Secret (21 page)

‘I’m worried she’s going to hang out with Tyler, just to piss me off.’

The coffeemaker beeped, signaling it was done, and Adam stood. ‘And would that piss you off?’

His tone was easy, but there was the tiniest bit of an edge hiding there. Nick blinked and realized he was being an idiot.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘But not like that. I want Quinn to be happy. But Tyler is
not
a good guy.’

‘You think he’ll hurt her?’

He’d hurt her once already — but Nick couldn’t explain that without explaining everything. ‘I hope not. I don’t know.’

Adam fetched milk from the refrigerator and poured some into one mug, leaving the other coffee black. Nick watched this, bemused that Adam had remembered how he took his coffee.

Adam interrupted his thoughts. ‘How do you know him?’

Nick wondered how to answer that without spilling every secret he had. For the first time, he was tempted to tell Adam all of it. His shoulders felt tight with tension — from the fight with Quinn, from school, from his family, from living up to everyone’s expectations.

‘He used to go to school with my older brother. His family and my family — we don’t get along.’

Adam turned from the counter with mugs in hand. ‘Why?’

Because Tyler thinks we should be put to death for something we can’t control
.

Nick rubbed at his eyes. ‘It’s a long story.’

He heard the mugs slide onto the table, but jumped when Adam’s hands landed on his shoulders.

‘Relax,’ Adam said softly. ‘Relax.’ Then he pressed his thumbs into the muscle there.

The trapezius muscle
, Nick’s brain supplied helpfully.

God, he was such a nerd.

Adam’s hands felt amazing. Warm and strong with just enough pressure behind his fingers. But instead of being relaxing, his touch had Nick ready to leap out of his chair. Was this a prelude to something? Obviously, right? But what if it —

‘
Relax
.’ Adam shook him gently. ‘Are you really this wound up over Quinn?’

‘No. Yes. I don’t know. I feel like I should go get her.’

‘Yeah, and how would that go?’

Tyler would want to fight. He’d win — Nick could hold his own if he had to, but he didn’t fight dirty. He had Gabriel for that. Tyler would get the upper hand and beat the shit out of him, if Nick didn’t suffocate him first.

Neither option sounded all that appealing.

‘It would suck,’ he said grudgingly.

‘So your families hate each other. Are you guys the Montagues or the Capulets?’

Nick snorted. ‘Romeo and Juliet? I don’t think so.’

But his brain flashed on that day when he was twelve, when Tyler’s sister had died. When Michael had come home soaking wet and terrified. When their parents had told them all to lock themselves in the master bedroom and not come out for anything. It was the first time he could remember seeing his mother frightened.

It wasn’t the last.

Adam’s hands brought him back to the present. ‘Do you ever think that maybe this Tyler guy thinks
you
are bad for
Quinn
? That maybe his intentions aren’t evil at all?’

The thought brought Nick up short.

‘I remember reading something once,’ Adam continued, ‘about divorce. It said that just because someone is a bad husband doesn’t mean they’re a bad father. I think about that a lot, how people have different capacities for failure. And even if you fail in one area doesn’t mean you fail in
all
of them.’

Nick ran that through his head a few times. What had Quinn said?

He still thinks your brother killed his sister. He seemed kinda upset about it.

Tyler had talked about his dead sister with Quinn? That didn’t seem like something he’d do to get under Nick’s skin.

Adam’s hands moved lower, along his shoulder blades, his thumbs pressing into the area alongside Nick’s spine.

‘You have great hands,’ Nick said without thinking, then blushed.

Especially when Adam leaned in and breathed along his neck. ‘You have no idea.’

Nick shivered.

Adam brushed a kiss against his neck. His hands eased lower, finding Nick’s rib cage. ‘Still obsessing about Quinn?’

Obsessing.
Was that what Adam was hearing? Nick had to clear his throat. ‘Quinn who?’

‘That’s better.’ Another slow breath against his skin. ‘What else has you so uptight?’

Your hands. My imagination.

‘School,’ he murmured. ‘I’m fourth in my class, and my physics teacher wants to nominate me for some program that will let me take college classes next semester.’

‘You don’t sound happy about it.’

‘I help my older brother run the landscaping business. Gabriel is taking a special course to be a firefighter in the spring, so if I stop helping, too . . .’ He let that thought trail off.

