10

Nico

“You have got to be kidding me,” Nico said as he stepped out of his room.

He’d slept better—slept great, in fact, and woken before his alarm, the gray predawn buoying his room up like a fog bank. His bad mood from the day before had evaporated. He’d felt light, energized, alive as he’d pulled on his running gear. And now this.

Jadon leaned against the opposite wall, a cup of coffee in hand, another cup on the floor beside him. He looked rested, or at least, more rested than he had the day before, and he was dressed in a suit that, although not expensive, was clearly good quality—and, on top of that, had been tailored. Nothing major, but in a few places, it had been taken in or adjusted for a better fit. The result was that it showed off Jadon to perfection: his height, his build, that slab of a chest. Navy wool. A white broadcloth shirt. A garnet-colored tie. He’d confessed, in one of those midnight missives, to being a bit of a clothes horse, but seeing him now, Nico decided he understood why. Clothes looked good on Jadon—some people were born that way. Although Jadon probably looked fine naked as well.

Nico didn’t like where that thought had come from, so he squashed it.

“It’s six o’clock,” Nico said.

“Good morning,” Jadon said. “Going somewhere?”

“For a run. By myself. Before you get here and engage babysitter mode.”

Jadon raised those sandy eyebrows, but all he said was, “I’ve got my gym bag in my car.”

“What time did you get here?”

But Jadon was already handing him both cups of coffee, and as he walked to the stairs, he shot back, “Please don’t make me chase you down.”

Nico scowled until the door swung shut behind him. It was a few minutes before he caught himself smiling, and he decided to put a stop to that immediately.

Like a gentleman, he waited in the hall while Jadon changed, although he had to admit to some thoughts about that expanse of defined chest, the way his arms would look, biceps popping when he pulled off his shirt, the powerful thighs flexing. Maybe, Nico decided, he needed to take Clark up on his offer. Maybe he needed something quick and easy, no strings attached. Maybe he just needed to clear his head.

Last night, he certainly hadn’t been thinking clearly. He blamed it on the cracker-like pizza, and on the bad sleep, and on the annoying revelation that, now that they had passed that weird threshold of spending time together in person, Jadon was turning out to be as funny and sensitive and…Jadon as he had been over text. That was the only way he could explain the near disaster when Jadon had walked him to his room. He had almost said, Do you want to come in? And the part of him that was a good read of this kind of thing thought Jadon would have said yes. And that would have been—

Well, a part of Nico thought treacherously, would that have been so bad?

Yes, he told himself. It would have been—

Jadon’s hand at the small of his back, raising his hips, his fingertips brushing electricity into Nico’s spine.

—a disaster.

The door opened, and Jadon stepped out. The shorts hit him above the knee. The shirt looked like it was glued to his chest, even under the hoodie. All of it was the kind of high-tech athletic fabric that went perfectly with the expensive-but-broken-in running shoes. Good Lord, the man even had calf muscles. And Nico was immediately aware of his own skinny calves, the ratty shorts, the Nirvana tee that had been a Target find.

“It’s chilly,” Jadon said. “You might want a jacket.”

“I’ll be fine.”

A little smudge of a furrow appeared between Jadon’s eyebrows, but Nico didn’t give him time to object. He headed out of the dorm, and they emerged into the October morning. It was cold beyond crisp, full of the sweetness of damp earth, the sky like a ring of lead, and it made him think of biting into an apple that had been kept at the back of the refrigerator. It also made him think Jadon had probably been right about the jacket.

But he took off at a jog, and Jadon paced easily alongside him. They followed Kingshighway for a block, and the street was empty at this hour except for a lone Escalade, white, buzzing every time the beat dropped. They crossed at a light, ignoring the WAIT sign, and started into Forest Park.

“You’re now officially a criminal,” Nico told Jadon. “You’re a felony jaywalker. You’re going to be stripped of your badge.”

“I’m going to be stripped, huh?” Jadon said. And he didn’t do anything—his face didn’t change at all—but it was like he was smiling. Or maybe that was because Nico was smiling, and when he realized it, he forgot he was supposed to be annoyed at Jadon showing up so early today.

