Michael! Do not pick up the babies! ”

Nick held still. It was rare that Michael would talk about Mom and Dad.

He kept talking. “But even when you grew older and got your own beds, we’d always find you in there with him in the morning. Curled up on top of his covers, just sleeping next to him. Mom used to say that you always knew when your brother needed you.” He paused. “I used to find you like that after they died.”

Emotion balled up a fist and struck Nick square in the chest.

He tried to breathe around it. He remembered that. He remembered it.

“She was wrong,” he said, his voice husky. “That was when I needed him.”

“I don’t think so, Nick,” Michael said quietly. “If that were true, he’d know your secret.”

Nick rolled that around in his head for a moment.

Michael kept going. “And look, I can’t pretend to understand this twin thing you two have. But I know Gabriel knows you.

And right now, he knows you’re keeping something from him.

It’s probably tearing him up.”

Nick wanted to scoff, but he couldn’t. He felt it every time he was in the house.

Too bad he was such a creepy freak, or he’d do something about it.

“Do you think maybe you resent him for not figuring it out on his own?” Michael said. “Or for not pushing you to tell him?”

Nick snapped his eyes up. “No.”

But he’d answered without thinking about it. Now the thought was lodged in his brain and he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

He could picture Gabriel right now. Sitting with Layne, working through math problems, trying to get his grades up so he could take the firefighter course in the spring.

But he was thinking about Nick. Nick could feel it.

His cell phone chimed.

A message from Gabriel.

How long do I have to leave you alone?

Nick turned the phone around to show Michael, who rolled his eyes and said, “See?”

Nick slid his fingers across the screen to respond.

But then he changed his mind, deleted what he’d typed, and shoved the phone back in his pocket.

He took a gulp of his rapidly cooling coffee. “I don’t want to talk about him anymore.”

“All right. Another question then.” Now Michael looked the slightest bit flustered. “Is there . . . you know . . . a guy in the picture?”

Nick couldn’t keep the blush from his cheeks. “Ah . . . yeah.”

“Aha. I was wondering why you told me now. Does he go to your school?”

“No.”

Michael stopped with the mug halfway to his mouth. “Please tell me he’s not thirty-five and you met him on craigslist.”

Nick glared at him. “No. Jesus, Michael. He’s nineteen. He dances with Quinn.”

“So all this time you’ve been spending with Quinn . . .”

“I’ve been spending with Adam.” His jaw tightened. “And Quinn has been spending with Tyler.”

“Whoa!” Michael’s eyebrows went way up. “Now we’re building a new puzzle.”

“Yeah, it’s fantastic.”

“Can I revel in this first-to-know status and get the whole story?

Or do I have to drag that out of you during another dinner?”

“No,” said Nick, feeling something like relief for the first time in a week. “I’ll tell you everything.”

Michael had always made for a good audience, and he kept his mouth shut while Nick talked.

Until he started laying it out, Nick hadn’t realized how much he’d been carrying around. He felt like sandbags had been strapped to his back for weeks, and now someone had stabbed a hole in one of them: it all poured out. He told Michael about the first night he’d met Adam, the way Quinn had gotten in trouble with some bikers on the beach. He talked about Adam’s audition, and Quinn’s role, and—hesitantly at first—about the first night at Adam’s apartment.

When Michael’s expression didn’t change to disgust, Nick gained momentum, revealing Adam’s past experience and Quinn’s home situation. He talked about the way Tyler had burned her arm, how she’d called Nick to pick her up in the woods, and how he’d snuck her into the house because she didn’t want to go home.

Michael was pissed about that. “Nick, if your friends need help, you need to tell me. Don’t sneak them inside.”

“No girls spending the night, remember?”

“That’s not the same and you know it. Are you aware that when people dump their problems on you, you don’t actually have to solve them by yourself?”

Nick didn’t have an answer for that.

Michael kept going. “I’m actually more concerned with how you describe her home situation than I am about her spending time with Tyler.”

Nick flinched. “She won’t tell me all the details. I don’t know what’s going on at home half the time.”

“If she’s hiding in the woods, it can’t be good.”

Right now, after what she’d done, Nick didn’t really give a shit if Quinn was sleeping in the woods.

No. That wasn’t true. He did care. A lot.

She sure didn’t make it easy. “She says she’s waiting for her brother to go back to school. Her family is under a lot of stress since the fire.”

Michael sighed and ran a hand down his face. “Will she talk to anyone? What about Becca?”