‘You told me you were applying to some schools anyway, right? Have you heard back from any?’

Nick hesitated.

Adam’s hands went still. ‘What?’

‘I’ve heard back from all of them.’

‘And?’

Nick wished they could get back to the sexy talk. That was loaded with pressure, too, but he didn’t want to think about college. ‘And . . . I haven’t opened any of the envelopes. Or the e-mails.’

Adam smacked him on the side of the head.

‘Ow.’ Nick sat up straight and looked over his shoulder. ‘What was that for?’

‘That was for you being an idiot.’ Adam grabbed Nick’s shoulders and pulled him straighter. ‘And for your posture, while I’m at it. I’ve been wanting to do
that
for three days.’

‘What’s wrong with my posture?’

‘What’s wrong with your
head
is a better question. You probably have acceptance letters in there. Maybe even scholarship offers, if you’re fourth in your class.’

‘I don’t want to talk about school.’ His shoulders had tightened back up, and all of a sudden, he didn’t want to be a part of this conversation.

Adam pulled him back in the chair, using a little more force than was absolutely necessary. ‘Do your brothers have any idea that you’re sitting on a stack of unopened mail?’

‘No.’

Adam didn’t say anything, but his hands were slower now, less suggestive.

‘I can feel you judging me,’ Nick said.

‘Not judging.’ He paused, thoughtful. ‘Did you work tonight?’

‘Yeah. Nothing big — a little yard maintenance.’ He’d ridden the mower while Chris and Michael did the detail work. He’d been glad to have an excuse not to talk. Chris watched him the whole time, but never said a word about the cafeteria outburst.

Nick should have kept his stupid mouth shut.

Damn Gabriel.

‘Do you work every night?’

‘No — not really. Sometimes. But Mike’s been busy this week, so he asked me to pick up a few extra nights.’

‘You still have homework to do?’

‘Not a lot.’ A lie. But he could probably finish when he got home, if he didn’t fall over from exhaustion. If he was desperate, he could get up early and finish. And he had yet to crack the book on the physics test he’d missed. He still had Thursday night for that.

‘You still worried about Quinn?’

WTF.
Nick shoved Adam’s hands away and started to get up. ‘I thought the whole point was to be relaxing.’

Adam grabbed him and jerked him back into the chair again. He held him there and put his lips against Nick’s ear. ‘It is. But you’re all jacked up worrying about everyone else. I’m starting to wonder who worries about Nicholas
.
’

Nick flushed and relaxed back into his hands. ‘I like that,’ he murmured.

‘That no one worries about you?’

His cheeks warmed further. Someday he’d be able to reconnect his mouth to his brain. ‘No. The way you said my name.’

‘So I have a thought,’ Adam said, leaning closer to run his hands down the front of Nick’s chest. He did it slowly, letting each part of his hand stroke its way down. Fingertips, then palm. Shoulders, then muscle, then nipples.

Nick hissed in a breath. He wanted him to stop. He wanted him to keep going.

‘What’s your thought?’ he said quickly.

‘Why don’t you let me worry for an hour.’ Adam’s hands moved lower, finding the hem of Nick’s shirt and skirting below it. Warm fingers brushed bare stomach. Nick jumped and fought for breath.

Then those fingers slid inside the waistband of his jeans.

Nick froze and captured his hands. Then he couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe.

Adam’s voice was low and soft, his face against Nick’s neck. ‘Talk to me.’

Nick clenched his eyes closed. His thoughts were spinning like a tornado, completely out of control. ‘I don’t know what you want.’

Low laughter against his neck. ‘I don’t think that’s true.’

Nick thought his cheeks would never cool. That emotional tornado left him scattered and scrambling to pick up the pieces. He couldn’t decide if he was angry or turned on or both. ‘Don’t tease me.’

The amusement left Adam’s voice. ‘No teasing. No judgment. You’re safe here, remember?’

‘I remember.’ Nick warred with his thoughts.

‘Talk to me,’ Adam whispered.

‘I don’t want to do the wrong thing. I don’t want you to —’

Adam pulled a hand free and put it over Nick’s mouth. His other arm went across Nick’s chest, making it more of an embrace. ‘No more worrying. What do you want? Does anyone ever ask you that? What do
you
want, Nick?’

