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“Homemade dress, date that’s not actually your date—your inevitable fist fight with Morgan. Smudgey make-up might be one thing too many, Natalie, dear.”

Yu leaned back in the seat across from her, untucking his neon orange tie. The two of them were going to look weird as hell in pictures together, but that was probably the point.

“We’re all agreed that we drive away if he actually comes out with Morgan, right?”

A.J. tried not to implode at the unfortunate use of comes out and met Bren’s eye without really looking.

“Nah, he’s better than that,” Bren said with a much more convincing poker face than A.J. could manage.

The voice in A.J.’s head that had started whispering in his ear around age ten tried to remind him of Morgan Clark’s words after the musical. How many people was he going to make uncomfortable by showing up on Bren’s arm? Maybe it would be the better move to just act like friends and let everyone have a happy graduation.

But then he wouldn’t have a happy graduation.

Shut up, voice. I’m kissing my boyfriend under that balloon arch and I don’t care who’s watching.

And if the next few minutes went the way he thought they might, maybe he wouldn’t be the only boy with a boyfriend. It would be nice at least to have another couple to talk to about this stuff, even if they did want to fly under the radar for a while.

“Seriously. Should one of us go knock?” Nat asked. “Maybe there’s a gas leak or someth—Ugh, finally.”

A.J. stopped himself from joining her at the window with his face crushed against it, and since Yu had leaned forward to squint past her, he wasn’t the only one.

“Wait, is that Suveer?” Nat asked like she might be mistaking the six-foot-four farm boy next to Dustin.

“Are they going, like, stag together?” Yu asked, actually pressing his face to the window now.

Suveer stooped to adjust the soft pink bowtie that accented Dustin’s all-white suit and Dustin tipped his hat before standing on tiptoe to press a kiss on his date’s lips.

“Wow!”

Yu’s cry broke above the music as Bren’s arm left A.J.’s waist for the first time since they’d got in the limo, and he hopped up to wolf-whistle through the sunroof.

Dustin pulled Suveer down for a deeper kiss, and when he straightened their hats afterwards, he linked their hands together.

“You knew!” Nat accused A.J.

“I wanted to tell you. So many times.” He met her eyes despite the fires of accusation that burned there.

“Nothing was stopping you,” Nat said, like she’d forgotten that not everyone came out when they were thirteen.

“Dustin swore me to secrecy. Gay-bro code.”

“Since when are you a bro?” Yu asked, his shock melting into amusement in the last two seconds.

“Gay-bro. Very important distinction. And only with Dustin—just barely.”

It was lucky that Mrs. Richards had run out for a final round of hugs and pictures with her son so Nat had time to study his face.

“Don’t be mad, Okay?”

If he knew her, she was equal-parts annoyed at him for keeping the secret and disappointed in herself for seeming like the kind of person who this needed to be kept a secret from.

“I’m not mad, just . . . He could have told us of all people.”

There wasn’t any way to explain to someone that there were some secrets you can only share with people like you first—if you have that option. And one man’s secret was nobody else’s to share.

“Let’s try and be happy for others, Natalie,” Yu said, uncorking the bottle of sparkling apple juice that had been on ice since they’d gotten in the limo.

She looked offended at the idea that she wasn’t happy despite the scowling, and after some jostling and a, “One sec, you maniac,” she took Bren’s spot in the sunroof.