Page 25 of Follows with Intent

“It’s not terrible,” Nico said after three more squares. “It’s weird.”

“Uh huh.”

“What?”

“It’s hard to hear you with all that pizza crammed in your mouth.”

Nico’s grin was surprisingly boyish. “You noticed I can fit a lot in my mouth.”

Jadon choked on a slice of pepperoni.

They were quiet on the walk back to Harlow Hall, and as they climbed the steps to Nico’s floor, Jadon felt a moment of unreality. It was hard to remember, but maybe this was what it was like to have a normal life: pizza with a cute guy, watching the way his hair moved in the wind, discovering the little mole behind his right ear, realizing that he had an impossibly sexy neck. Like, who knew vertebrae could be hot? Then a quiet walk back to his place. Suddenly Jadon felt hot, sweat like pins and needles under his arms, sweeping across his chest. And his mind started to play out the rest of the scene: the lingering moment at the door, the silence that was a question you were both asking the other, the way sometimes you knew (or, if you were Jadon Reck and you were nineteen, you didn’t know, and you tried to kiss Brit Booth, and he pulled back and you chipped your tooth on the doorjamb).

Nico pushed through the door at the top of the stairs and turned down the hall.

They stopped at his door. Nico took out his key. He looked at it. He looked up. He looked over Jadon’s shoulder, like there was some safe spot he could focus on. He stood hipshot, those dancer lines perfect even in a quarter-zip and chinos, and he still hadn’t said anything. His lips were parted. Jadon thought he could hear those soft, small breaths. He thought he knew what they would feel like if he were close enough. The heat, the hint of the taste of him brushing his lips, before breath joined to breath. A promise.

“I won’t leave the dorm,” Nico said, and although the tone was light, his body was still asking the unasked question. “Swear to God.”

Jadon managed a loose, marionette nod. He was too hot in these sweats. He wasn’t sure he could feel anything below the knee.

“So, you’re going to go home,” Nico prompted. “Shower. Bed. A full night’s sleep.”

The dreams, Jadon thought. The plastic bag over his head like a second skin across his mouth and nose. He nodded.

Neither of them said anything. The clockwork of Jadon’s body told him a million years had gone by, a million years standing here, Nico’s eyes still coal-fires, but softer now, a place to be warm. Nico’s lips still parted. The question still hanging between them.

“Well,” Nico said, “goodnight.”

Jadon gave another of those wobbly nods and backed toward the stairs. His heart was running so fast he thought he might be sick, and distantly, he thought it had been a test, the whole thing had been some sort of test, and he had no idea if he’d passed or failed, if it had been Nico testing him, or if Jadon had been testing himself.

Nico paused, hand on his door as he pushed it open, and looked down the hall to where Jadon was trying to reach the stairwell. “See you in the morning?”

Jadon didn’t trust his voice, but the words that came out were surprisingly smooth. “Of course.”

Nico crooked a rueful smile at him. And then he was gone.

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?”

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