The next couple of days followed the same routine, more or less. I watched the band write and record, watched Ben doing all kinds of stuff with the board and its hundreds of switches, eavesdropped on conversations with Rest in Peach’s producer. I explored the studio and all its back rooms. I looked at the pictures on the walls and tried to figure out how many had people in them I’d heard of, listened to. Admired. It was a lot of them. And in the evenings, we got together with Rest in Peach and went for dinner, or ordered in and ate standing around Ben’s kitchen or scattered over his couches. Ty and Bellamy and Nick talked about past tours. Ava and Danni and Tuck and Elliot talked about what it had been like making music before they had access to real stages or recording studios like this, or a record label to back them. Micah and Ben and I hung out and listened, and joined in wherever, and I never felt for a second like we were left out or less than because we weren’t actually members of either band. It was the opposite, for me at least—I was included, and I felt like even here, in this world that had always belonged more to my brother and my friends, I was at home.

It was fun, the perfect way to relax and take it easy after what was, for the bands, an enjoyable but also very fraught and tension-filled experience.

Nick and I didn’t go for lunch again. The first day after we talked, I went out with Escaping Indigo and Micah, to the same place Nicky had taken me. The next day, Ben took me around the studio, telling me stories about the different rooms, how they’d been built, who’d played there, what songs had been born there. I’d never seen Ben quite so animated before. He pointed at pictures and told stories that no one else would have known, about recording mishaps and how bands acted together, how songs were created. We missed lunch altogether, and ended up poking through the refrigerator afterward.

The third day, I sat at the kitchen island and ate a sandwich while I talked to my mom on the phone. She missed me, she said, but I was halfway sure she really meant that she missed Micah, and she wanted to know when he was coming home. I worried a little bit about that—not because I was jealous, quite. It was good for her to have Micah to fuss over and baby, because I wasn’t exactly an ideal candidate for that. But I figured Micah would eventually move in with Bellamy, away from my mom. I didn’t let it worry me too much, because at this point, I knew Micah. And I knew he wouldn’t forget about her, no matter where he went.

The fourth day, I went back to wandering. I’d been, at this point, through every open space in the studio. There wasn’t anything left to explore. But the empty rooms kept drawing me back to them. Each one was so different. As if Ben had been experimenting as he constructed and decorated each one. Going for different sound qualities and atmospheres and comfort levels. And they were quiet. It was so strange to me that they had seen, over the years, such a riot, such a complete interplay, of combined sound. So many instruments and voices, take after take. And now they were silent, lying dormant. Waiting.

I liked listening to Escaping Indigo and Rest in Peach. I liked the evening part better, when we were all together and hanging out, and it was easy and fun, like being on tour, without the threat of having to drive all night looming over me. I liked the recording part too, though. It was interesting—on a technical level, and more than that, in how the band worked together to create their songs.

But there was something about what they were doing in those rooms, together, that was solely about them. Bellamy, Tuck, and Ava and no one else, no matter whether Ben was in the room, or Micah, or me. And I wasn’t jealous—it was cool they had this talent, and I respected them for it more than I could say, but it wasn’t actually anything I wanted for myself. But there was something about the way they tuned in to each other, focused on each other, became almost like one mind when they were writing and working on songs, that made me feel . . . lost. On the outside. Like I was a puzzle piece that didn’t quite fit. It made me lonely in an abstract way. It was ridiculous to feel like this, but I couldn’t help it.

And sometimes, when I was sitting on the back couch, getting lost in the music and the repetition of playing a piece over and over, I’d imagine Eric there. I would almost be able to picture him, standing where Bellamy was standing. His fingers on guitar strings, like Tuck’s were. Him turning around to speak to Micah at the drum set.

But it wasn’t Micah at the kit, it was Ava. And Eric would never be in this place, doing what Escaping Indigo was doing. It didn’t make me as sad as I’d have imagined. Eric was gone, and I’d come to terms with that a long time ago. Grief couldn’t stay sharp forever. It had to dull, become manageable, because human beings were designed to carry on. Whether I liked it or not, that was what I was doing. Most days, I was glad for it, because I didn’t want to live with guilt and hurt eating at me every second. But when I thought about everything Eric could have had, what it would have been like if it were him and Micah here, now, it made me . . . nostalgic, in a way. It made me miss something that had never existed to begin with.

