SOULMATE(s) - 4. Two Straight Boys Too Many

“That was Luke’s house, wasn’t it?”

Nick turned toward Kit so quickly that the seat belt tightened across his chest.

For one helpless second, he considered pretending he had not heard the question. The music coming through the speakers was low, however, and Kit had spoken clearly enough that asking him to repeat himself would only make Nick look suspicious. More suspicious, anyway. He was already sitting in Kit O’Connell’s passenger seat after being collected from outside another football player’s house on a Saturday morning, carrying an Algebra Two textbook and enough nervous energy to power the car by itself.

In hindsight, he should have expected Kit to recognize the house. Kit and Luke were teammates. They had probably visited each other dozens of times for practices, team dinners, parties, or whatever else football players did when left together without adult supervision.

Discuss strategy, perhaps.

Eat alarming amounts of food.

Compare collections of sleeveless shirts.

Nick looked through the passenger window as the tree-lined neighborhood slid past.

“Yes,” he admitted. “That was Luke’s house.”

Kit kept his attention on the road, though his eyebrows rose slightly.

“What were you doing there?”

“I was helping him with his math problems.”

Kit glanced toward him. “Luke asked you to help him?”

“He calls it academic assistance.”

The corner of Kit’s mouth lifted.

“That sounds like Luke.”

“It’s tutoring.”

“You probably shouldn’t say that to him.”

“I already did.”

“How did he take it?”

“Like I had insulted several generations of his family.”

Kit laughed quietly, and the sound eased some of the tension in Nick’s shoulders. He did not seem suspicious or judgmental. If anything, he appeared more amused by the idea of Luke willingly spending Saturday morning with a textbook than by Nick being at his house.

That should have been enough to make Nick relax.

Instead, his fingers found a loose thread near the zipper of his backpack and began wrapping it around one fingertip.

“Could you not tell anyone?”

Kit’s smile faded into quiet attention.

“Tell anyone what?”

“That I was there.”

The sentence sounded secretive in exactly the wrong way. Nick heard it the moment it left his mouth and rushed to explain before Kit could imagine something more interesting than what had actually happened.

“Nothing happened. We really were studying. He completed several equations and everything. I saw it with my own eyes.”

Kit’s mouth twitched again, but he did not interrupt.

“I just don’t want people turning it into something else,” Nick continued. “You know how they are.”

“People like Jack?”

“Jack, his friends, anyone who has nothing better to do.”

Nick tugged at the thread until it stretched between his fingers. He hated that such a simple thing required an explanation. Luke had asked him for help. Nick had agreed. They had sat at a kitchen table for two hours working through mathematics while Luke’s mother moved around upstairs. There was nothing scandalous about it.

But Nick’s presence had a way of making ordinary situations appear suspicious to people determined to misunderstand them.

“Everyone knows I’m gay,” he said. “If they hear Luke invited me over, they might start saying things about him. I don’t want him getting in trouble just because he spent time with a gay person.”

The words sounded worse once spoken aloud. They made Nick feel less like a classmate Luke had asked for help and more like some contagious condition that needed to be concealed for everyone else’s protection.

He looked down at the backpack in his lap.

“I don’t want people deciding he must be gay too,” he added. “Or thinking there’s something happening between us when there isn’t.”

Kit went silent.

The pause lasted only a few seconds, but Nick felt every one of them. He watched Kit’s profile, noticing the faint line between his eyebrows and the way his hands shifted slightly on the steering wheel.

Eventually, Kit spoke.

“You know I’m a decent guy, right?”

Nick blinked. “What?”

“I’m not going to tell anyone.”

Kit glanced toward him, and something faintly wounded passed across his face, as though the possibility that Nick might not trust him had genuinely surprised him.

“I can keep secrets.”

“I didn’t mean that I thought you couldn’t.”

“You hesitated before answering.”

“I hesitate before telling anyone anything. It’s one of my most attractive qualities.”

Kit’s expression softened.