Before Nico could reply, Jadon moved into the lead. He was only a couple of inches taller than Nico, so Nico didn’t have an easy excuse like Jadon had longer legs or anything like that. The fact was that Jadon was strong and athletic and conditioned, and it showed as they ran. Nico kept up, but only barely—and, he was aware, only because Jadon allowed it. Don’t make me chase you down. Nico shivered, and it was only partly from the cold. Part, he could admit in the silence of the morning, was the thought of Jadon catching him.

They ran past lakes, where rushes bristled with frost and cattails exploded in fluffy white seed heads that, at first, Nico mistook for snow. They ran down footpaths, the gravel puffing dust under every step, and on either side, prairie grass grew to Nico’s shoulders and stirred like something sleeping. The park wasn’t empty—they passed another runner, a Black man with a tiny Bluetooth clipped to his belt, a Miley Cyrus song carrying him in the opposite direction. A bird wheeled over head—something large and strong and beautiful, but in a way that suggested the capacity for violence. It made Nico think of the way Jadon opened and closed his hands sometimes. The way, when Jadon stood suddenly, he remembered how big he was. A white-tailed doe broke trembling from a stand of oaks and stared at them, breath steaming from her nose, before running toward the next tree line. The sky was melting into blue.

A massive stone colonnade led into a building with the words MUNICIPAL THEATER written above the entrance. Then they cut away from the paved road again, following the bank of a creek. The illusion that they’d left the city only lasted a few moments: the beat of their footsteps echoing back from trees and sedge and water. Then a horn honked, and they reached pavement again, and Jadon led them along the sidewalk. An enormous basin opened on their left, the water hard and gray, cigarette butts bobbing against the walkway. Then a hill that left Nico’s legs burning. The Art Museum, with its stern Roman lines. The Zoo, with its humped wire baskets—the aviaries, Nico guessed.

At the rise of another hill, Jadon slowed. He wasn’t breathing hard, of course, but Nico was drawing in deep lungfuls of the cold morning. His body was pleasantly loose and warm, and as it usually did, the rush of the endorphins had left his brain quiet. For a moment, they walked together. And then Nico saw it.

His first thought was that it was something out of a fairy tale—or a Disney movie. An ice castle, maybe. But then his brain caught up with him, and he realized it was some kind of greenhouse. The entrance was the same limestone he’d seen elsewhere in the park. But after that, the building was all glass—panels joined by verdigris copper strips, rising in tiers like a wedding cake. The sun was starting to come up, and it painted the topmost tier with fire, except in a few places, where it caught the edges of the glass and broke into a rainbow.

“Holy shit.”

Jadon laughed quietly.

“It’s beautiful,” Nico said. Then he shoved Jadon. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“That we were going somewhere cool instead of, I don’t know, trying to give me a heart attack.”

Jadon answered with a small smile.

They kept walking, moving around the building. The inside of the glass was beaded with moisture, and lush, tropical greenery filled the space that Nico could see.

“I love coming here in the morning,” Jadon said. “It’s a little too far for a weekday run, but I used to come here on the weekends. Kind of a treat.”

Nico hopped up onto the edge of one of the planters. It was cold, but the sun fell on his face, and he closed his eyes. The breeze picked up, flash-freezing the sweat on the back of his neck. He shivered.

The sound of a zipper made Nico open his eyes. Jadon was turning himself out of his hoodie.

“Oh no,” Nico said, hugging himself. “You told me to bring a jacket, and I acted like a brat, which means I’m going to suffer the consequences.”

“That seems pretty silly,” Jadon said as he draped the hoodie around Nico. He gave him a one-sided smile and tugged the hood up over Nico’s hair, and for some reason that made Nico laugh. “And I don’t think you were being a brat.”

Nico gave him cock-eyed as he fixed the hood.

“Okay,” Jadon said with a laugh of his own. “Maybe a little.”

