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“Go on, get your music goin’. I amn’t goin’ anywhere.” He looked like he’d remembered something and went rummaging around in his backpack. “Wanna use this one instead?”

Whatever remained of the roaring tide receded back to wherever it came from. The discman he’d left in Ireland had found its way back to him.

“I love you so much.”

Their fingers brushed in the handoff and Bren smiled. It was the same crooked grin as ever, but it warmed his heart like he was seeing it for the first time all over again.

“Love you too, Arlo.”

A.J. opened the cover to get a peek at what Bren had left inside, and a choked laugh forced its way out. The Robolad doodle was back. This time he was wearing a pair of aviators and a shockingly mellow smile for someone who was encased in a block of ice. Robolad’s Chill the Feck Out Playlist was written in big blue block letters below the doodle, along with a B written in Bren’s jerky handwriting.

A.J. swapped the headphones for earbuds and offered one to Bren, who took it without question. He knew what track one was before the first note had finished playing. The familiar baseline spreading out from the earbuds had reached the tips of his fingers and toes before Stevie Nicks’ otherworldly voice had even materialized.

He’d told Bren once that Dreams was the singular most relaxing song in the entire world. Even though he did enough talking for the both of them sometimes, he really did listen, too.

They stood at the top of the stairs, enjoying it together. A.J. let his temple come to rest against Bren’s as his arms pulled them closer. By the time Joni Mitchell had taken the baton from Stevie, every cruel edge had been replaced with a softness that only existed when Bren was around.

“Come on,” he said, leading Bren by the hand. “I want to show you my bedroom.”

6

Bren whistled as he took in Arlo’s bedroom. The queen bed and plush navy comforter was so unlike the shoddy single bed and patchwork duvet in his room back in Glenbridge. He was glad to see that it was unmade at any rate, even if the floor was clear of rumpled clothes.

“So, this is where you swap out your batteries?”

“I’ve got an adaptor built into the bed. I’m rechargeable.”

Arlo was still wearing an earbud in one ear, but the music wasn’t loud enough to hear from here—a good sign. Bren ran his fingers along the keys of the electric keyboard that sat against the wall parallel to the bed. It was under a sliding window that would have given him a nice view of people’s ankles as they came to and from the front door.

“Been playin’ much since you got back?”

“Not really,” Arlo said with a shrug, powering the thing on and plucking out a few random notes. “Haven’t been in the mood.”

“Ah,” Bren replied, trying not to let the disappointment show. “Guess you needed a break after dealin’ with fifth year rot.”

He busied himself with Arlo’s top drawer. The jock was already hooked around his thumb and the comment about his wee briefs halfway past his lips when the song hit his ear. He set them down and watched Arlo from the corner of his eyes. He was sitting at the piano, wearing a soft smile as he played the opening to The Navigator.

Bren slid the drawer closed and crept across the room like he was trying not to spook a baby deer. It was weird how different music felt whenever Arlo was around.

He couldn’t help but smile as his eyes landed on a framed picture on the nightstand beside Arlo’s bed—the two of them at Halloween. The mullet had been for a laugh, but part of him still thought it looked kind of deadly. Then there was Arlo, all dressed up in his hurling kit, smiling and looking like he was ready to combust at the same time.

The nightstand had what he was looking for and Bren pulled out Arlo’s CD binder as The Navigator reached the chorus for the first time. He thought that Arlo’s Girl Power Megamix might have what he needed, and he popped it into the CD player on the other side of the room.

Bren had expected Arlo to jump when he brushed his knuckles across his cheek, but he kept playing, leaning into it with a sigh.

“You know, I still owe you from this mornin’,” Bren said, and after a few notes that he didn’t remember from the last time he’d heard the song, Arlo stopped playing.

Bren left A.J. sweating in his seat and fired up the mega mix. He always knew that he’d never win any beauty contests, but he was able to focus on the fact that he had made some improvements from the neck down thanks to Brick. He shoved the thought away with a shudder. Best not to bring the big guy up right now.

“You always give me stuff to listen to.” He gave Arlo a wink that he hoped told him to set his expectations low and ran his hands along his sides. “Figured I should give you something to look at.”

He swayed his hips to the bouncing beat of whatever club song was on track one of the mix. The part of his brain that was convinced this would be sexy was fighting for its life as he lifted his shirt up enough to show his recently unearthed four-pack.

His hips shook from side to side as he turned on the spot, lifting his shirt higher to tug it off with one fluid motion. Or at least, that’s what he tried to do. The stupid thing got stuck around his head and his legs stopped moving while he struggled with it.

He was nearly free from his fabric prison when the first laugh burst out above the club music—maybe life inside the shirt wasn’t so bad after all. With a final pull, the shirt slipped off his head, and he threw it towards his ungrateful boyfriend, who looked like he was having trouble not falling off the bench for laughing.

“Well, fuck you, too,” Bren said, trying to keep his legs from hurling him through the ceiling and into the sun.