“Good to know.”

Nick let out a breath and released the thread before he pulled it completely from the backpack.

“Thank you.”

Kit nodded once, accepting the gratitude without making it feel like Nick owed him anything in return.

“And Luke isn’t a bad person,” he said after a moment. “He can be an idiot sometimes, especially when he’s around certain people, but he’s not like Jack.”

Nick looked down again.

“I know.”

The answer came more quickly than he intended.

The truth was that he did not know what to believe about Luke yet. The boy who sat beside him in mathematics was friendly, funny, and unexpectedly easy to talk to. That Luke listened when Nick explained a problem, thanked him when he helped, and watched for Nick’s reaction whenever he made a joke.

The Luke from freshman year had stood in the locker room while Jack shoved Nick against the lockers.

He had not laughed.

He had not helped either.

Both versions belonged to the same person, and Nick had not yet figured out how they fit together.

Kit slowed at an intersection and waited for another car to pass.

“But if Luke ever hurts you,” he said, “you have to tell me.”

Nick turned toward him.

“What?”

“If he embarrasses you, messes with you, or does anything that makes you uncomfortable, you come to me.”

Kit spoke with such calm certainty that Nick stared at him.

“And then what?”

“I’ll deal with him.”

“You’ll deal with him?”

“Yes.”

Nick tried to imagine what that might involve. Kit was not intimidating in the same way Jack was, but he was still the quarterback, one of the team captains, and strong enough to spend Friday nights being chased by several enormous boys without appearing particularly concerned.

He probably had methods.

“You sound like a very polite crime boss.”

Kit’s mouth twitched.

“I’m less polite when necessary.”

“You’re fifteen.”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t be organized.”

Nick laughed, and Kit joined him a second later. The humor softened the promise without taking away its sincerity.

Kit meant what he had said.

That realization settled warmly in Nick’s chest. Leah, Will, and Tobey protected him because they had known him for years. Kent and Ken had defended him because they hated bullying and apparently possessed no ability to stand aside when someone needed help.

Kit barely knew him.

They shared one class, exchanged a few greetings in the hallways, and had spent part of a car ride discussing another boy’s mathematical failures.

Yet Kit had told Nick he could come to him.

The rest of the drive passed more easily. Kit asked for directions even though he apparently lived nearby and already recognized most of the streets. They talked about the previous night’s football game, which Nick had not attended but had followed through clips sent to the school group chat.

“You watched the highlights?” Kit asked.

“Will sent them.”

“All of them?”

“Possibly.”

Kit smiled. “So you saw the second touchdown.”

“I saw Luke nearly run into the goalpost afterward.”

“He says the lights were in his eyes.”

“The goalpost was nowhere near the lights.”

“I know.”

Nick laughed again.

Kit’s smile followed, quiet and warm, and Nick had to turn toward the window before he spent too long studying it.

Kit had the kind of smile that seemed to brighten everything around him. His usual expression was calm and composed, especially at school, but when he smiled, his entire face softened. The light freckles scattered across his nose and cheeks became more noticeable, making him look younger than he did on the football field.

Cuter, too.

Nick immediately scolded himself for the thought.

Kit was already handsome enough without his freckles becoming a separate problem.

The car pulled to the curb outside Nick’s house.

“This is you, right?” Kit asked.

“Yeah.”

Nick unfastened his seat belt but did not open the door immediately.

“I still don’t know how you knew where I live.”

“Because I live nearby and I pay attention.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Oh, it absolutely is if you think about it.”

Nick smile. “Thanks for the ride.”

“No problem.”

Two simple words.

There was absolutely no reason for them to affect Nick’s heartbeat.

They did anyway.

Nick opened the door before Kit could notice what they had done to him.

“See you Monday.”

“See you, Nick.”

Nick stepped onto the sidewalk and closed the door. He waited until Kit’s car disappeared around the corner before turning toward the house, taking an extra moment to arrange his face into what he hoped resembled normality.

