Page 27 of Follows with Intent

“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.

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