“Hon,” May said from beside me, sounding slightly breathy. I looked to her and she was taking in the boys. “Hon,” she repeated. “Oh my, hon.” Now she was just looking at Crowe.

“May,” I said sharply to break through the Crowe Effect.

She blinked and looked at me. “What?”

“Snap out of it,” I whispered to her.

She shook her head. “Yeah, yeah, right.”

I introduced her. “Boys, this is May. May, this is Vance Crowe, Lee Nightingale and Luke Stark.”

They all turned amused looks to her.

She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times and then said in a breathy voice, “Hi ya’ll.”

I looked at Vance and shook my head. He just gave me one of his grins. This made my belly flutter, especially when my mind took that unfortunate moment to fast forward to what was supposed to happen later that night. It was like he read my mind and his grin turned wicked. I frowned. When I did so, I wasn’t sure, but it looked like he was again trying hard not to laugh.

“We need to talk,” Lee cut in to Vance and my bizarre nonverbal exchange but he was looking around at all the kids watching us. “You have somewhere private?” he asked when he turned to me.

May threw up a hand. “I’ll go check. See if one of the counseling rooms is open. Won’t be a minute.” Then she whirled and trotted off.

I looked back at The Boys. “What’s up?” I asked.

“Private,” Luke said and at this single word I sucked in my lips thinking this was not good.

“Hey Crowe,” Sniff greeted, as if Crowe was his best friend and they hung out all the time. He came up on one side of me.

Roam silently moved in at my other side.

“Sniff,” Crowe replied then he looked at Roam who was standing between Vance and I. “Roam,” he said.

Roam nodded his greeting.

“Throw rocks at any dealers lately?” Crowe asked.

Roam’s body jerked, not sure if Crowe was f**king with him in a good way or a bad way and I watched them both closely.

“No,” Roam answered hesitantly.

“Too bad,” Luke put in, “Shard won’t forget you anytime soon.”

Roam’s eyes swung to Luke and I saw hope fill them for a second, before he hid it. “Yeah?” Roam asked, trying to be cool.

“Yeah,” Luke answered. “Not sure that’s a good thing, kid. We let him go; he may come lookin’ for you.”

Roam’s body went stiff, whether from fear or what he thought was an admonishment from Stark, I couldn’t tell.

“That won’t happen,” Crowe offered casually but there was a fierce undercurrent to his words as if he would, personally, be looking out for Roam.

Roams eyes skidded to Vance and the hope in them lasted longer this time. I felt what was becoming a familiar warmth start to spread through me as I looked between Vance and Roam.

“You studyin’?” Vance asked him.

Roam nodded.

“You are not, Roam,” Sniff put in, ever the big mouth.

“Shut up, Sniff,” Roam hissed then looked at Crowe. “I’m gonna get my diploma. Then I’ll come lookin’ for you.”

Vance’s eyes moved to me. “Likely you won’t have to come lookin’,” he said.

Oh my God.

What in the hell did that mean?

I stared at him, the warmth had turned to fire and I stopped breathing.

Sniff was looking between Vance and me. “You guys gonna get married or somethin’?” Sniff asked.

My eyes unlocked from Vance’s and my head snapped around to glare at Sniff. I let out my breath in a whoosh using all my strength not to strangle the life out of him.

“Sniff!” I clipped, my body burning for an entirely different reason. “Why on earth would you say such a thing?”

“What?” he asked, all innocent, looking at me. “It could happen. I could be, like, your pall bearer or something.”

I heard Luke chuckle. I knew it was amusing, however, I thought it would be a lot more amusing if it was happening to someone else.

“Ring bearer, stupid. A pall bearer carries a casket,” Roam told him. “And anyway, you’re too old to be a ring bearer. You could be an usher, they seat people.”

“How you know all this shit about weddings?” Sniff asked and then didn’t wait for an answer but kept right on talking, as usual. “Just as long as I get to wear one of them fancy suits. Those are the shit.”

“Stop saying shit,” I cut in, having had enough. “Don’t you boys have an appointment with the tutor about now?”

Sniff grinned at me. “Yeah.”

“Well then, go.” I took a deep breath and turned back to the Nightingale Boys.

As I guessed, they were all looking at me with their amused faces.

Whatever.

I looked to Roam to tell him to go to the tutor but he was looking at Crowe.

“See you around?” Roam asked, not quite able to hide the craving in his voice and I sucked in a breath.

Crowe just looked at him and I felt my heart begin to pound. Then Crowe lifted his hand, and, palm-out, he shoved Roam’s head to the side in one of those macho-man to mini-macho-man head-cuffs.

Crowe’s hand dropped and he murmured, “Yeah.”

Roam’s face split into a huge smile, his glance skidded along Luke and Lee and he turned. His smile hit me and he walked away but before he did he purposefully bumped me with his shoulder in a teenage-boy shoulder bump that was meant to show affection without really showing it. Then he moved away, throwing an arm around Sniff’s neck, putting him in a headlock and taking Sniff with him before Sniff could say anything (else) stupid.

I looked at Vance and felt the clouds that followed my life around crack open for once and gorgeous sunlight beamed down on me.

I’d asked him to be nice to the kid, show him some attention. He had, but he went way beyond the call of duty.

I could have kissed him. Of course, I did not.

May jogged up to us. “Blue room’s free,” she announced.

“Thanks May,” I said, pushing down my thoughts of kissing Crowe, thinking maybe simply thanking him was a better way to go, and leading the Nightingale Boys to the blue room.

I opened the door to the blue room and let them precede me. I caught Crowe by the arm before he went inside and whispered, “After this, I want to talk to you.”

He looked at me closely for a beat trying to read me but I kept my face as blank as I could. Then he nodded. Crowe and I went in and I closed the door behind us.