Breathless (Elemental)

by Brigid Kemmerer

  “Hey,” Adam said softly.

  Nick almost didn’t want to glance over.

  But Adam continued. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. Earlier. You know.”

  Nick wasn’t sure what the safe answer to that was. He ran a hand through his hair, feeling it stand up in tufts the way Gabriel’s had back in the kitchen.

  What had Quinn said? Identical on the outside, polar opposites on the inside.

  “It’s cool.” Even his voice sounded strangled.

  But Adam took that at face value, turning his head to look out at the night. They drove in complete silence until Nick realized he was going to have to turn on the radio or talk.

  Music didn’t seem like a good idea.

  “Do you think she’s all right?” Nick said. “Did that guy seem—”

  Adam didn’t look away from the window. His voice was resigned. “He said she’d been ranting about some guy named Nick all night, and then she drank half a bottle of tequila and passed out in the sand. He said my number was the first one in her contacts.”

  Shit.

  Adam glanced over. “You two have a fight?”

  There was absolutely no way Nick could break it down, right here and now. So he just shrugged noncommittally.

  Adam bristled. “Look, if you have a problem with me—”

  “I don’t.” They came to a stop light, and Nick looked at him. The street lights shined through the windshield and caught the caramel highlights in Adam’s skin, painting embers in his hair.

  Nick rubbed his eyes and looked back at the road. “I don’t have a problem with you at all.” He paused. “Quinn and I—we had a misunderstanding. I was trying to help her, but she slammed the door in my face.”

  “How long have you been seeing each other?”

  “Couple weeks.”

  “I’d ask if it was serious, but I think I already know.”

  Nick frowned. “What does that mean?”

  “If a girl’s slamming a door on you two weeks in, it doesn’t exactly bode well for the rest of the relationship.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” Nick sighed. Unfortunately, Quinn and drama seemed to go hand in hand.

  The cab was starting to warm up. He reached for the controls to dial back the air—at exactly the same time Adam stretched out an arm to do the same thing. Their fingers brushed.

  Nick jumped like he’d been stung.

  Then he half-wished he’d left his hand there, just to experience the feeling for one millisecond longer. The touch had been light, brief, but long enough that Nick could imagine the softness of Adam’s skin, the gentle strength of his fingers.

  He had to lock his hands on the steering wheel.

  Adam managed to turn the heat down, but he was studying Nick now.

  Talk. Say something. Anything.

  “How did you and Quinn meet?” Nick said quickly.

  “We met when we were kids. In dance class.”

  “You’re really talented.”

  The words were out before he could stop them. Nick winced. What was he, some teen groupie?

  “Thank you.” Nick could swear Adam was hiding a smile now. “My parents tried to put me in martial arts, but I hated it. Apparently, I was a hyperactive pain in the ass, so dance seemed like the next best thing.”

  “Quinn said you’re trying to get a scholarship. You think you have a shot?”

  Adam shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. If I miss this time, I’ll try again. A little failure never hurt anybody. I know what I want to do with my life.”

  Nick thought of that envelope smashed between textbooks on his desk. The one he was too afraid to open.

  “What about you?” said Adam.

  “I’m a senior. I’m throwing some college apps out there, seeing what happens.”

  “What do your parents think?”

  Nick was used to the question, but it still hit him like a punch, every time. He hated having to rehash it for strangers—but at least they were driving and he could keep his eyes on the road. “My parents died when I was twelve,” he said. “I live with my three brothers.”

  Adam was silent for a moment. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine. Really.”

  Another moment of silence, until Nick was sure Adam was going to press for more information.

  But then he didn’t. “So—what do your brothers think?”

  Nick snorted. “Mixed bag.” He glanced over when they came to a traffic light, and it was a mistake. Because the windows were dark and the cab was warming up, and he wanted to keep on looking.

  He quickly jerked his eyes back to the road ahead and focused on talking. “My older brother says he’s all for it—but I don’t know if that’s true or not. He runs my parents’ landscaping company . . . well, you saw the side of the truck. We all help him, but even still, he barely has time to eat. Losing one of us . . .” Nick just shrugged and didn’t complete the thought.

  “What about your other brothers?”

  “What’s with the twenty questions?”

  Adam looked out the window. “I thought we were having a conversation.”

  Yeah—if a conversation was like stumbling along a dark hallway, wondering what your hands would find if you reached out.

  Then again, they weren’t talking about anything serious. He’d had more personal discussions with the cafeteria ladies.

  Nick flexed his fingers on the steering wheel again and wished he’d brought Gabriel along instead.