His mother was in the kitchen when he entered.

“How did the tutoring go?”

Nick stopped halfway through removing his shoes.

“How did you know it was tutoring?”

“You said you were helping someone with math.”

“Oh. Right.”

She glanced over from the counter, where she was cutting vegetables.

“Was it someone from your class?”

“Yes.”

“A friend?”

Nick thought of Luke leaning toward him across the kitchen table and asking whether he was really gay.

Then he thought of Kit promising to deal with Luke if he ever hurt him.

“Sort of.”

His mother smiled as though this answer confirmed something pleasant.

“There’s lunch in the refrigerator.”

“Thanks.”

Nick escaped upstairs before she could ask for the person’s name and somehow invent an entire relationship from the answer.

Once inside his bedroom, he closed the door and dropped his backpack beside the desk. He should have unpacked his textbooks or started the English assignment he had been avoiding for three days.

Instead, he sat on the edge of the bed and opened Instagram.

Kit’s account took less than ten seconds to find.

His profile photograph showed him in his football uniform with his helmet tucked beneath one arm. Sunlight caught the reddish tones in his hair, and he was smiling directly at the camera with enough confidence to make Nick’s stomach perform something deeply inconvenient.

Most of the posts were exactly what Nick expected. Football games. Team dinners. Family vacations. Photographs with Kent and Ken, who seemed to appear in nearly every significant moment of Kit’s life. There were also several pictures of a cat named Sunny, who apparently behaved more like a dog, loved belly rubs, and played fetch.

Nick scrolled farther than he intended.

One picture showed Kit asleep on a couch while Sunny lay across his stomach. The caption read, Fearless captain defeated by one cat, and had apparently been posted by Ken after stealing Kit’s phone.

Nick smiled.

Then he realized the photograph was almost two years old and immediately returned to the top of the profile. Accidentally liking an old picture would require him to transfer schools, change his name, and possibly leave the country.

He opened Kit’s messages instead.

The text box remained empty while Nick tried to decide how much gratitude sounded normal. He typed Thanks for driving me home and deleted it because it seemed too formal. He tried Thanks for today but removed that because it made the car ride sound like a date.

Finally, he wrote:

thanks for the ride… and for the other thing.

Nick stared at the message.

The other thing made it sound as though Kit had helped him conceal evidence.

He sent it anyway.

Before he could place the phone down, a reply appeared.

i got you. hope you have a good weekend.

Nick read it once.

Then again.

Then a third time, because apparently repeated exposure might cause the sentence to develop romantic subtext.

It did not.

Kit had given him a ride. Kit had promised to keep the tutoring private. Kit was kind.

That was all.

Nick still fell backward across the bed and pressed the phone against his chest.

This was becoming ridiculous.

Luke was already creating enough confusion without Kit joining him.

Over the first week, Luke had begun behaving in ways Nick could not comfortably classify. None of them were obvious enough to call flirting, especially because Luke seemed naturally friendly with everyone. He joked with teachers, leaned across tables when speaking, and threw his arms around teammates with the casual confidence of someone who had never needed to question whether touching another boy might be misunderstood.

Still, Nick noticed things.

Luke leaned closer whenever he spoke to him during math, even when the classroom was quiet enough that whispering was unnecessary. He borrowed Nick’s pencils despite owning several. Twice, he had arrived with an extra carton of chocolate milk and claimed that the vending machine had accidentally given him one.

The same vending machine.

The same mistake.

Nick did not believe it had developed a personal commitment to their friendship.

Most suspiciously, Luke had begun looking toward Nick after every joke, as though Nick’s reaction mattered more than anyone else’s.

That could mean nothing.

Nick reminded himself of this often.

Leah and Will reminded him more aggressively.

“He’s straight,” Leah said whenever Luke’s name appeared during lunch.

“I know.”

“He dated three girls last year.”

“I know.”

“One of them was on the dance team.”

Nick frowned. “Why does that matter?”

“It creates context.”