He sat on the planter next to Nico. Their legs brushed once. The hoodie was warm and smelled a little like Jadon’s sweat—and it wasn’t exactly unpleasant. Jadon looked at the building, and his voice was softer when he said, “It’s called the Jewel Box.”

There were so many things Nico wanted to ask. Why didn’t you tell me about this? That was one of them, and although it seemed like such a small thing, he wondered—they had told each other a lot during those late-night texts. Why not this? And why had everything changed when Jadon had given Nico his hoodie? Nico couldn’t put his finger on the exact difference, but he felt it, the way he had felt the smile that hadn’t made its way to Jadon’s face earlier. I’m going to get stripped, huh? The silence, maybe, was deeper. Or something else. Something about the way he craned his head. The way he was framed against the sun, the lines of his neck on display. The way their breathing seemed to line up. Heat, Nico thought he had learned in school, was a hundred thousand million particles moving around like crazy. He felt like he was sweating again.

Which was why he said, “That’s not a treat, by the way.”

Jadon made a sound that suggested he’d already forgotten his own words.

“Coming here to run on the weekends. That doesn’t count as a treat. A treat is, like, a brownie sundae. Or a ginger-cranberry whiskey sour and a ribeye as big as your head. Oh, and mashed potatoes. Oh! Or a treat is ordering an entire birthday cake from the Piggly-Wiggly, and you make them do the birthday writing on it, only you tell them some other name and have a whole story about how you’re doing the Big Brother program, and won’t he be happy, and then it takes you three days to eat that cake by yourself.”

Jadon gave him a look.

“Don’t judge me! It was an emergency!”

“An emergency that could be fixed by cake?”

“The emergency was that I wanted cake, so, yes, smartass.”

Jadon laughed. Sweat and the breeze had mussed his hair, usually spiked to GQ perfection. One little spike had somehow fallen across his forehead, and it lay there now, dark with sweat. The way his cheek shifted when he smiled. Everyone’s cheeks moved when they smiled, Nico knew; that was basically the definition of a smile. But the way Jadon’s did…

Nico resettled himself on the planter. And, in the process, his shoulder came to rest against Jadon’s.

He liked the idea that they might have sat that way forever if someone hadn’t interrupted them. A man strode past, phone pressed to his ear, shouting, “I don’t care whose funeral it is. I need those numbers by tomorrow! Then get yourself a new fucking job!”

As the man’s tirade faded into the distance, Jadon made a face. “Glad everybody’s enjoying the morning.”

“Kierkegaard says truth is subjectivity,” Nico said without meaning to. “And subjectivity is truth.”

Jadon raised an eyebrow.

“That was super nerdy,” Nico said. “I am so sorry. It’s this seminar; I’ve been quoting Kierkegaard reflexively, and apparently I can’t turn it off. It won’t happen again.”

Jadon’s eyebrow lowered. That little smudge of a furrow was back. In the distance, a woodpecker was going to town on a tree.

“What does it mean?” Jadon asked.

With a laugh, Nico shook his head. “That’s nice, but I promise, I don’t need to talk about my research. It’s, like, soul-crushingly boring to anyone who has a life. I appreciate that you asked, though.”

“I didn’t ask to be nice. I want to know.”

“I promise, you don’t.”

“And I’m telling you I do. So, either you’re calling me a liar, or you don’t believe me, and I don’t like either of those options.”

The change in tone caught Nico off guard. “No, I didn’t think—I mean, I thought you were being polite.”

“I’m not.”

“Obviously.”

That made Jadon huff an amused breath, and some of the tension went out of the air, but the expectancy on his face was still a kind of demand.

“So—do you know much about Kierkegaard?”

“Nothing.”

“Okay, well—do you know what existentialism is?”

“I mean, I’ve heard of it.”

“Okay.” Nico thought for a moment. “Kierkegaard was a philosopher, I guess. But mostly he was a theologian. And one of the things he struggled with was why people believe in God, or I guess, how people have faith might be a better way to put it. And he believed that faith is, well, absurd. That’s not what the word he uses, but, like, it’s irrational. And so one of his big ideas is that faith requires believers to make a leap of faith—that’s his term, by the way. They have to make an irrational jump beyond reason. Faith means acknowledging that there’s something beyond reason, something greater.”

