Page 5

“Yeah,” he says instead. “I’m in.”

I blink. “Yeah?”

“Zach’s got a girl over tonight.” Zach is his roommate at the dorm. I’ve met the guy a few times, broad and tattooed and intimidating. “He just texted asking if I could crash somewhere else.”

“Cool,” I say. “Mi casa, obviously. You know that. Couch or air mattress, your pick.” I mean it, too.

Tonight of all nights, I’m glad to have him here. The more, the merrier. Finn’s going to need more than one person’s worth of distraction, and Sawyer, for all his unreadable expressions, is good and steady in a crisis.

“So, what are we watching?” he asks.

“Something with zero emotional content and maximum explosions.”

“Fast and Furious?”

“Fast and Furious,” I confirm. “The one where physics goes to die.”

By the time Finn comes back, face washed and eyes still swollen but shoulders looser, I’ve got the movie queued up and a bag of chips open on the coffee table.

“We’re watching Fast and Furious,” I tell him. “You’re contractually obligated to make fun of the car stunts.”

Gratitude crosses his face, but he looks away fast so we won’t see it. “You’re both idiots,” he says, his voice soft.

“Grab your spot before I change my mind about sharing the blanket.”

We get settled, Finn and I taking one end of the couch with the blanket over both our legs. Sawyer takes the other end, sprawled out with his feet on the floor and a pillow wedged behind his head. The opening credits rumble through the speakers.

Finn lasts about twenty minutes before he starts drifting toward me. First his shoulder touches mine. Ten minutes later, his head tips onto my shoulder, his dark hair tickling my jaw. Then he pulls his legs up under the blanket and tucks his feet against my thigh, and by the time the second car chase starts, he’s basically folded into my side, his hand curled loosely against my chest, breathing slow and even. I don’t mind. He’s vulnerable right now, so I let him take what he needs.

I reach for my beer without disturbing him, take a sip, and glance down the couch. Sawyer is watching the movie, the light from the screen flickering across his face. But once, I catch his eyes cutting over to us, to Finn curled against me and my arm resting along the back of the couch behind him, and then back to the screen.

If Sawyer thinks there’s something wrong with this, with a guy holding his friend through the worst night of his year, then that’s his problem.

On screen, a car launches between two buildings. Finn stirs against my shoulder and mumbles something incoherent, and I tug the blanket up over him and keep watching.

3

Sawyer

Finn started the night pressed up against Nolan’s side, but that was an hour ago. Somewhere around the second car chase, he stopped sitting up and started lying down. Now his head is on Nolan’s shoulder, his face turned in toward Nolan’s neck, and under the blanket, I’m pretty sure his leg is hooked over Nolan’s thigh. I keep glancing over at them because I can’t help it.

I tell myself I’m checking on Finn, but the truth is, my eyes keep snagging on the two of them for much longer than a check requires. The thing is, they’re both stupidly good-looking. I’ve had a while to get used to it, and I still haven’t.

I’ve known Nolan since he showed up at Wolves tryouts as a walk-on with golden-brown hair and a grin like he’d already made the team. Six feet of cornerback, lean and cut, with long legs, a narrow waist, and those powerful thighs that let him change direction on a dime. His hazel eyes go green or gold depending on the light, and right now the flicker of the TV is turning them green, then gold, then green again with every cut. He looks like a guy in a watch commercial, relaxed and in control even in sweatpants.

Finn is a different animal entirely. I remember the first time Nolan introduced us. I spent ten minutes trying to figure out if he was the most handsome guy I’d ever seen or the prettiest person, period. He’s smaller than us, five-nine, maybe five-ten, slim through the hips and shoulders, but there’s tone under the soft clothes he favors. He has a fine-boned face, full lips, and big hooded green eyes with lashes that look drawn in charcoal. Pale skin, dark hair, and depending on the angle, he looks masculine or feminine or some magnetic mix of both. Even now, his hair damp and messy from the shower, he’s the kind of person you look at twice, and then a third time.

And together, the way they are right now, they fit. That’s the part that keeps pulling my eyes down the couch, reminding me of the thing I’ve never said out loud to anyone: I think Nolan likes Finn. And I don’t mean as a roommate.

Nolan’s straight, as far as I know. He’s dated and hooked up with girls, done the whole locker-room recap circuit like the rest of us. But I’ve spent over a year watching him around Finn, and there’s something there I can’t file under friendship.

First of all, the looks. Finn will be across the room sketching on his tablet, and Nolan’s eyes will find him and stay there, curious, like Finn is a play he’s still learning to read. He keeps track of him. He remembers what Finn eats, what soda he drinks, what he’s working on, and when his deadlines are. Tonight, when Finn walked through that door looking hollowed out, Nolan was on him before I’d even registered something was wrong.

Straight guys care about their friends. I know that because I care about Nolan. But I don’t watch Nolan’s mouth when he talks, and I’ve caught Nolan doing exactly that with Finn more than once.

I drag my attention back to the TV and take a pull of my beer. It’s gone warm, but I drink it anyway, plant my eyes on the screen, and actually manage to get into the movie.

I last maybe four minutes.