“We’d need to keep it a secret,” I said before I could stop myself. I mean, what was the harm? We could keep it casual and under wraps.
Oh, and his lips were so warm and wonderful against my skin.
“A secret?” Nick gave me a look, eyebrows furrowed. “Why?”
“Because…” I tried to think of a good reason, unable to tell him the truth. He wouldn’t get it.Think! Think, think, think!“Because people talk,” I said, forcing out a laugh. “This place is a fishbowl.” My heart pounded. “Like, remember when Charlie was with Schuyler Cole? They wereallanyone could talk about, all anyone was interested in.”
“Yeah, because that relationship was absurd,” Nick responded.“You’d think hewantedpeople to talk about it…” He trailed off and shook his head, not convinced.
“Please?” I asked. “It should stay quiet. That way it’ll be just us.”
“Just us?”
“Yeah,” I said, even though warning alarms sounded in my head. “Just us, just you and me.”
“Well, okay, then.” He untangled our fingers, and I let him pull me close. There was no campfire tonight, but somehow he still vaguely smelled like one. I smiled into his Patagonia. “So are you gonna kiss me again?” he whispered a beat later. “Or not?”
I did. I kissed Nick and Nick kissed me, kissed me so senseless that I had to cling to his arm when we headed back toward main campus. All around me there were stars, but I didn’t think half of them could be seen by anyone else.
CHAPTER 4
CHARLIE
“What do you have going on later?” I askedNick the first Saturday night, as we worked to straighten his red Arsenal flag. That was the overall theme of Nick’s room: flags. There was a standard American flag, along with his crimson-and-gray Mortimer House flag, and a New York Rangers banner. He also had a black tapestry with a glow-in-the-dark map of the constellations (Sage had given it to him for our birthday last year, saying: “But don’t tell him it’s from the women’s section of Urban Outfitters!”). So far, only about half the flags were tacked up, because Nick always had to wait until after the fire marshal’s official visit to transform his room into the inside of a frat house/circus tent. It wastheexample of a fire hazard.
“Not much,” my brother responded. “Probably will just hang here.” He motioned for me to hand over another Command Strip. I watched him position it on the wall and put the flag in place. Then we stood back to admire it before tackling the constellation tapestry.
Nick was a prefect in Mortimer, an underclassmen dorm two houses down from Daggett. His house was like a secret society: the guys referred to one another asbrothers—walking around in packsand eating every meal together—and outsiders only gained inside access if they knew the password. This week’s was “Andromeda.”
“Not the dance?” I joked. Dances were a Saturday-night staple at Bexley, and the student council was in charge of picking the theme, but when we were throwing around ideas during Thursday night’s meeting, people just weren’t on the same page. Nick sort of lost it after a while. “This isridiculous,” he’d said, falling into what Sage called hisexasperated mompersona (executed by closing his eyes, biting his tongue, and releasing a deep, disappointed sigh). “Let’s keep it simple. USA beach-themed or something.”
And thus, the Red Hot American Summer dance had been born.
But as usual, Nick and I weren’t going.
Nick, because he was a cringe-inducing dancer.
“How about you?” He grabbed the tapestry we would hang over his desk. “Plans?”
I shrugged. “Dove.” Hence why I didn’t go to dances. I mean, when you had a girlfriend, they were kind of a waste of time. You hung out until that magical hour struck (10:00 p.m.), then you went on a “walk” together. It was routine.
Nick nodded. “You like her?”
“Yeah,” I said, both of us now standing on the desk. We were pretty tall, but Mortimer had outrageously high ceilings. “She’s fun.”
“Really? I heard she’s kind of clingy.”
I rolled my eyes. “Are you in cahoots with Sage?”
Nick laughed. “So what if I am?”
We continued hanging the flags, and later, when I grabbed my backpack to leave, I asked if we were on for brunch tomorrow. He and I always had Sunday brunch together. We called itfamily meal.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” he confirmed, and just as I was twisting his doorknob, I heard him clear his throat. “What’s Sage doing tonight?”
“Oh, you know.” I turned back around and shrugged. “What she always does. Sage is doing Sage.”
Dove and I decided to hang out on Hardcastle’s porch, since I wasn’t allowed inside the actual dorm. And no, it wasn’t because I was a guy. Technically, girls and guys could hang out in one another’s common rooms whenever, but Hardcastle’s housemaster had banned me from entering period. “Front porchonly, Mr. Carmichael,” Mrs. Collings said last spring, after catching me with Catherine Howe on the common room couch, not at all paying attention to the movie we’d been watching.