Jadon was quiet for a long time. The woodpecker, in contrast, was having its way with that tree.

“I thought you were an atheist,” Jadon finally said.

“I am. I think.” Nico laughed, and Jadon laughed too after a moment. “I mean, I’m not into any organized stuff. I don’t even know if I believe in God. But I find the idea of something more than reason compelling. And Kierkegaard, what he says about angst, about this existential dread connected to freedom and infinite possibilities and how our own life is limited and finite—I don’t know. I found him when I was going through some hard stuff, and it changed a lot of how I see the world.” Nico shook his head and gave another quiet laugh. “Kind of like this weird conversion that wasn’t, you know, religious.”

The silence felt longer this time.

“Sorry,” Nico said. “I told you this was boring. And, I am now realizing with exquisite horror, super weird.”

“It’s not weird. Or boring. What about that quote you said? What does that mean?”

“Oh. Well, a big deal for Kierkegaard is that truth might not be subjective, but we reach it through subjectivity. So, objective fact—kind of like reason—aren’t the most important thing in determining the truth. Individual experience affects how facts are integrated into someone’s life. And our individual experiences carry their own form of truth. So, I can sit here, and I can have this beautiful morning, and I feel connected to—” Nico barely stopped himself from saying, You. “—everything around me, and I know, in this fundamentally indescribable way, what it feels like to be alive. And an asshole on a phone walks by, and he doesn’t get any of that.”

Jadon nodded slowly.

“I know,” Nico said. “Weird.”

“What’s weird is that you lied about the birthday cake, Nico. It’s not like someone was going to check your story and verify that the cake was for a terminally ill child.”

“I never said—” Nico stopped, mouth open in outrage. “You asshole!”

With a smirk, Jadon slid off the planter. He held out a hand. Nico let him help him down, aware of the strength in Jadon’s grip, aware—in a way that sent all those molecules into a frenzy of spinning again—of how gentle he was. Then Nico shoved him.

Jadon staggered back, the big faker.

“You are an asshole,” Nico said and shoved him again.

“I give up! I surrender!”

Scoffing, Nico turned and started toward the sidewalk.

Jadon, the dumbass, was chuckling when he caught up.

“Your turn,” Nico said as they started down the hill.

“For what?”

“To expose some embarrassing secret vulnerability. Let’s go back to the potty-training years.”

“Good Lord,” Jadon said under his breath. In a stronger voice, he said, “Just so you know, I like learning stuff, believe it or not. And I like—” The hesitation was so slight that, if Nico hadn’t been a hundred percent attuned to Jadon and hyperprocessing every cue—he might have missed it. “—learning stuff about you.”

“Quit stalling. How about embarrassing boners, the middle school edition?”

“Oh my God, one time when we were running the track.”

“Big deal. It happens to everyone in gym class.”

“The entire time you’re running the mile? The gym teacher said I broke a school record.”

Nico laughed. The breeze picked up in the trees ahead of them. Branches moved. Light flashed on mottled bark. Pompom clusters of seeds drifted out across the sky. Put your arm around me, dumbass, Nico thought. Hold my hand.

But instead, Jadon said, “Do you remember I asked you for a favor?”

“You told me going to dinner with you would be a favor. Which—keep this in your back pocket—is actually a terrible pickup line. Next time, try telling me how you’re so desperate for me that if I don’t go to dinner with you, you won’t eat or sleep, you’ll waste away because all you’ll be able to do is think about me.”

“Yeah,” Jadon said. “That doesn’t sound psycho at all.”

“A little psycho is cute.”

“You might be a niche audience.”

“Tell me about the favor.”

“So—” Jadon hesitated, and it was hard to tell because of the run, because the whole world seemed pink in the sunrise, but it looked like he might be blushing. “So, I’ve kind of been going through it. Okay, not kind of. I’m a mess.” And then, like a man plunging off a cliff, “And that’s part of the reason I stopped texting, which I realize was a shitty thing to do, and I’m sorry.”