Will nodded solemnly. “Very athletic context.”

Nick threw a grape at him.

Will caught it against his chest and looked offended.

“You could have damaged an instrument hand.”

“You play piano with both hands.”

“That doesn’t make either one disposable.”

Tobey usually listened without contributing, though the patient expression in his eyes suggested he was already preparing the advice Nick would eventually need.

Nick had not told them about Kit’s ride. He had not told them about the message either.

The secrecy made him feel mildly guilty, but he knew exactly what would happen if Leah discovered that Kit had driven him home and promised to protect him from Luke. She would ask seventeen questions without pausing to breathe. Will would develop a theory involving a complicated football-team conspiracy. Tobey would look at Nick until he admitted the more embarrassing truth.

He had liked Kit for years.

If Nick judged by appearance alone, Kit O’Connell had been his number-one impossible crush since eighth grade. That was when Kit returned from summer taller, broader, and suddenly impossible to ignore. By freshman year, half the school had noticed him too.

Nick had watched Kit play football before anyone knew Nick was gay, safely hidden among the crowd while Kit ran across the field beneath the stadium lights. Back then, the crush had felt harmless because Kit barely knew Nick existed.

Now Kit greeted him in hallways.

He remembered things Nick said.

He had sent him a message saying I got you.

That did not mean anything.

Nick repeated the sentence until the words lost all structure.

Still, a teenage gay boy was allowed to dream, wasn’t he?

He covered his face with both hands.

How was he supposed to survive the school year when the first week had already given him two straight football players to think about?

By the beginning of the third week, Luke had become noticeably more talkative in Algebra Two.

He arrived before Nick most mornings and kept the chair beside him free even when his friends stopped near the desk to speak. Their conversations usually began with mathematics but rarely stayed there. Luke asked what music Nick listened to, which movies he liked, and whether Will truly knew how to play several instruments or merely carried a guitar case around for attention.

“He can play,” Nick whispered while Mr. Daley wrote an equation across the board. “Unfortunately, he also knows he can play.”

“So he’s arrogant?”

“He once made us listen to the same piano piece for eighteen minutes.”

Luke looked horrified. “Why?”

“He said he was experimenting.”

“With what?”

“Our friendship.”

Luke laughed loudly enough that Mr. Daley stopped writing.

“Is there something you would like to share with the class, Mr. Finley?”

Luke straightened in his chair.

“Nick abandoned his friend during a musical performance.”

Mr. Daley looked toward Nick.

“Was it justified?”

“Completely.”

Mr. Daley considered this for a moment.

“Then carry on.”

Several students laughed. Luke leaned closer until his shoulder brushed lightly against Nick’s.

“You’ve got Daley on your side.”

“I’m academically trustworthy.”

“You’re his favorite.”

“I’m everyone’s favorite.”

The words escaped before Nick could reconsider them.

Luke’s eyebrows rose.

“That’s confident.”

Nick turned back to his notebook. “I’m trying something new.”

Luke smiled, his voice lowering when he answered.

“I like it.”

Nick lost his place in the equation.

At lunch, Leah took one look at his face and sighed.

“What did Luke do?”

“Nothing.”

“You have the face again.”

“What face?”

“The Luke face.”

“There is no Luke face.”

Will studied him with unnecessary concentration.

“There definitely is.”

“What does it look like?”

“Like someone offered you a puppy but warned you it might bite.”

Nick stared at him.

“That makes no sense.”

“It makes emotional sense.”

Tobey hid a smile behind his water bottle.

Despite their warnings, Nick did not mind Luke’s increasing attention. He knew he should remain careful. Luke was still Jack’s friend, still straight as far as Nick knew, and still capable of returning to the safety of his popular crowd whenever being friendly with Nick became inconvenient.

But sitting beside him was easy.

Luke made him laugh. He listened when Nick spoke. Each morning, the space between their paired desks felt less like an accident of scheduling and more like something they both expected.

That was the dangerous part.