No. No one ever asked him that. Nick put a hand over Adam’s, where it rested on his chest. He drew a shuddering breath and shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what I want.’

Adam put a hand against his cheek and turned him, kissing him lightly, sweetly. No pressure, just a brush of lips before drawing back.

‘Well,’ said Adam, and Nick could hear the smile in his voice. ‘Maybe I could give you a few ideas.’

13

Quinn giggled and looked up at the starry night sky, accented
by bits of flying ash from the fire. ‘I didn’t realize you’d make a whole bonfire.’

Tyler lay next to her on a fleece beach blanket he’d fetched from the truck. ‘Well, you said you were cold.’

The fire stretched over six feet high, whipping in the breeze. Tiny gas lamps glowed across the bay; this probably looked like a distress beacon. ‘Won’t someone see it?’

Tyler snorted. ‘You say that like I’d care.’ He held out a paper bag. ‘You want the other pretzel?’

Quinn hugged her hands to her stomach. She was still hungry, but she should probably be chewing on a lettuce leaf. ‘Nah.’

‘Come on. Don’t make me throw it out for the gulls.’

‘If you insist.’ She took the bag and tore off a stretch of pretzel. Butter and salt and heaven.

They’d been out here on this deserted stretch of beach for fifteen minutes, and she’d been sure the beach-fire-blanket combo was nothing more than a play to get into her pants. Nick’s words about Tyler using her to get at him kept bouncing around in her head.

But Tyler hadn’t made a move toward her. Even now, he left a clear five feet of space between them, just like last night on the roof of his shopping center.

Take that, Nick.

He’d bought her pretzels as promised, then walked a few laps of the mall at her side, only asking if she wanted to go for a drive when stores began unrolling their security gates. His anger from yesterday seemed to have faded, his violence from the first night completely gone.

But fury and aggression hid there, just below the surface.

He is not
nice
, Quinn.

She knew that. Tyler was like an attack dog who’d failed out of doggie school. He might eat treats out of your hand and wag his tail, but if you made the wrong move, he’d bite your hand off and come back for the other one.

It was kinda terrifying.

And kinda sexy.

‘What?’ he said.

Quinn didn’t look away. Why bother? He’d already caught her staring. ‘I was thinking you’re kind of hot when you’re not being a total dickhead.’

He let out a low whistle and looked back at the sky. ‘Turn a guy’s head with talk like that.’

She expected him to see that as some kind of invitation, but he didn’t move.

After a moment, his voice dropped and he said, ‘Thanks.’ He paused. ‘You’re not breaking any mirrors yourself.’

But he still didn’t move.

It thrilled her and exasperated her at the same time. Like last night, when he’d dropped that line about Nick being one lucky bastard.

Either he’s not using me or he’s not interested.

It made her want to provoke him. ‘I thought I was enough to turn you off from sex forever.’

Now he turned his head and looked over. The fire turned his blond hair gold and bounced off his eyes. ‘That had more to do with Merrick than with you.’

‘I don’t know what that means.’

‘It means I said that to get under
his
skin. You could look like a supermodel and I would have said you were a total turnoff.’

‘Hmph. Nick would say any girl was a turnoff.’

As soon as the words were out, she wished she could suck them back into her mouth.

Tyler went still.

Oh, crap.

Oh, crap.

Take it back, take it back, take it back.

But she didn’t know what to say. She needed to undo this. She needed to undo this
right now
. She’d kept this secret from everyone who was important to Nick, and now she’d practically told his mortal enemy.

She had no idea what to say to change the course of this conversation.

Haha, just a joke. Look! A bird!

Sure.

‘That’s interesting,’ Tyler finally said. He sat up and pulled a cigarette from the pack in his back pocket. ‘Very interesting.’

She needed a rewind button. A time machine. Something. She’d give anything to be back at the dance studio, falling on her face in front of Adam’s perfection.
Anything
.

She sat up on her heels. Could she beg him to keep it a secret? Would that be better or worse than pretending it wasn’t a secret at all?

‘So you’re not really his girlfriend,’ said Tyler.

And what was she supposed to say to
that
? Here she was sitting with a guy she was attracted to, and she was going to have to pretend to be madly in love with Nick, just to keep a stupid secret.