Their footsteps rang out against the pavement for a few yards before Nico said, “Okay.”

“You’re not going to scream at me?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Make a scene?”

“Maybe later.”

“I was under the impression there would be…consequences.”

Jadon’s words carried a note of humor, like he was trying to keep things light, but he wasn’t joking, not entirely. That had been one of those sleepless confessions, Nico explaining—why, oh God, why had he decided to explain—all the stupid things he did when he felt scared and threatened and vulnerable. But he’d been working on them. He’d been working on himself. And, more to the point, he didn’t feel vulnerable right then. If anything, the opposite—because he could tell, from the way Jadon’s shoulders hunched, the way he hugged himself, the way he turned his head slightly so his breath steamed off to the side, that Jadon was feeling vulnerable and exposed and maybe even a little frightened. And Nico wanted to make that better for him.

“Okay, so, you’re a wreck.”

Jadon groaned.

“Get it? Wreck. Reck. Jadon Reck.”

“I’ve never heard that one before.”

Nico shoved him. In a supportive way. “Keep talking, dummy. Don’t make me pry it out of you.”

“Okay, well, I haven’t been handling…life, I guess. Not well, anyway.” He drew in a slow breath, and Nico thought of how Jadon had looked the day before, bags under his eyes, his color bad, the hundred little tells of a man hanging on by his fingertips. “And apparently, there are going to be consequences if I don’t pull it together. Like, I’m going to be found unfit for service.” A white cloud of laughter exploded out of him. “Jesus Christ, I can’t even believe it, hearing it out loud.”

“God, Jay. I’m so sorry.”

With a grimace, Jadon shrugged. “I’ll figure it out. Cerise is probably right; I guess I’ve been letting things…slide.”

Nico thought about how letting things slide didn’t quite explain how Jadon looked hollowed out, run down, worn to the bone.

“You know, John-Henry, Emery’s husband, he’s got all these gay romance novels.”

“Huh?”

“Like My Gay Christmas Prince. And My Gay Christmas Billionaire. And My Billionaire Bear. Oh, and Alphas under the Mistletoe. That one was raunchy.”

Jadon’s eyes narrowed.

“So,” Nico said in what he considered his most helpful tone, “if you’re going to try a fake boyfriend stunt, you should probably borrow some of his books. Because the fake boyfriend thing shows up all the time.”

Another laugh escaped Jadon, and even after it faded, little crinkles remained around his eyes as he studied Nico. “So, I need a fake boyfriend, huh?”

“You obviously need help. And I’m your friend, so I’m helping.” Then Nico smirked. “Besides, I notice a significant lack of real boyfriends.”

“You’re not wrong there.”

They crossed one of the old, graceful bridges, and Nico let his hand trail over the pebbled concrete of the parapet. The roughness of it, the cold, they seemed to wake him up. The sun slanted through the trees in long, pale shafts, and everything was still touched by that rose-colored light. It was like he hadn’t been awake in a long time.

“It’s hard, you know,” Jadon said, but it sounded like he was talking to himself. “Being police. Seeing the stuff I see. Bringing it home to someone else, making them share it.”

“Someone who loves you, someone who cares about you, you’re not making them share it. The right guy is going to want to share it, because it means sharing more of your life, and it means another way he can support you.”

Jadon made a noise that could have meant anything. “It’s the hours. That’s what it always comes down to.”

“I thought it was bringing bad stuff home.”

“The work never stops. Even when I take time off, I get calls, or I have to follow up on a witness, or a report is due. It’s not the right time in my life; I’m too busy.”

Nico didn’t say it, but it sounded like bullshit.

“Well, I don’t know why I’m single,” Nico said, “because I’m a gem.”

A huge grin spread across Jadon’s face.

“Something to say?” Nico asked.

Jadon shook his head. He even raised his hands in surrender.

