“You’re a regular van Gogh.”
“For what it’s worth, I like all your parts where they are,” Gibby said, squeezing her knee.
“I would give you my ear if you wanted,” Jazz said, blue eyes wide as she snapped her gum. “But then my face wouldn’t be perfectly symmetrical.” She frowned. “Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.”
“Uh-huh,” Nick said. “Fascinating. Really. So, Gibby, you survived the Summer of Love. Congrats.”
She’d been gone for the last few months, her parents deciding that their family needed to rent an old van and travel the country under the guise of touring colleges, but in actuality, they were commune-hopping as they’d both embraced a midlife crisis head-on (Gibby’s words) and believed they made better hippies than they did accountants. Apparently, they thought the free love community needed more Black people.
Nick didn’t know what to do with any of that, so he’d patted Gibby on the arm in June and told her to have fun.
He’d managed to avoid a boot to the balls. Barely.
Lola Gibson was fierce that way.
Her girlfriend, Jasmine Kensington, hadn’t been pleased at the idea of Gibby being gone for so long. It certainly hadn’t helped her anxiety that Gibby was in her senior year and would be graduating, heading off into the big, wide world before she did. Jazz told Gibby she wasn’t allowed to fall in love with some flower child who wore skirts made of hemp that she later smoked. Gibby had agreed immediately, not bothering to correct her girlfriend that most flower children didn’t smoke their clothes.
Nick thought they were disgustingly sweet. Or sweetly disgusting. It really depended on the day.
Gibby had gotten back a week ago, but Jazz had made it clear in no uncertain terms that she’d get all of Gibby’s time before school started. Which was fine, seeing as how Nick had been busy trying to finish up the latest chapter of This Is Where We Scorch the Earth. They had their priorities, and he had his.
Besides, hanging out with Jazz and Gibby while they reconnected after a months-long separation would have probably meant watching them make out and whisper lovingly in each other’s ears, and Nick wasn’t masochistic enough to bear witness to that for any length of time. He loved his queer girls. He just didn’t want to watch them swallow each other’s tongues, which was why he’d given them their space. He was selfless that way.
“Summer of Love,” Gibby repeated. She didn’t sound amused.
Nick took a step back to protect his nuts. Her boots looked new. He didn’t want to take the chance they were steel-toed. Also, her wallet chain was bigger than the one she’d had before, and he wasn’t versed well enough in lesbian to know if that signified anything.
Gibby rolled her eyes. “If I ever have to sit in another drum circle again in my life, I’ll likely end up a mass murderer.”
“Pick a school yet?”
Jazz frowned. Gibby glared. Nick took another step back.
“I haven’t decided,” Gibby said through gritted teeth. “But thank you for caring about my future and bringing it up right at this very moment.”
“Yeah,” Nick said. “I tend to speak before I think. I’ll just—”
“I can take it,” Jazz said earnestly. “I mean, sure, I’ll probably cry and then my makeup will be ruined and it’ll be all your fault, but I can take it. I have lady balls.”
“I know you do,” Gibby said. “But I haven’t made any decisions yet. You’ll be the first to know.”
Jazz seemed placated for the moment. Nick wondered how long it would last.
But then Gibby smiled at him, and he realized he should have kept his big mouth shut. Lola Gibson had three smiles: the loving one she gave to Jazz, the one she had when she was trying not to laugh, and the one when she was about to be a magnificent dick. He’d borne the brunt of that last smile many times before, and it never failed to make goose bumps sprout along the back of his neck.
“So, Nicky,” she said, and Nick gave very serious thought to ducking into the crowd and disappearing forever. “Speaking of the Summer of Love, how’s Owen doing?”
Nick scowled at her. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Uh-huh. And how’s Seth?”
He scowled deeper. “I still have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Jazz, never having learned how to read a room, said, “I thought Owen and Nick broke up? Remember? Nick said Owen was a dumbass, and Owen was his usual self and said he couldn’t be tamed by one person, and then Seth said he—”
Gibby slapped a hand over Jazz’s mouth, cutting her off.
Nick knew he was blushing, but he powered through it. “What did Seth say?”
They ignored him in favor of having a silent conversation involving narrowed eyes and wiggling eyebrows. It went on for far longer than Nick was comfortable with. Finally, Jazz nodded as Gibby dropped her hand back to her own lap.
Jazz said, “I mean, I don’t even know what we’re talking about right now. Did I tell you about the pigeon and the burrito? It was a breakfast burrito.” She squinted up at him. “And a huge pigeon.”
Nick crossed his arms. “It was months ago. We weren’t—it wasn’t like we were even boyfriends, or anything. Owen was…”
Nick didn’t know quite how to finish that sentence. In fact, most of the time, he didn’t know how to describe anything about Owen Burke. Oh, sure, Owen was hot and popular, and everyone seemed to worship the ground he walked on given that he somehow had the gravitational force of a super planet. All he had to do was grin devilishly, and most everyone (queer or not) would end up doing whatever he wanted.
Including Nick, much to his dismay.
Before Christmas break last year, Owen had appeared at their lunch table, smile wide and toothy, looking devastating in a leather jacket that had probably once been the finest bovine in the field. They knew who he was, of course; everyone did. He came from big money (perhaps the biggest of all), his father being Simon Burke, CEO of Burke Pharmaceuticals. Seth was convinced it was a front for something nefarious, but Seth always thought everything was a front for something nefarious. Including Owen.
Nick, though. Nick had been … well. Not enamored, not exactly. But he’d been fifteen years old and hormonal, and Owen was probably the hottest guy in school, and for some reason, had decided to make Nick the focus of his attention.
Therefore, Nick proceeded to make an ass of himself on a regular basis.
Jazz had been confused. Gibby had been annoyed. And Seth?
Seth had withdrawn. Just a little at first, but it should have been enough to set off Nick’s internal alarms. But Nick had been sucked in by Planet Owen, and it wasn’t until Seth became downright hostile—something Nick hadn’t expected from his best friend of nearly a decade—that he’d gotten a clue something was off. It was never to Owen’s face (Seth was far too pure for that), but when it was just Seth and Nick, and Nick mentioned Owen for the tenth time in thirty-six minutes? Yeah, Seth could be hostile.
“It was nothing,” Nick finally said. “I barely even saw him this summer. I was too busy.”
“Uh-huh,” Gibby said, sounding bored with the entire thing. “Stalking an Extraordinary takes up a lot of time, I suppose.”