  No. He didn’t.

  “I’m not going to jump you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Adam said, a shred of humor in his voice—but a shred of sadness hid there, too. “I promise, I have some self-control.”

  “I’m not worried about it.”

  “You look like a strong guy. You could probably fight me off.”

  Nick cut him a withering glance, but his brain was all too willing to suggest images of what Adam was suggesting.

  Stop it, stop it, stop it.

  If the thought of college was enough to drive a wedge between him and his brothers, thoughts like these would hammer it home. He’d been fighting with this for years, and here one drive in the truck was about to undo him.

  Nick drew a ragged breath. He wished for some traffic or something to steal his attention, but the highway was mostly deserted this late at night. He wished for different thoughts. Silence swelled in the cab of the truck again, taunting Nick to look at his passenger.

  He didn’t. But he had to talk or he was going to make himself crazy. So he picked up the earlier conversations. “I think my younger brother—Chris—is waiting to see what happens if I leave. He might be thinking about college, too, but he won’t say anything until he’s sure about it.”

  “The cautious type.”

  Nick smiled. “Gabriel and I call him the brooding type.”

  “Gabriel. Number three?”

  That killed the smile. “Yeah. My twin brother. He says he doesn’t care if I go away to school, but I know he does.”

  “Identical twin?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Niiiiice.”

  Nick cut him another look, and Adam smiled. “Sorry.”

  A street sign announced the park entrance, and Nick hit the turn signal. The gates were closed and padlocked, so he parked on the side of the road. He’d been here before with his brothers, dozens of times. He could find the path to the beach blindfolded. Good thing, too, since there were no lights overhead.

  Wind was coming in from the water, just this side of too cold. Nick didn’t mind the sharpness against his cheeks, knowing his element would steal the warmth left over from his conversation with Adam. He asked the air for information, trying to determine if there was any sense of danger here.

  But the wind only seemed willing to carry the scents of the night: the richness of the pine trees lining the road, the heavy scent of the distant sea, and whatever cologne Adam was wearing, something musky and warm, like oranges and cloves. Somehow it was stro
nger out here than it had been in the truck, and once his brain identified it, Nick wanted to get closer, to bask in the scent and bury his face in it.

  No girl had ever affected him this strongly.

  No guy had, either, but this was the first time he’d been alone with a boy he felt attracted to, and it was like his senses were trying to latch on to the opportunity.

  A boy who thought Nick felt threatened by his presence.

  Nick wondered what would have happened if he’d lost the defensive looks in the truck. If he’d sat in the cab for two minutes. If he’d—

  Quinn, he thought. Focus on Quinn.

  Right. His girlfriend. Who needed rescuing—both from boys and herself, apparently.

  She wasn’t far. The wind brought him the scent of a campfire, and he followed that. Adam followed him, silent but very present.

  And there was Quinn, passed out on a fleece blanket between two guys. She was still fully clothed, but tension hovered in the air, making Nick pause to size up the situation. Big guys. Drunk guys who stopped laughing when they caught sight of Nick and Adam.

  Now Nick regretted not bringing Gabriel.

  Wuss.

  “Thanks for the call,” said Adam, his voice easy, as if they hadn’t walked into a tense situation. “We can take Quinn home.”

  The one guy, the darker haired one, sneered. “We didn’t call for a couple of fags.”

  Nick froze. It wasn’t like he hadn’t heard the word around school—usually as a joke in the locker room—but it hit him very differently when it was directed at him. When he’d been walking along having . . . thoughts.

  Adam didn’t hesitate, he just walked over and started picking Quinn up. “I’m sure Quinn didn’t, either, but apparently you two showed up.”

  Both men were on their feet. The dark-haired one went after Adam.

  Nick was quick. He caught the guy’s arm, but he didn’t fight him. “Hey.” Wind whipped around him, responding to his emotion. But he was used to placating his twin, and he kept his voice easy. “Chill out. We’re just here to take her home.”

  The guy swung around and punched him in the face.

  Nick hit the sand before he realized he was falling.

  Damn, it hurt. It hurt about a bazillion times more than when Quinn had done the same thing. He hadn’t even been expecting it. At least when he tried to stop his twin from fighting, Gabriel listened.

  Nick found his footing in the sand. Now he was pissed, and the air enjoyed that, pulling sand into tiny tornadoes at his feet. The wind turned ice cold, coming off the water like it was blowing from a glacier.

  The other guy, the one with lighter hair, had grabbed his friend. Adam had Quinn, and he looked like he was wrestling with whether to put her down and help. He’d moved back, toward their motorcycles and the tree line.

