Page 26 of Follows with Intent

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.

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