I swallowed again. “Nina.”
“Oh…you two dated?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Freshman year.”CCC+NMD,the initials on the sycamore tree read: Charles Christopher Carmichael and Nina Michelle Davies. And no lie, I sort of wanted to laugh. I remembered Nina and I had such trouble making our mark that I’d texted Nick to come and get the job done.
Luke shifted next to me. “Why’d it end?”
I sighed. “Because she didn’t want to hurt Sage.” Which brought up the fact that the entire school thought Sage and I were suffering from one of thosewe’re actually in love but haven’t totally realized it yetscenarios.
Nina and I were together for about a month before she latched on to that idea. “I just can’t, Charlie,” she’d said. “I really like you, but IloveSage. I can’t do this to her.”
Now I cleared my throat and said, “I love her madly, but not in that way.”
“Well,” Luke murmured, “you might want to tell people that.”
And this time it was me who went silent.I can’t, I wanted to say.I know I should, but I can’t, because I don’t want anything to change. I like the way things are. Ineedthem to be the way they are.
But I didn’t say any of that. Instead, I pointed up at the sky. “Do you see those stars up there? The ones that form sort of a house? That’s Cepheus.”
CHAPTER 5
SAGE
Charlie pounced on me as soon as we metoutside Daggett on Monday morning for our run. I’d stayed up late the night before finishing an essay—okay,writingan essay—so I was still half-asleep when he greeted me with: “So the other night, huh?”
But at that, I was suddenlywide awake, his words the equivalent of an ice-cold bucket of water being dumped over my head. “Wait, what?” was my eloquent response.
Charlie gulped some water from his Gatorade bottle and smiled at me after swallowing. “Saturday night.” The smile twisted into a smirk. “What exactly did I need yourhelpwith?”
Shit, I inwardly groaned, remembering the lie: “Oh, Charlie needs me for something.” Even though I’d invited him to Thayer, I didn’t think he’d actually show up. He never did.
“Don’t worry,” Charlie said. “I covered for you.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled, trying to piece together why hedidcome.What made this time different?
Charlie stretched his arms above his head. “Tell me, who was it? Paddy? Cody? Jack?” His smirk shifted into his most mischievous grin. “Or might there be a dark horse out there?”
“Oh, please.” I started stretching too, so my hands wouldn’t shake at my side.Dark horse.“Charlie can’t know,” I’d told Nick before we parted on Saturday. “Don’t tell him.”
Nick had chuckled. “Why not? He was at that bonfire too. He saw.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, but couldn’t voice the next part—about how after the game, later when the fire was only crackling coals, Charlie had cornered me. “Hey,” I’d said, noticing the handle of whiskey in his hand. “Where’d that come from?”
He’d shrugged and taken a long pull. “So you kissed him,” he said. “You kissed Nicky.”
“I did.” I smiled, a flutter inside me. “You jealous?” I winked, knowing he wasn’t. Charlie and I’d kissed before, and while it waseverythingfor a first kiss, it was also somehownothing.We’d been thirteen, at a bar mitzvah. “I love you,” I would never forget him saying, with me saying back, “I love you too.”
Then we silently agreed:Just not in that way.
“I mean,man…” Charlie went on, slugging more whiskey. “You’ve got him hooked now. Iknowwhen Knickknack’s hooked.” He waved a frenetic hand toward Nick, who was watching us from across the fire, and then Charlie stepped closer, so drunk his blue eyes were crossed. But his voice was so low and dark that it was like he was staring straight at me. “Don’t hurt him, Sage. Don’t hurt my brother. Don’t touch his heart.”
It’d been a balmy night, but a chill had slowly seeped into my veins. “Oh, relax,” I told him. “It was a game. Just a silly kiss.”
I mean, it hadn’tfeltlike a silly kiss, but I couldn’t admit that. Because that was the thing about Charlie and me; as best friends, weknew all each other’s secrets. He knew that I didn’t want a serious relationship because of what happened with my parents. “Yeah, I get that,” he’d said after I’d first told him, and then smiled brightly. “We won’t tie the knot until we’re thirty…”
So, of course, he wouldn’t want me to pursue anything with his brother. He didn’t want Nick to just be some guy I hooked up with a few times. There hadn’t been many—nothing compared to Charlie’s line of ladies—but I saw how guys looked at me sometimes, and, hey, I was allowed to have some fun too.
He can’t know, I thought again now, toeing the ground with my sneaker. I didn’t like hiding things from Charlie, but he couldn’t find out. No way.
