you are not—”
“Don’t. Gabriel, don’t.”
“I have never thought you were lesser, Nick. Never. Do you understand me? Sometimes—sometimes I envy you. Your control—you’re stronger than the rest of us.”
Nick looked at him. “I am not.”
Gabriel nodded. “You are. Look at what happened in the woods.”
Nick didn’t say anything to that. His eyes fixed on the seat in front of him again.
“Nicky—” Gabriel made a frustrated noise. “Nick. If you think you’re lesser because of the whole gay thing, that’s just insane—”
“Is it?” Nick snapped his head around, suddenly furious again. “You made it so easy to tell you all about it.”
Gabriel flinched. He swallowed. “You’re right.” He paused. “I was wrong. So wrong.”
They sat there in silence for the longest time, the air full of music and unspoken thoughts.