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Not trusting him to do it on his own anymore, Mrs. Dénommée counted them in, and Dustin widened his stance with his hands in front of him.

“And down. And up.”

A.J. pushed off the stage with every ounce of power his newly honed dance muscles could provide. Dustin’s hands caught his hips before gravity had a chance to pull him down and threw him like he weighed as little as an actual cat. He flew ten feet in what would have been a graceful arc if it weren’t for the awkward flailing of his arms.

The balls of his feet thudded against wood, and he used the momentum to shift a leg back, throwing out an arm to trace the stage with an appropriately feline pose.

“Much better. Now do you want to give it a try again, Bren?”

A scowl flickered across Bren’s face before his default grin returned. A shameful part of A.J. was pleased by the idea that Bren might be capable of a spark of jealousy. He’d have to do something later to remind him that there was only one person for him, though—and it wasn’t Dustin Richards and his weirdly sweaty hands.

22

“What’s wrong?”

A.J. pulled his face away from Bren’s shoulder, hitching a smile as he leaned back into the pillows at the head of his bed.

“Nothing, just wanted to nuzzle.”

Bren clearly wasn’t fooled because he paused Corpse Bride, which was pretty rude considering Emily had just pulled herself out of her grave to say hello. Eyes that he’d never learned to defend against stared back at him as the corner of Bren’s mouth twitched.

“You squeaked.”

A.J. sighed.

“Like a puppy.”

He’d really hoped he hadn’t heard that.

“It’s stupid, seriously. Let’s just watch the movie. The next song’s really good.”

He reached to take the laptop off pause, but Bren caught his hand. Thinking he was going to kiss it, A.J. let him tug it up to his lips, where Bren ran his tongue from his wrist to the center of his palm.

A.J. groaned as he tried to pull his wrist free, but Bren held tight.

“Gonna keep lickin’ till you tell me.”

The surge of stubbornness that followed didn’t last long. Bren flopped his tongue back out and dragged it around his hand like some kind of nightmarish window washer.

“OK, fine!” A.J. said, pulling his hand free to wipe the sea of spit on his duvet. “I just thought about how scary it is that I almost didn’t sign up for the exchange program.”

Bren looked like he was on the edge of saying something, but their eyes locked and he settled in.

“And then about, like, what would have happened if it sent me to literally any other town in Ireland. Or, like, if it did send me to Glenbridge but we were in all different classes, or you just didn’t notice me, or—”

The only thing that was stopping him from burying his face against Bren’s shoulder again was that he knew it would only make the smug grin on his face even more unbearable.

“I told you it was stupid.”

Saint that he was, Bren didn’t laugh, and instead kissed the top of his head.

“Nothin’ you say is stupid to me.” His fingers brushed the spot where his lips had been a second before, and then he pulled away. “But it’s a good thing you look cute when you worry.”

A.J. huffed and smushed his face into the crook of Bren’s neck, with no plans to extract himself until next semester.

Bren was a gracious landlord. He ran his fingers through A.J.’s hair.

“So, you’re upset that we might not have met, even though we did?”