On Wednesday, Luke arrived with two cartons of chocolate milk and placed one on Nick’s notebook.

Nick looked at it.

“The machine again?”

Luke sat down beside him. “It’s very generous.”

“Only when I’m here.”

“Maybe it likes you.”

“It’s a vending machine.”

“Don’t hurt its feelings.”

Nick picked up the carton.

Luke watched him with a small, satisfied smile that made the gesture feel suspiciously deliberate.

“You know,” Nick said, “buying me chocolate milk isn’t going to improve your grade.”

“I wasn’t trying to improve my grade.”

Nick paused.

Luke held his gaze for one brief second before opening his notebook as though he had said nothing unusual.

Perhaps he had not.

Perhaps Nick’s imagination had simply seized another harmless sentence and dressed it in romantic clothing.

He pushed the straw into the carton and told himself not to think about it.

The second tutoring session took place the following Saturday.

By then, Nick had spent an entire week reminding himself that Luke Finley was straight.

He repeated it whenever Luke leaned closer during mathematics class to ask a question he could have asked from a perfectly reasonable distance. He repeated it when Luke placed another carton of chocolate milk on Nick’s desk and claimed, for the fourth time, that the vending machine had accidentally given him an extra one. He repeated it when Luke smiled after making Nick laugh, his attention lingering as though Nick’s reaction mattered more than the joke itself.

Luke was friendly.

Luke was naturally playful.

Luke had dated girls.

These were facts. Solid, dependable facts. Nick intended to hold on to them with both hands.

Unfortunately, the facts became considerably less dependable when Luke opened the front door wearing gray sweatpants again.

Nick stood on the porch with his backpack over one shoulder, staring firmly at Luke’s face. His blond hair was still damp from a shower, darker at the roots and falling loosely across his forehead. A faded black tank top hung from his shoulders, leaving his arms bare and making him look far too relaxed for someone who had invited Nick over to study polynomial equations.

“Hey,” Luke said.

“Hi.”

Luke stepped aside to let him in.

“You came back.”

“You asked me to.”

“I know. I’m just surprised the first session didn’t destroy your faith in education.”

“My faith survived. My patience barely did.”

Luke smiled as Nick passed him.

“That’s why I bought better snacks.”

The house was noisier than it had been the previous weekend. Voices carried from the kitchen, followed by a burst of laughter and the clatter of something falling onto the floor. Luke’s younger sister appeared briefly at the end of the hallway with two friends behind her, all three talking at once.

She looked at Nick.

Then at Luke.

Then back at Nick.

Luke pointed toward the kitchen before she could say anything.

“Go prevent whatever disaster is happening in there.”

“We’re making pancakes.”

“It’s almost noon.”

“Pancakes don’t know what time it is.”

One of her friends nodded solemnly as if this were a recognized scientific principle.

Luke’s sister disappeared again.

A second later, someone shouted, “Why is there smoke?”

Luke closed his eyes.

“We’re working upstairs.”

Nick looked toward the kitchen. “Shouldn’t you check on that?”

“They’ll call an adult if it becomes serious.”

“You’re an adult in less than a year.”

“That sounds like a future problem.”

He motioned toward the staircase.

“My room’s quieter.”

Nick followed him upstairs, refusing to examine why those three words caused a small, nervous movement in his stomach.

It made sense to study in Luke’s bedroom. The kitchen was clearly occupied by people attempting to turn breakfast food into a structural fire. Luke’s parents were home, and the bedroom door would remain unlocked. There was nothing unusual about it.

Nick repeated those facts too.

Luke’s room was almost exactly as Nick had imagined it and somehow messier. Football trophies shared shelves with schoolbooks, empty water bottles, and tangled cables. Several posters covered the walls, including one advertising a concert Nick had wanted to attend the previous summer. A football rested beside the closet, half buried beneath a pile of clothes.

The desk beneath the window was unusable. Textbooks, shirts, and what appeared to be three empty cereal bowls covered nearly every inch of its surface.