It was when that sensation started to overwhelm me that I got up and wandered. I brought my phone along with me, and idly scrolled through Twitter while I walked, peeking into dim rooms. I needed some time apart from the music and the band, apart from what they made me think about and remember.

Once, I found my way to the back of the studio, where there was one of the lounge-type rooms Ben had told me about. When I flicked the light on, it illuminated two overstuffed couches, worn from everyone who had flopped on them over the years, and a smallish table stereo system with a CD and record player. There were about a thousand albums, too, in both formats, tucked into shelves underneath.

A few pairs of headphones sat next to the stereo, so I plugged one in and started pulling out albums and putting them on. I skipped through some songs, played snippets of others. Other albums I hadn’t listened to in years, and I wanted to hear the whole thing, dissolve in those sounds. There were things I’d never heard too. B-sides and live recordings, and bands I was only vaguely familiar with.

Bellamy found me there a couple of hours later. I’d completely lost track of time, and he must have been sent to find me.

“What’s all this?”

I turned to stare at him over my shoulder. “Treasure.”

He laughed and sat next to me. “Definitely.” He started pulling out albums and handing them to me, and plugged another pair of headphones in so he could listen too.

It was silly—either of us could have brought up any of those songs on our phones in a second. But there was some sense of discovery, adventure, in pouring through the cases and sleeves, looking over artwork and liner notes. It was almost like when a song you loved came on the radio, and it was as if you’d had a flash of luck. Bellamy’s excitement was infectious, and we spent the entire evening down there, until Tuck and Ty formed a second rescue party and came to get us for dinner.

I went back the next day, and when I heard the soft shuffle of footsteps on the carpet, I figured it was Bellamy again, or maybe Micah, come to find me because I’d been gone too long. But when I turned around, Nicky was standing in the doorway, his shoulder bumped up against the jamb. Watching me, his eyelids heavy.

I pulled my headphones off and turned fully to look at him. He didn’t move, and he didn’t look guilty at being caught staring, either.

I was sitting on the floor, and felt oddly vulnerable down here, with him standing above me. It wasn’t a sensation I was used to. I wasn’t tall, particularly, but I was big. Carrying amps and drums around for years will put some muscle on you, and my body had been built for that. People didn’t intimidate me. And Nicky himself, while taller than me, was a beanpole, a wiry length of fine bone and tendons. I could have picked him up and thrown him over my shoulder, no problem, if that was a thing he was into. But from here, it was like he had power over me. Maybe it wasn’t even that he was standing above me. Maybe it was the way he was watching me. The way I got caught up in his gaze.

He gestured toward the albums. “I see you found Ben’s stash.”

I nodded. I was careful about what I pulled out—they were all alphabetized, and I didn’t want to mess them up too much. But there were still CD cases and pages of artwork and liner notes spread out around me. “It’s . . . impressive.”

He let go of the doorframe and crossed the room to plop down beside me. His fingers sifted through the albums I had out. He picked up one record with bright colors splashed across the front, and the name of the band written in a narrow font at the bottom.

“I remember this.” He flipped it over to see the track listing on the back. “God, I haven’t heard this in years.”

“Put it on,” I said, impulsively. I turned the volume down on the speakers and pulled my headphones out.

“Did you already listen, though? We can hear something different.”

I shook my head. “It’s a good album. I don’t know why I haven’t listened to it for so long.”

He hesitated, watching me, then slipped the record out of its cover, and carefully opened the lid of the record player to set it on the turntable. I didn’t know why Ben had this one in vinyl when it was a newer album, but I liked that he did. Not that I actually believed vinyl sounded better—maybe I was a heathen but I was pretty sure having added pops and scratches in a song did not enhance the music—but there was something about the ritual of it, the careful, gentle way you had to treat a record, that was soothing. Watching Nicky do it was beautiful, those long-fingered hands of his grazing the sides of the record, careful not to press down. The precise way he brushed dust from the record surface with the little pad for that purpose, the way he set the needle down. It was all so simple, but he made it a thing of grace.

The first notes of the album rose up between us. I leaned forward and adjusted the sound, loud enough that we could hear, but not so loud that it would bleed out of the room, or that we couldn’t talk if we wanted to.

