Secret. Brigid Kemmerer

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      “What are you thinking?” said Quinn. “That you’ll break up with me and find some new skank who’ll keep your cover more effectively?”

      “Stop it.”

      “Fine. Go ahead. I’ll go find my own ride.” She stood and stormed toward the road.

      Nick caught her before she could get too far. Quinn had a history of making poor decisions. Ending up unconscious on the beach with a few drunken bikers was only the most recent. She was lucky he’d found her before anything else could happen.

      “Stop,” he said. “Stop.”

      He expected to find her expression distraught, but instead she looked challenging. “Why are you stopping me?”

      “Because you’re my friend.”

      “You’re mine, too.” She reached up to give the brim of his hat a yank. “Have you ever thought about just . . . telling your brothers?”

      He sighed and looked away. He thought about it all the time. Then he’d remember the thousand-and-one locker room gay jokes he’d heard from his twin. He’d remember Gabriel’s swift and brutal judgment of anything new. Gabriel knew how to cut right to the quick, and this felt so fragile and untested that Nick was afraid to bare skin in the face of that blade.

      Then there was Michael, overworked and overwrought, who’d said last week that he couldn’t handle one more complication in their lives. Nick did the bookkeeping for their landscaping business—they could practically reach out and touch their bottom line.

      That left Chris, brooding and distant, who might be okay with it—or he might not.

      They couldn’t afford discord right now.

      “Things at home—they’re complicated . . .” he started. Then he caught her eyes. His things at home had nothing on hers. “I don’t want to rock the boat,” he finally said.

      “What about Hunter?” she said. “Are you guys still sharing a room?”

      “Yeah, until we figure out a new sleeping arrangement. And seriously, you think I should start with my roommate, who, gee, happens to be my twin brother’s best friend? You’re right, Quinn. That’s a great idea.” He left her and went back to the path. At least slinging flagstone gave him a way to work off frustration.

      Quinn came back to the bench and resumed stretching. “Is that weird for you? Sharing a room with a guy?”

      “I shared a room with Gabriel for the first twelve years of my life.”

      “That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”

      Nick rolled more sand flat. “No,” he said, his tone resigned. “It’s not weird. At least not for me.”

      “You think it would be for him?”

      Nick had no idea. He didn’t say anything.

      “Tell me,” said Quinn. “Does he have tattoos and piercings all over his body, or what? Though I can’t decide whether that would be hot or disgusting—”

      Nick threw a handful of sand at her.

      But really, he had no answer. He was so well practiced in the art of Do Not Look at Other Guys that he kept his head in a book anytime Hunter was even in the room.

      And Hunter totally wasn’t his type anyway.

      “I’ll stop pushing,” said Quinn.

      “Thank you.”

      “But you’re definitely coming tonight.”

      He sighed.

      “Oh, you can’t back out now. I already texted Adam that you’ll be there.”

      His head swung around. “You what?”

      “He’s looking forward to it. See?” She held up her phone. A smiley face.

      A smiley face? Nick had no idea what that meant. Was that casual happy? Excited happy? An obligatory response that didn’t mean anything? It wasn’t even a D smiley. It was one of the parenthesis ones.

      God, he was trying to puzzle out the hidden meaning of the punctuation in a frigging emoticon.

      “You look nervous,” said Quinn.

      He shrugged.

      She got down on her knees next to him in the grass. “Don’t be nervous,” she said quietly. “He really likes you, Nick.”

      Nick knew that.

      And that was the problem. He really liked him back.

      Quinn thought Nick Merrick was the best boyfriend in the world.

      He’d been pretty sweet before she found out he was gay, but now . . . now she knew he liked her for her, when all the other guys she’d ever dated took every opportunity to get into her pants.

      It seemed fitting that the best relationship in her life would be just as dysfunctional as all her other ones. Her alcoholic mother. Her more-absent-than-not father. Her stoner older brother and her video game–obsessed younger brother. The cheerleaders who hated her, the dance team that didn’t want her—if a gay boyfriend was the best she could do, she’d take it.

      He worried he was using her—well, she worried she was using him. Hanging out with Nick gave her an opportunity to avoid her own family. And Becca, too, if you got right down to it.

      Quinn didn’t resent losing her best friend to Chris Merrick. Much.

      “You’re quiet,” said Nick.

      Quinn glanced over. He was driving the landscaping truck with one hand on the wheel, the other arm across the seat backs.

      For one second, she regretted the whole gay thing and wished she could curl up against him, let his arm wrap around her shoulder and make her feel wanted.

      Then she told that moment of longing to shove it.

      “I was thinking about Becca,” she said.

      “She and Chris seem to be getting pretty serious.” He seemed amused.

      She snorted. “Like a heart attack.”

      He was silent for a moment. “You guys aren’t hanging out much lately?”

      Nick could always see right through her. Quinn shrugged. “It’s fine. I’m glad she’s happy.”

      “And you sound so sincere about it.”

      Quinn hit him on the arm. “No. I am. I just . . . miss her, you know? And I’m . . .”

      Jealous. She was jealous.

      But she couldn’t say that.

      “It’s СКАЧАТЬ