Nico snorted. He stopped to lean against the parapet. Cold soaked into him, and even inside Jadon’s hoodie, he shivered. Jadon hadn’t complained about the cold, but he folded his arms, and his nipples looked dark and stiff under the athletic fabric of his tee.

“Do I have to?” Nico asked.

“What?”

“No, it’s okay. I have to.” He blew out a breath. “I don’t know. I mean, I got so sick of it. Dating, I mean. And then even hooking up started to feel awful. I mean, there’s only so many times you can see a guy’s eyes light up because you tell him you used to model underwear and then, over and over again, see how disappointed he is when the fantasy doesn’t live up to the reality. Not to mention the whole I-give-high-maintenance-a-new-definition thing.”

He tried to smile, but he was surprised that his face felt stiff. The cold, maybe.

For what felt like a long time, Jadon looked at him. Then he said, “I don’t know. You don’t seem high maintenance to me.”

Nico’s eyes felt hot. The cold again.

“Really,” Jadon said to the silent question, and then he chuckled. “For example, you’ve never asked me to do a dopamine detox with you. And you never asked me to help you put together your hope chest. And you never once asked me to use my official police resources to investigate the Silicone Butt Plug Killer.”

Blinking his eyes clear, Nico loosed a wet laugh. “You’re making that up.”

“Hello, I dated Shaw. He got super high and watched something about Brazilian butt lifts. Don’t ask me how it turned into butt plugs.”

“I think I have an idea.”

That made Jadon grin. Then something else appeared in his expression; for lack of anything else, Nico would have called it surprise, as though something had startled Jadon—snuck up on him and caught him unaware. His face smoothed into troubled stillness.

“You can, uh, talk to me, you know,” Nico said. “About stuff. Work stuff.”

Jadon stared at him.

“If you want to talk to someone, dummy! Like, if you need to talk when you get home at night. I mean, I’m still awake, you know. And you still have my phone number.”

Down below, a flock of Canada geese shuffled along the edge of the stream, making geese sounds to each other, the whole lot of them sounding like malcontents. After approximately an eternity, Jadon nodded. “Thanks.”

“So, text me. Or call me. Or something. You know, so you don’t turn into a shambling disaster of a human being.”

“This might not sound as supportive as you think it does.”

“Of course it does,” Nico said loftily. “Being supportive is what I do.”

Rather than give Jadon an opportunity to debate that—and before Jadon’s nipples froze off—Nico started walking again.

They didn’t make it far. On the other side of the bridge, a Canada goose waddled up from the stream and glared at Nico. Then it honked.

“Jesus Christ,” Nico said, skipping down from the sidewalk and moving halfway into the road. The goose kept glaring at him.

Jadon, the big asshole, started laughing.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Nico asked. Loudly. “That thing tried to kill me, and you stood there laughing!”

Jadon laughed harder.

“Here I am, being the single most supportive man in your life, and you’re going to stand there and shit yourself laughing while a goose disembowels me!”

Somehow, Jadon managed to quell his laughter. Giving the goose a wide berth, he moved down into the road. His movements became watchful and guarded, and he took Nico by the back of the neck and forced him into the crouch. He scanned the area around them. He pretended to speak into a mic. “The eagle is under attack. Repeat, the eagle is under attack.”

“Get off me!”

“Swarm, swarm, swarm!”

Nico was still trying to wrench himself free from Jadon when Jadon pulled him into a stumbling run. They looped around the goose, sprinting down the asphalt until, laughing again, Jadon towed Nico up onto the sidewalk. Nico was laughing too, but he swatted Jadon until he released him.

“Asshole!”

“All clear,” Jadon said. “Repeat, the eagle is all clear.”

“You are such a jerk! And you think it’s funny, and that’s so much worse!”

The laughter had faded into a glimmer of a smile. Nico was suddenly aware of Jadon’s quiet breathing, the tiny plumes of white, the way his chest rose and fell evenly. That single lock of hair was still stuck to his forehead. It was unfair and unjust and a sign of how messed up the universe was that when everybody else (i.e., Nico) was a sweaty mess after a run, Jadon looked like his shirt had been painted on, the definition of pecs and abs visible through the thin tee.