But Nick didn’t seem particularly inclined to talk over it, and that was fine with me. It was a strange thing, music. It was always moving forward. Some people get stuck in a certain time period, only ever listen to music from the seventies, or the nineties. It was impossible to do that while hanging out with Escaping Indigo, though. They were constantly listening to new stuff, evolving with every new sound and innovation that came along, and adding their own, and I got caught up in that in the best ways. I was sure it was the same with Nick and Rest in Peach.

Which didn’t mean I never listened to older stuff. But when there was so much to take in, all the time, sometimes the albums I loved the best got left behind for a while. That was probably for the better, since it meant I wasn’t listening to them until I was sick to death of them, either. But when I heard one after so long, like this one, it brought back . . . everything I associated with those songs. A visceral, overwhelming rush of feelings and memories and smells and sights, emotions welling up, like being transported back in time.

I remembered when this album came out. High school had ended a few weeks before. I’d listened to this in the summertime, while lying in my mom’s backyard, the grass tall around me. I’d put on headphones and stared up at the sky and watched the clouds and gotten lost. I’d been trying to figure out, then, what I wanted to do with my life. My mom had urged me to go to college, and I’d taken a few courses, but I’d already known that probably wasn’t for me. Not then. It had been a weird time, stuck somewhere between pleased and thrilled at being an adult and scared out of my mind, confused and concerned about what would come next. But for a while, I’d let myself escape into music, let my mind work out things without pushing them.

That fall, at one of the courses I was taking, I’d met Tuck. We’d hit it off, for whatever reason. He’d told me he was in a band, and that they were looking for someone to help haul their gear around when they played local shows. I’d told him I was looking for a job. I’d been with them ever since. What had started as part-time, something to do while I searched for other, steadier options, had become full-time, my career, and any ideas I’d had about finding what I really wanted to do with my life had disappeared. This was it. It definitely wasn’t everyone’s idea of a dream job, but it suited me. I was good at it, and it made me happy. I didn’t think there should really be anything more to a dream job than that.

And all of that, somehow, had gotten wrapped up in the twelve songs on the album we were listening to. Hearing them made me remember. Or not remember, but they made me feel for a few minutes like I was in both places, both times. Scared and secure. Young and not so young. Confused and sure. Just starting out, and comfortably settled into my life.

Beside me, Nick was quiet, listening. He was holding the album cover between his hands, like he’d held the record itself, the edges balanced against his palms. He’d been reading the lyrics printed on the inside. But I didn’t think he was anymore. He’d gone still in the way that meant tension or deep thought or emotion.

I turned to him, just enough so I could see him. He glanced up at me and smiled, but the smile was tight and lopsided.

“It’s weird, isn’t it?” I asked. “Hearing it. Like . . . you’re in two places at once.”

He nodded, and ran his fingers up over the edge of the album cover. “I didn’t think my life would be like this.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” I asked, so soft I wasn’t sure if he’d hear my voice over the music.

His smile went slightly wider, and it lost that tightness. “Good. I think. Yeah.”

He set the cover down on the floor in front of him and twisted around to face me. “I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad . . . I got to see you again. I know you maybe aren’t. Maybe you wanted whatever happened between us to stay in the past. But I wasn’t . . . I wanted to see you again. Talk to you. And I’m happy this worked out like this.”

I took a deep breath. “I didn’t want it to stay in the past. I didn’t . . . want it to be over. It just . . . was.”

He didn’t move, but something about the way he was focused on me felt like he had turned to face me more, like he had opened himself up to me. “And now?”

I shook my head. “I don’t . . . I don’t know how anymore.”

“Oh. That’s simple.” He leaned forward, resting his weight on his hands, braced against the thick carpet, and kissed me. It was soft and easy, undemanding, but he didn’t pull away quickly, either. He kept going, let his lips move slowly and gently against mine. And I kissed him back.

I’d thought about kissing Nicky. I hadn’t actually imagined it would happen again, but I’d daydreamed about it. I’d tried to remember the way he’d tasted, how his hair had slipped through my fingers. This wasn’t the same. And it wasn’t the same as the last time I’d kissed him, either. This was all new, like we were different people now, and everything we’d learned about each other before had to be relearned. There was a hint of awkwardness in the kiss, and uncertainty, a holding back, like we were both trying to figure out what the other wanted. But mostly, after the hesitancy, under the caution, the kiss was just good.

