Nick didn’t say anything to that.

Then the waitress was back and Michael was signing his name, and this little moment was ending.

Nick didn’t move. He couldn’t. He felt like he was standing on the edge of a cliff, looking down at water far below. A short flight through air, with an impact that might kill him.

Michael hesitated at the edge of his booth. “You ready?”

“No.”

Say it. Tell him.

Two words. He couldn’t even get two words out of his mouth.

You care more about what other people think than you care about me.

Adam had faced a lot worse than this.

Nick looked at his older brother, then shoved the empty beer glass toward him. He felt dizzy, like the air was too thin to breathe.

His voice came out wispy. “You might want another one.”

“Why?”

“Because you guessed wrong.” He laughed shortly. “Way wrong.”

Michael studied him but didn’t say anything.

Nick took a breath and forced himself to look up. “Michael.

I’m g*y.”

CHAPTER 23

Three feet of wooden table stretched between them, but it might as well have been three miles. This moment between words and reaction seemed to stretch into infinity.

Nick had leapt off that cliff, and now he was waiting to see what he’d hit at the bottom.

Michael eased back into the booth and leaned his forearms on the table. He edged Nick’s half-empty soda glass toward him. “Here. You look like you’re going to pass out.”

Nick couldn’t move. He worried he would pass out if Michael didn’t say something more substantial than that.

The waitress came to the table again, obviously noting that they hadn’t left. She fidgeted, clearly unsettled by the tension.

Or maybe she was cold. Nick tried to get a handle on the temperature in the room.

She picked up the folder with the signed receipt. “Did you boys need anything else?”

“Coffee,” said Michael. “Please.”

She disappeared, leaving them in silence.

Michael cleared his throat. “I don’t know how to say this, Nick . . .”

It was like his older brother had picked up a spear and begun to shove it through Nick’s back. He felt the pain that acutely.

But then Michael winced and looked at him. “Would it be weird if I said that’s not surprising?”

What?

What?

Nick came out of his seat to reach across the table and punch Michael in the shoulder as hard as he could. “You dick. I thought you were about to throw me out of the house.”

Now Michael looked like Nick had checked his brain at the door. “Why on earth would I throw you out of the house?”

“I don’t know! I had no idea how you’d react!”

“You want me to punch you? Cause a scene? We could totally put on a show.”

However Nick had imagined this conversation going, this . . .

this wasn’t it.

Some of the tension slipped from his shoulders. Nick took a long breath and blew it out through his teeth.

“How long have you been carrying that around?” said Michael.

“I don’t know.” Now Nick felt dizzy for an entirely different reason. He gave a choked laugh. “I don’t—a long time.” Then he stopped reeling and looked at his brother. “Why not surprising?”

The waitress chose that exact moment to bring their coffee.

Nick was glad for the distraction, though. It gave him something else to look at, something new to do with his hands.

When she was gone, Michael said, “It’s difficult to explain.

Nothing I would have put my finger on, you know?” He paused, then stirred his coffee. Pointless, since he drank it black—but maybe he needed a minor distraction, too.

“Little things,” he said. “Meaningless things. You’d go out with girls, but you never really talked about them. You’re not aggressive. You’re not . . . Jesus, Nick, I don’t know. I’ve never thought, gee, Nick might be g*y, but when you said it, it was like the last piece of a puzzle, if that makes any sense.”

“It makes sense,” Nick said. He couldn’t quite believe that Michael was sitting here dropping a phrase like Nick might be g*y without batting an eye.

“Am I the last to know, as usual?” Michael said.

“No. The first. Sort of.”

“The first! I should be celebrating.” Then he raised an eyebrow. “Sort of?”

“Hunter knows.”

“How’d he take it?”

Nick shrugged and wondered if there was a safe answer to that question. Well, you know. Last night, he caught me in bed . . .

“Hunter was okay.”

“Yeah, I can’t see him having a problem.” Michael paused.

“Not Gabriel?”

Nick stared into his mug and shook his head.

“So that’s why you two are fighting.”

“We’re not fighting.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

Nick gritted his teeth and looked away. “I don’t want to talk about him.”

“Are you afraid of how he’ll take it?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.”

Michael didn’t say anything for the longest time. After a while, he drained his mug of coffee, then set it back in the saucer.

“I remember,” Michael said, “when you were babies, Gabriel used to scream his fool head off. All the time. He wouldn’t fall asleep at night unless Mom put you in his crib.” He smiled. “It got so that any time he’d fuss, I’d just pick you up and put you next to him.” His smile turned a little sad. “I still remember the one time Mom caught me doing it. She was fit to be tied.