Luke followed Nick’s gaze.

“I was going to clean.”

“When?”

“Before you came.”

“You didn’t.”

“Time got away from me.”

Nick looked at the cereal bowls.

“Over several days?”

Luke picked up two of them and stacked them inside the third.

“There. Clean.”

“That is not what cleaning means.”

“It’s more organized than it was.”

“You should put them downstairs.”

“I don’t want my mother to know I had three bowls up here.”

“She owns the bowls. She’ll notice eventually.”

“Not if I return them gradually.”

Nick stared at him.

Luke placed the stack on top of the dresser.

“One bowl a day. No one gets suspicious.”

“You’ve thought about this.”

“Oh, I’m an athlete. We plan strategies.”

Nick laughed despite himself.

With the desk unavailable, they settled on the floor beside the bed. Luke leaned back against the mattress with one knee raised, while Nick sat cross-legged across from him and began arranging their worksheets between them. He placed the textbook in the center, creating what he considered a sensible boundary.

Luke looked at it.

“Is that a wall?”

“It’s a book.”

“It feels symbolic.”

“It’s there so we can both read it.”

Luke’s gaze moved from the book to Nick’s face.

“Right.”

That small smile appeared again.

Nick opened his notebook before it could become a conversation.

For the first half hour, they actually studied.

Luke had improved since the previous weekend. He still skipped steps whenever he became impatient, but he caught several mistakes without Nick pointing them out. He had even completed part of the homework in advance, though his handwriting remained so difficult to read that Nick initially mistook one answer for a small drawing of a chair.

“That’s a four,” Luke said.

“It’s furniture.”

“It looks like every other four I write.”

“That doesn’t help your argument.”

Luke took the pencil from Nick’s hand and rewrote the number.

“There.”

The new version looked almost identical.

Nick examined it.

“You drew the same chair again.”

Luke laughed and tossed the pencil back onto the worksheet.

“You knew what it meant.”

“Only because you told me.”

“Communication happened. That’s what matters.”

“You won’t be there to translate for Mr. Daley when he grades it.”

“I could attach a guide.”

“A guide to your numbers?”

“Page one: identifying chairs.”

Nick tried not to smile and failed.

Luke noticed.

He always seemed to notice.

His expression softened in a way that made Nick lower his eyes to the worksheet. The teasing between them had become easier over the past week, but moments like that still caught him unprepared. Luke could move from joking to simply watching him without warning, leaving Nick unsure whether anything had changed or whether he was imagining the shift.

They completed two more problems before the noise downstairs rose again. Someone shouted that the pancakes were stuck to the ceiling. Luke paused with his pencil halfway to the page.

Nick looked toward the door.

“How does that happen?”

“I don’t want to know.”

“You live here.”

“That doesn’t mean I understand it.”

Luke stood and crossed the room to lock the door.

“For the sake of my academic achievement,” he explained.

When he returned, he sat closer than before.

There was still space between them, but less of it. The textbook no longer formed a proper wall, having shifted sideways when Luke moved. Nick considered placing it back, then decided doing so would make him look strange.

He focused on the next equation.

Luke did the same for almost five full minutes.

Then he leaned back against the bed and stretched.

His arms lifted over his head, and the loose tank top shifted with the movement. Nick’s gaze dropped before he could stop it.

It lasted perhaps a second.

Possibly less.

Long enough.

When Nick looked up, Luke was watching him.

The stretch ended slowly. Luke lowered his arms but remained leaning against the mattress, one knee raised and his head tilted slightly to one side.

A smirk appeared at the corner of his mouth.

Nick felt warmth rush into his face.

“What?”

Luke’s expression remained innocent except for every part of it.

“Nothing.”

“You’re staring.”

“You were staring first.”

“I wasn’t staring.”

Luke glanced down at himself and then back at Nick.

“No?”

Nick looked toward the wall.

“I was looking over there.”

Luke followed his gaze.

“At what?”

“The poster.”