Nick pulled back after a minute. The kiss had gone on longer than I’d expected. We weren’t quite out of breath, but Nick’s lips were plump and red, and I was probably flushed. I could feel the heat rising up in my face. I’d tucked my hands around Nick’s jaw, my fingers behind his ears, so his hair fell over them, and I couldn’t quite make myself let go.

He smiled at me, lazy and sweet. “See? It’s simple.”

It was. It was so simple. So easy. It would be the easiest thing in the world, to lose myself for a little while in this man. To let him take everything away.

“I . . .” I flexed my fingers, pushing them further into his hair, and he arched into the movement like a cat. His eyes flickered closed, and it was . . . sexy, but more than that, it was intimate. Not a gesture a hookup or a one-night stand made. It was almost like a surrender, something personal, all contained in that simple tilt of his head. I let my fingers trail down, along the slope of his jaw, down his neck, and he tipped his head back to let me. God, it was only fingertips on skin, and it was startling in how close it made me feel to him, in the way it turned me on, to watch him react to being touched by me.

“I don’t . . .” I tried again, but I didn’t know what I was trying to say. “I don’t know how to do this.”

He reached up and caught my hands, and brought them down to rest on his crossed ankles. His eyes blinked open and he stared at me.

“Do what, Quinn?”

“What we had before . . .” I tightened my fingers around his, the movement reflexive, and he squeezed back. “What we were doing . . .”

He squeezed my hands again, and then let go. “We didn’t have anything,” he said. Gently. So gently, but it cut me right to the quick, because he said it in a way that made it the absolute truth. “We might have. But we went our separate ways before it could happen. Now it’s been a year since I’ve seen you. There isn’t anything left from that.”

I swallowed. “Nothing?”

I didn’t know why I was asking. I hadn’t let myself think about wanting this. Not after I’d as good as stood him up a year ago. Not when I was . . . messed up, my brain wanted to supply, but that wasn’t the right term. I wasn’t messed up. My brother had died, and I was slowly coming to terms with that, putting my world back together, and things were . . . okay. But they weren’t what they’d been before, would never be the same, and I was scared. Scared that I didn’t know how to do this anymore. Didn’t know how to be with someone, even like this.

A smile flickered over his mouth, enough to turn his lips up at the corners, to make his eyes crinkle. “Maybe not nothing. I did really want to kiss you again. I remember it being like this before. Always wanting to touch you.”

I leaned toward him. No conscious thought. I only wanted to respond to that, to what it did to me, in the most physical way. He didn’t seem to be adverse to the idea. He leaned with me, his hands sliding up my neck this time, to cup my head. I dropped mine to his waist. He felt so solid and so fragile at the same time, his bones and muscles shifting beneath my palms. I knew, from before, that if I pulled him to me, he wouldn’t feel small against my larger frame, but I would still have that odd, unfathomable desire to protect him, to cradle him.

He inched forward the last little bit, and we kissed again. It was heavier this time, mouths open, breath blending, the heat and warmth and closeness of it crowding out every other thought in my brain. We kept tugging at each other, moving closer and closer across the space of carpet that separated us. His knees bumped mine, and then he rose up so he was almost kneeling over me. In a distant part of my brain, I figured it probably wouldn’t be much time before he was in my lap. Before I got to feel that mix of his strength and grace pressed up against me.

There was a noise at the door, which I ignored, dismissing it as unimportant when I was getting lost in how salty and warm Nicky tasted. Then someone cleared their throat, sharply, and said my name.

I jerked back from Nicky, but I couldn’t really get too far from him with my hands all over him and him practically on top of me. I blinked up into Nick’s face, and then we both turned at the same time to see who had spoken.

It was Ava, standing almost like Nick had earlier, her shoulder pressed to the doorframe. Her arms were crossed over her chest, but she didn’t look angry. She looked amused, although I was pretty sure she was doing her best to hide the expression.

“Hey, Nicky,” she said, and I had to admire the way she made her voice come out normal.

“Hey.” He swallowed, but he didn’t move and didn’t take his hands off my shoulders. There was a deep red blush rising up his neck, but he stared right back at Ava like she hadn’t just caught him in a precarious position. Not that it was that precarious. I was pretty sure we weren’t the only musicians or crew who had had the urge to get busy in one of the studio’s back rooms.