“I’ve been thinking about last night,” he said. “About that guy following you. I want to show you something.”

“What?”

Jadon took him by the shoulders and turned him. Then his arms slid around Nico’s waist, and the length of his body pressed against Nico’s, and Nico had enough blood left in his brain to think, That is definitely his dick, before Jadon started to speak, the words low and buzzing against Nico’s ear.

“If someone grabs you from behind, there are a few simple ways to escape.”

“Oh.”

Nico’s brain told him, a moment later, he had said it out loud, which was a good sign his next calendar appointment would be to crawl into a sewer and die of sheer and total humiliation.

Fortunately, Jadon either didn’t hear or didn’t care because he kept talking. “You can go limp and drop to the ground. He won’t be expecting that, and most likely, you’ll slip free and be able to run. Go ahead.”

“I don’t need you to—”

“The more you argue, the longer this is going to take.”

“Excuse me?”

A tiny rumble of laughter, and—that was definitely Jadon’s dick. Like, one hundred percent.

“Nico?”

“Hm?”

“Drop to the ground, please.”

“Uh—oh.”

Out loud. Again.

Nico let himself fall. Jadon didn’t drop him, but he did, with a kind of exaggerated showiness, lower Nico and then release him. Nico got to his feet, and Jadon motioned for him to turn around again. His arms wrapped Nico a moment later. And Nico realized, with the inevitability of somebody watching a rocket launch, that he was chubbing up.

“Another option,” Jadon said in that same low, firm voice, “is to fall forward. Go ahead and try that one too.”

Nico did. And he stayed on the cold concrete, hoping for frostbite and shrinkage and anything, basically, that would save him from the embarrassment of that particular moment.

“Nico?”

“Right. Getting up now.”

Once again, Jadon’s arms encircled him, the hard lines of Jadon’s body tight against him. Do not, Nico told himself. Do not. Don’t you dare—

“You can also stomp on their foot.” When Jadon nudged the back of Nico’s knee, Nico pretended to bring his foot down on top of Jadon’s. “Good. Or you can go for their ears, their eyes, their nose, or their throat.”

He made Nico try each one, although fortunately, Nico wasn’t required to actually stick a finger up Jadon’s nose.

“If they grab you like this—” Jadon said, and he wrapped one hand—one big, strong hand with unmistakably masculine fingers—around Nico’s throat.

And that was when Nico lost yet another battle.

“—you can try any of the techniques we talked about, but you can also grab their fingers. You want to try to bend them back as far as you can, as hard as you can. Try to break them if that’s possible. Go on.”

It shouldn’t have had this effect on him. It shouldn’t have made him tent his shorts, made him aware of the blood pounding in his ears, embarrassed by his body’s reaction and unable to do anything about it. It shouldn’t have been so fucking hot. But when he grabbed one of Jadon’s fingers and pulled lightly, arousal washed through him again, even as Nico tried, desperately, to remember why it had seemed so important, not so long ago, to prevent anything like this from happening.

Jadon let Nico peel his hand away, and then he stepped back. The cold pressed against Nico’s back like a flat, hard hand. His cheeks were hot. He shoved his fists into the hoodie’s pockets and prayed to the saint of unruly boners that the old middle-school trick would provide cover once again.

“How do you feel?” Jadon asked when Nico finally turned around.

Nico’s voice sounded thick when he said, “Fine.”

“Any questions?”

Nico shook his head.

That little smudge of worry was back. “I’m sorry if that wasn’t appropriate. I—I thought of it, and I didn’t actually stop to think if it was a good idea.”

“No.” That was better—a little more normal, a little less like a teenage boy whose voice was about to break. “No, that was—thank you.”

Behind them, a goose honked furiously. Jadon’s mouth slanted into a smirk. Nico shoved him off the sidewalk.

Then, with a backwards grin for Jadon, Nico took off running back to the dorm.