“The poster is on the other wall.”

Nick’s eyes moved to the nearest blank section of paint.

“Then I was looking at the wall.”

Luke nodded slowly.

“Interesting wall?”

“Very.”

“It’s white.”

“I appreciate minimalist design.”

Luke laughed beneath his breath.

Nick picked up his pencil and pointed it at the worksheet.

“Are we doing math or not?”

“We are.”

“Then solve number twelve.”

Luke did not immediately look down.

The amused expression remained, quieter now but no less knowing. His blue eyes held Nick’s for another moment, and something about the look felt like a challenge.

Not a cruel one.

Not even an obvious invitation.

It was closer to I saw that, accompanied by the unmistakable suggestion that Luke did not mind being seen.

Nick lowered his gaze first.

Luke finally leaned over the worksheet.

“What do I do after factoring this part?”

Nick studied the problem, grateful for the return of numbers. Numbers were safe. Numbers did not wear gray sweatpants or look at him as though they shared a joke no one else knew about.

“You divide both sides.”

“By this?”

“Yes.”

Luke wrote the next line.

His knee shifted against the carpet and brushed Nick’s.

Nick moved slightly.

A few moments later, Luke’s knee touched his again.

This time, neither of them moved immediately.

Nick stared at the equation as though it had become the most important collection of symbols in human history. He could feel the warmth of Luke’s leg through the fabric of his jeans, a small point of contact that might have been accidental.

Probably accidental.

Almost certainly accidental.

Luke continued writing without acknowledging it.

Nick told himself to do the same.

“Is that right?” Luke asked.

Nick looked at the page.

He had no idea.

“You skipped a step.”

“Which one?”

Nick forced himself to concentrate and pointed to the second line.

“You need to simplify before dividing.”

Luke examined it.

“I thought you said to divide.”

“After simplifying.”

“You left that part out.”

“I didn’t think I had to explain every breath you take between equations.”

Luke turned toward him, and because they were sitting closer than before, their faces were nearer than Nick expected.

“You’re a harsh teacher.”

“You’re a difficult student.”

“But you keep coming back.”

The words were spoken lightly.

They did not feel light.

Nick looked down at the worksheet again.

“Well… you have snacks.”

“So that’s all this is?”

“Yes.”

Luke nodded as though accepting the answer.

“Good to know.”

He reached for the bowl of chips beside the bed and placed it directly in Nick’s lap.

“Now you can’t leave.”

Nick looked at the bowl.

“This is kidnapping.”

“It’s hospitality.”

“You blocked my escape with potato chips.”

“And it worked.”

Nick took one.

Luke smiled in satisfaction and returned to the equation.

The rest of the session continued with only occasional damage to Nick’s ability to think. Luke solved four problems correctly, celebrated each one as though he had won a championship, and accused Nick of deliberately choosing difficult questions to humble him.

At one point, Luke leaned across Nick to reach the textbook. His shoulder brushed Nick’s chest, and the scent of soap returned, clean and faintly warm.

Nick froze.

Luke found the page he wanted and settled back into place.

“You okay?”

“Fine.”

“Looks like you stopped breathing for a second there.”

“I didn’t.”

“You did a little.”

Nick flipped to the next worksheet.

“Do number fifteen.”

Luke smiled but obeyed.

By the time they finished, almost two hours had passed. The sounds downstairs had quieted, suggesting either that the pancake crisis had been resolved or that everyone had abandoned the house.

Nick gathered his papers quickly, sliding them into his folder before any further complications could occur.

Luke remained seated against the bed, watching him pack.

“Same time next week?”

Nick zipped his bag.

“You’re assuming I’m available.”

“You are.”

“You don’t know that.”

“What are your Saturday plans?”

Nick paused.

Luke’s smile widened.

“Exactly.”

“I could develop plans.”

“With your rich social life?”

“You keep saying that like I don’t have friends.”

“I know you have friends. They interrogate you every time you come here.”

Nick looked at him.