“That was a really nice drum track you put down this morning.” She’d completely managed to get rid of any amusement. “Ty let me listen back. Really cool direction you went with it. I like your snare sound.”

He sat down a little, putting some of his weight on me. “You should come see the new kit I got. You’d like it a lot. You’ll want one for yourself.”

She laughed, full and loud. “Quinn’ll kill me if I want to start hauling a second kit around.”

Nicky laughed too, and any tension that might have been in the room dissolved.

“We’re gonna get dinner and bring it back. Ben said there’s some taco place that’s the best . . . You two want to join us?” She did a very good job of not staring at where my hands rested on Nick’s hips, or raising her eyebrow, or otherwise hinting that maybe we didn’t want to join her because we were very busy.

But the fact was, if I was going to fuck Nicky again, I was pretty sure I didn’t want it to be on the hard floor of a semiforgotten room in an underground recording studio. I was already getting a cramp from sitting like this. And anyone could walk in on us, as Ava had proven.

And I wasn’t, when it came right down to it, sure I wanted to fuck Nick again. Well, I did. I most definitely wanted him, in every way possible. But I wasn’t sure it was a good idea. I wasn’t sure . . . I could handle it.

I turned back to Nick and skimmed my hands down his thighs. Not intimate, only a caress, something that wouldn’t be uncomfortable with Ava standing there. I hoped the touch would tell him I wasn’t backing out, or saying no. Just that I needed a bit of space. “Should we head upstairs?”

He stared at me for a second, like he was studying me. Then he nodded. He bounced upright, the movement casual and easy and fluid, and I had to stare at him for a second, in awe and envy. Then he was reaching a hand down for me, like he’d done a few days before when we’d sat on the grass and I’d told him about Eric, and I took it so he could pull me up beside him.

Ava chattered away about music and drumming and what cymbals Nick was using while we walked back upstairs. Ava was . . . definitely not the most calming person I’d ever met. Her thoughts danced around at about a million miles an hour and were usually spilling out of her mouth before she thought about them. But there was something about her that was soothing. That made things comfortable. Maybe it was the ease with which she regarded her own awkwardness. She knew she wasn’t what people expected, and she didn’t care. Or she’d learned not to care as much. And knowing she was going to be herself made everything else simpler. So there wasn’t any weirdness, walking up to dinner, having just kissed Nick in a way that had definitely been leading toward more than kissing. Her chatter didn’t let anything like that touch us.

Dinner was fun and casual, like we’d been doing for the past few nights. Bellamy and Micah and Ben had gotten the tacos and sides and whatever everyone else had decided we needed to have, and it had all been put in the middle of Ben’s big table so we could fill up a plate with whatever we liked. Then we sat around the kitchen and the living room.

Nick and I didn’t sit next to each other. I didn’t think it had happened on purpose—I certainly hadn’t designed it that way, although I was a little relieved to let some of the heat and tension and want between us cool down. But Bellamy had snagged Nick when we came in, and I’d gotten caught in a conversation with Elliot and Danni, and sticking together hadn’t happened. I kept glancing over at him, though. I couldn’t help it. Even when I couldn’t see him, I could feel him. As if kissing him had restarted some internal tracker that was specifically designed to alert me to Nicky.

At least half the time, when I glanced up and sought him out, he was already staring back at me. We’d both look away. Embarrassed, maybe. Or simply wanting to be private. I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t hiding it from anyone, necessarily, but I wanted to keep this, whatever it was, to myself. For now. But the seconds during which our gazes held got longer, and longer, until the glances lingered, and it was like I could feel him on my skin, like his presence was a pleasant weight.

Nothing else happened between us. Just all that staring, and the memory of him in my lap. It got late and our miniature party broke apart. Bellamy and Micah disappeared into their bedroom. Ava went out on the back porch to call her girlfriend. Ty, Tuck, Ben, and Rest in Peach’s producer got involved in a discussion about the progression of recording over the years, how much it had changed. Eventually, Danni made them stop talking so they could go home—apparently Danni was Ty’s ride. Nicky was Elliot’s, so Nick didn’t stick around too much longer after that. They said their good nights, and Nick shot me one more hard, hot glance that felt like a promise, if I was being either hopeful or terrified. Then they all headed out.

The living room had gone quiet. Tuck was in a corner with a guitar in his lap. Ben sat beside him. Every now and then one of them would say something to pick their conversation back up. But mostly Tuck played and Ben listened.

I was listening too, getting lost in the random notes. Tuck was playing without pausing—snippets of Escaping Indigo songs, covers, and stuff I was pretty sure he was making up on the spot. I was considering how weird it would be to lean back against the couch and close my eyes—the answer was probably not weird at all. This was a music studio. No one was going to mind if I let myself drop into the sounds of a guitar and a murmured conversation. But then Micah came and sat next to me on the couch.

I glanced over at him. He was rumpled, but he definitely didn’t look like he’d been sleeping.

“I thought you were with Bellamy.”

“I was.”

I raised my eyebrow, and he raised his right back and smirked. I was going red, I knew it. Micah was an adult, I reminded myself. I didn’t need to take care of him. But it was still weird to think of a kid who—when I was feeling really nostalgic or mushy or whatever you wanted to call it—I considered almost like a brother, fucking someone down the hall. Or whatever they’d been doing.

My mind shorted out at that. Nope. I did not need to picture my friends in those kinds of private moments.

“Why did you leave him to come back out here, then?” I kept my voice low so I wouldn’t interrupt Tuck and Ben. They were in their own world and probably weren’t paying us the slightest attention, but still.

The smile slipped off Micah’s face. “I wanted to talk to you.” He paused and swallowed, and something inside me tightened. “I saw you . . . I saw you looking at Nick. I saw the way he looked back at you.”

“Looked how?” I wasn’t sure where the words had come from, but I didn’t want to misinterpret this.

“Like . . .” He picked his hand up, flicked his fingers, and dropped it. “Like there was something electric between you. Like there was something between you.”

My throat had gone dry. “So?”

He raised both eyebrows this time and widened his eyes, tipping his face forward to stare at me. “So? Quinn. I sat there with you back when I was having a hard time with Bellamy, and you asked me about Eric, you asked . . . all those things. If I’d been in love with him. If he’d been in love with me. I told you so many things, about me, about Bellamy, and you didn’t think to maybe mention that you’re attracted to men?” He glanced over at Ben and Tuck, then back to me. “Are you? Attracted to men?”

I nodded.

His eyes went impossibly wider. “And you didn’t tell me? Why not?”

His voice had risen a notch. Not very much, but this wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have in front of anyone. I’d probably be fine having this conversation in front of Tuck, actually, but as cool as Ben was, I really didn’t know him. He didn’t need to hear my private stuff. “Stop. Come with me.” I stood up, and Micah followed me into the hallway. All the doors here were closed. The privacy was probably an illusion—if anyone was up, they’d be able to hear us if they listened. But it was good enough.

I tried to figure out how I wanted to respond to him, considered and rejected a dozen possible options, all in a second. My brain was short-circuiting and I couldn’t think. “I didn’t tell you because it wasn’t any of your business.” I hadn’t meant to be so blunt, but I hadn’t been able to stop the words tumbling out, either. It was the wrong way to say it, though.

Micah took a small step back, rocking on his heels like I’d slapped him. He was flushed and flustered. “I thought . . . I mean, when we had that . . . thing, at my apartment, when you pretty much told me to go and get Bellamy, be a better boyfriend, I thought . . . we had a moment there? Like friends?”

I crumpled my brow up, frowning. I was seriously confused. “We did.”

“So . . . don’t you think that might have been a good time to tell me you were . . . what, gay? Bi?”

I shrugged. I was pretty sure there wasn’t a label for me, but then, I hadn’t ever really searched for one, either. I liked what I liked. When I liked it, which wasn’t often. “When? In the middle of your crisis, I should have been, ‘Oh, by the way, sometimes I like dick’?”

He took a full step back this time, horrified. “Maybe not like that.”

I sighed and slumped into myself. “It’s not about that, anyway. Not about . . .” I waved my hand. “Dick,” I finished, softer. Well, this could not get more embarrassing.