“How do you know that?”

“You check your phone approximately every eleven minutes.”

“That’s not an interrogation.”

“And then you type very fast with an annoyed face.”

“That could be anyone.”

“It’s Leah.”

Nick stared.

Luke laughed and stood.

“She watches me in the cafeteria like she’s waiting for permission to have me arrested.”

“She’s protective.”

“I noticed.”

Luke walked Nick downstairs. The house remained intact, though a dark shape on the kitchen ceiling suggested the pancake story had not been an exaggeration.

Nick stopped beneath it.

Luke followed his gaze.

“I’m not asking.”

“That seems wise.”

At the front door, Nick adjusted his backpack.

“Thanks for the snacks.”

“Not the math?”

“I provided the math.”

“Then thanks for the math.”

Luke opened the door, but before Nick stepped outside, he spoke again.

“Nick.”

Nick turned.

Luke leaned one shoulder against the doorframe. His expression was relaxed, but the knowing amusement from upstairs had not entirely disappeared.

“You know you don’t have to pretend you weren’t looking.”

Nick’s entire face went hot.

“I wasn’t.”

Luke’s eyebrows lifted.

“At the wall?”

“Yes.”

“The minimalist wall.”

“Exactly.”

Luke nodded solemnly.

“Maybe I should frame it.”

Nick stepped onto the porch.

“You should do your homework.”

“I will.”

“Without me reminding you.”

“No promises.”

Nick began walking down the path.

Behind him, Luke called, “See you Monday.”

Nick raised one hand without turning around. He did not look back until he reached the sidewalk. Luke was still standing in the doorway. When their eyes met, the smirk returned. Nick immediately faced forward and continued walking. He made it to the end of the street before taking out his phone.

The group chat already contained three messages from Leah.

are you alive?

nick.

if you’ve been murdered, send a thumbs-up.

Nick typed while walking.

alive. finished tutoring. going home.

Will replied first.

did he pass math yet?

no.

Leah’s response appeared beneath it.

did anything weird happen?

Nick thought about Luke stretching against the bed.

The lingering knee against his.

The quiet challenge in his smile.

You don’t have to pretend you weren’t looking.

Nick began typing, deleted the sentence, and tried again.

no. it was normal.

Tobey responded with a single word.

sure.

Nick put the phone back into his pocket.

The walk home was long enough for his face to cool but not nearly long enough for his thoughts to become sensible. Every time he succeeded in convincing himself that Luke had only been teasing, he remembered the way Luke had watched him.

Luke knew Nick was attracted to boys.

Now Luke knew Nick had looked at him.

And rather than becoming uncomfortable, he had turned it into a private joke.

That did not mean Luke was interested.

It meant Luke enjoyed attention. He was popular, handsome, and accustomed to people noticing him. Perhaps teasing Nick was no different from flirting with girls in the cafeteria or showing off after football practice.

Nick understood all of this.

His imagination refused to cooperate.

By the time he reached home, he had constructed and rejected at least six interpretations of the afternoon.

His mother called from the living room as he entered.

“How was tutoring?”

“Educational.”

“That’s good.”

Nick headed for the stairs.

“Did your friend understand the homework?”

“Eventually.”

“You must be a good teacher.”

Nick thought of Luke accusing him of being harsh while sitting far too close.

“I’m excellent.”

He reached his bedroom, closed the door behind him, and dropped his backpack beside the desk. For several seconds, he stood in the middle of the room and stared at nothing.

Then he groaned, fell facedown onto the bed, and pulled a pillow over his head.

Luke Finley was straight.

Kit O’Connell was straight.

This was the foundation upon which Nick’s sanity depended.

His phone vibrated.

Nick reached blindly across the mattress and brought it beneath the pillow.

A new DM from Luke waited on the screen.

the wall misses you already.

Nick stared at it.

Then he buried his face deeper into the pillow and made a sound that would have concerned anyone listening outside the room.

It was only the third week of school.

He was never going to survive the year.