A sigh escaped him, and he nodded. “I know.” He brushed his hand back through his hair, letting the short strands fall over his fingers. It startled me, how familiar the gesture was. So similar to the one I did when I was stressed, or nervous. It was a common gesture, I supposed, but there was something about the line of his hand, the way he tugged his hair, that reminded me of . . . me. “I . . . You know what I went through, with Bellamy. I guess maybe I thought you might want to tell me about yourself? In solidarity?” He held up his hand. “But you’re right. It isn’t any of my business.”

He started to turn away, and I reached out and grabbed his arm, making him turn back to face me.

“Micah,” I started, but then I wasn’t sure what to say. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”

“I’m not your little brother,” he said, gently. “I’m your friend.”

I nodded, even though that stung in an odd, semisweet way. Like it was wonderful and terrible at the same time, to be made to acknowledge that. “I didn’t think it would matter.”

Micah smiled. “If it matters to you, then it matters.”

I was still holding his arm, and I let my hand drop. I wasn’t sure what to say to that.

“Also, Quinn.” His smile went wide. “Nick? Holy shit.” He reached out and tapped my shoulder playfully. “Well done, man.”

I snorted. “Like you can talk.”

“Well.” He puffed up a little bit, his shoulders going straighter. I loved how proud he was of Bellamy. Not, I knew, because Bellamy was rock star attractive, although he was. Or because Bellamy was famous. But because Micah loved Bellamy’s heart and his mind. And I liked that he wasn’t ever afraid to show how much.

We stood there, grinning like fools for a second. Then Micah sobered. “Did Eric know?”

I took a deep breath. “About Nicky? Or about . . .?”

“Either.”

I shook my head.

“Why not? You know he wouldn’t have cared.”

I swallowed hard, my throat dry and tight. “I met Nick right before Eric died. And . . . before that, I hadn’t ever met anyone I liked enough that it seemed important to tell Eric. I wasn’t ashamed,” I added quickly. “I’m not. And I’m not in the closet. But it didn’t ever seem important. I didn’t think . . . there would ever be anyone. And if there was, I figured I could tell him then.”

Micah opened his mouth, but then he stopped himself and shut it. It didn’t matter. I knew exactly what had been about to pop out. I couldn’t tell Eric now. There would be no future when I would get to introduce my brother to someone I was dating and try to explain my sexuality to him. There wouldn’t ever be a conversation like that now, because I had left it too late, and now the opportunity was gone for good.

There were a lot of things I wished I’d gotten to do or say with Eric. Things I regretted, things I wished I hadn’t held back. I hadn’t considered this in particular, though. But Micah was so right—Eric wouldn’t have cared who I slept with or dated, or how I went about it. And Nicky . . . Eric would have liked Nicky. He would have liked the way Nick made me smile. The way he made me feel easy and carefree, like everything was simple. I could have told Eric, whether or not anything more ever came of me and Nick after that tour. We could have talked about it.

And now we couldn’t.

“I wanted to be there for him,” I said, my voice almost a whisper, so low I wasn’t sure Micah would hear me. “I wanted to be the big brother. I didn’t want . . . to lay anything heavy on him.”

“This wasn’t a heavy thing,” Micah said. “He would have wanted to know.”

I knew he hadn’t said it to be cruel, but it cut, deeply. “I know.”

“I’m sorry.” Micah’s voice was harsh and rough.

“It’s fine, it’s fine.”

“No, it isn’t. Oh god, Quinn. I didn’t mean to make it sound like . . . like you’d made a mistake with him.”

But it had sounded like that, and it was okay, because maybe . . . maybe I needed to hear it. Maybe I needed to be reminded of that. It was something I told myself, tried to be logical about—Eric had been his own person, a grown adult, and he hadn’t needed me to take care of him or baby him. But it didn’t stop me from feeling guilty. From wanting to have been there for him in any way possible. It had been my job, whether Eric was an adult or not. No matter how old he got. I was the big brother. Caring for him, making sure he was okay, was my job.

I swept my hand over my face, trying to gather myself. It didn’t work. “I don’t know how . . . how to be with anybody anymore,” I admitted, my voice low. Micah took a step forward. “I don’t think I want to have that . . . responsibility on me. Because I’m not good at it. At caring about someone. At taking care of someone. I forgot how.”

Micah touched his fingertips to my arm again. “Is this about Nick? Or something else?”

I took a deep breath. “I don’t know. Neither.” I had to stop this. I couldn’t lay this on Micah, or anyone else. This was my own shit, for me to deal with.

“Quinn,” he said, drawing out my name.

I gave him a wobbly smile. “I’m fine. Just tired. It’s been a long day and it’s getting to me.”

He nodded slowly, but he still looked skeptical. Like he was trying to peer through me and decide whether I was telling the truth. “You’re good at taking care of people, Quinn. You take care of me all the time.” He waved his hand around, taking in the studio, but maybe he meant more the band, and the way I’d gotten him the job, and Bellamy.

I didn’t think that was really true. Micah took care of himself. He was talented and he made things work for himself. I didn’t have anything to do with that. But instead of arguing with him, I reached out again, this time to gather him up into a tight hug. I didn’t think I’d ever hugged him before, or touched him in a way that could really be considered close. Not even at Eric’s funeral. We’d shaken hands, and done an awkward standing-close-to-each-other-but-leaving-space thing. But this felt right, and Micah went along with the hug, wrapping his arms around me and squeezing the daylights out of me. I always forgot how big he was. I had proof right in front of me on a daily basis, but I still thought of him as a scrawny kid with big feet, who hadn’t yet grown into his body. But he was as tall as I was, and built, and he felt strong and warm when he held me.

We let go and stepped back from each other, and it was, if possible, even more awkward. I pushed at his shoulder, turning him around, pointing him toward his bedroom door. “Go. Go be with your boy. I’m fine, I promise.”

He nodded and, after one more backward look at me, went off to find Bellamy. I headed in the opposite direction. There was still soft guitar music spilling from the living room. I glanced in and saw Tuck by himself. He had his phone next to him, and he was talking, so I figured it must be on speaker. A second later I heard a light, high woman’s voice, and realized he was on the phone with his girlfriend. He laughed at whatever she was saying, and when his head tilted up, he caught my eye. I smiled and waved, and he nodded back.

I kept walking to the room we shared. When had we all paired off so neatly? Well, when had everyone but me paired off so neatly? Not that it was always neat. Everyone was happy, though, for the most part. In love. Everyone had someone they could count on.

That had been me, not so long ago. I’d been the person everyone in Escaping Indigo counted on. I’d been the person Bellamy asked for when he was practicing a piece of music, the one Tuck looked to when he needed someone to listen to him when he got angry or frustrated. I’d been that guy, the guy holding stuff together, the guy people turned to. Now I wasn’t. It wasn’t a bad thing. Everyone needed that particular one or two people who held them together, who supported them, in a way no one else did. Tuck, Ava, Bellamy, and Micah all had that now. It was just that I didn’t. I didn’t have a person like that, and I wasn’t that person for anyone anymore, either.

I didn’t want to take away from that by being envious. I was thrilled for them. They were my friends, all of them, and I couldn’t remember ever seeing any of them this . . . alive and happy and just fucking glowing from within. Maybe when they’d gotten the record deal. But this was a different type of happiness. This was simple and overwhelming at the same time, lasting and deep and intrinsic to who they were as people. It was almost awing to see.

Wanting that wasn’t something I was sure of. It should be obvious, should probably be something everyone wanted. But I’d seen how much work it took. And I didn’t honestly know if I was capable of that.

It was dark, but I didn’t bother to turn on any lights in the bedroom. I shut the door, blocking out the light from the hall, but there was enough moonlight coming in through the windows that I could get undressed and find a pair of sleep pants to put on. I climbed into bed, pulling the sheets up over me.

Trying not to think about the things Micah had said was impossible. Micah was right. I should have told Eric, if for no other reason than it was a part of me, and he should have been the person to know all those parts of me. But I hadn’t, and now I never could. Just one more way I’d fucked up with him.

Not thinking about Nicky wasn’t something I could do, either. Nicky, his weight on me, his tongue in my mouth, the way his fingers dug into my shoulders. How much I wanted it to happen again. And how nervous it made me. Because it felt different this time. It felt like a conscious thing—not a purely physical attraction, not something brought on by proximity. But something we might, consciously, carefully, decide to try again. Maybe it was because this would be the second time. Maybe it was because this time it was more deliberate. Maybe it was because, being together again, by accident, felt a tiny bit like fate.

I closed my eyes and tried to go to sleep. It took a long time.