  “Go,” Nick said to him. “Get her to the truck.”

  Adam glanced between him and the guys on the beach. “I’m not sure that’s the best idea.”

  Nick wasn’t sure, either. He wasn’t a fighter, not really. And what was he going to do? Suffocate them? Freeze them to death? Blast them with sand?

  “It’s all right,” said the light-haired guy. He still had a death grip on his friend, but his words had a hint of slur. “Take her home. I just wanted to make sure she was okay.”

  “Yeah,” said Nick. “Looks like it.” But he glanced at Adam and took a step toward the trail. Adam met his eyes, and they shared a moment of silent agreement.

  Adam didn’t want to fight, either.

  And that was refreshing.

  The dark-haired guy swore. “I’m going to kill those—”

  “Run,” said Nick.

  Adam ran. Nick was right behind him.

  And then they were tearing through the darkness, leaping into the truck.

  And then they were gone.

  CHAPTER 5

  Nick had to fight to keep the truck near the speed limit. He kept checking the rearview mirror, looking for motorcycles or any sign of danger.

  “They can’t follow us,” Adam said. “At least, I don’t think they can.”

  Nick didn’t look away from the road. Quinn was a heavy weight against him, buckled into the middle bench seat. He had a pretty good sense that she was drooling on his shoulder.

  “How do you know?”

  “I disabled their bikes. Maybe.”

  Nick looked over. “How did you do that?”

  Adam shrugged, and it looked like he was trying to hide a smile. “Yanked some wires. I don’t know.”

  Nick smiled. “Smart.”

  Adam snorted, and his voice turned a bit self-deprecating. “Yeah, not too bad for a ‘couple of fags,’ huh?” Before Nick could say anything to that, Adam looked over again. “Sorry to drag you into that. The guy sounded okay on the phone.”

  “I’m just glad Quinn wasn’t hurt.” Though she smelled like a frigging distillery.

  “Are you okay?”

  Nick shrugged. He could already feel swelling starting on his jaw, and blood was a bitter taste on the side of his tongue. “It’s not the first time I’ve been hit, and it probably won’t be the last. I’ll be all right.” Gabriel would probably shit a brick when he got home, though.

  “He was going to hit me,” said Adam, and there was something like wonder in his voice.

  “I’m happy to hit you if you feel like you’re missing out on the full experience.”

  “No, just—” Adam hesitated. “Thanks.”

  Nick shrugged again, uncomfortable. He wasn’t used to being the rescuer. “I wasn’t trying to fight him. I thought I could talk him down.”

  “Still. No one’s ever done that for me.”

  Nick didn’t know what to say to that. Then Adam’s cell phone chimed, and that was enough to distract him from the conversation.

  “Wow,” said Adam. “It’s from that guy on the beach. He said he’s sorry his friend got out of control.”

  “I’m surprised he’s not begging us not to press charges.”

  Adam looked at him. Nick could feel the weight of his eyes in the darkness. “Do you want to?”

  Nick shook his head. The last thing he needed to do was draw attention to his family. To say nothing of dragging Quinn into it. She had enough problems.

  Adam’s cell phone chimed again, and he read off the screen. “He says he has a little sister, and he took care of her, so he wanted to look after Quinn. He says neither of them hurt her.” A pause, another chime, and Adam guffawed. “He asked if we’d give her his number.”

  Nick snorted. “I’m surprised he can text coherently, as hammered as they were.”

  “I think there’s a fair bit of autocorrect going on. Every time he tries to say her name, it says Quinine.”

  Nick laughed outright at that.

  But then he sobered when he glanced over and found Adam staring at him.

  Nick knew that look. It was how girls sometimes looked at him, with cartoon hearts practically exploding from their eyes.

  It was unnerving.

  With girls, he could smile back. Flirt. A glance here, a touch there, a teasing word. It cost him nothing, and it was what everyone expected.

  Right now, it left him breathless and uncertain. Because what everyone expected was in direct contradiction with what he wanted.

  He locked his hands on the steering wheel and his eyes on the road. “You’ll have to tell me where you live again.”

  Adam must have noticed the sharpness in his voice, because he gave the return directions flatly, reciting his address by rote. The hearts were gone from his eyes, and he was studying the windshield with almost as much focus as Nick.

  Nick didn’t like that.

  He dulled the edge in his tone. “You sure you don’t mind her sleeping it off at your place?”

  “Nah,” said Adam quietly. “It’s nothing.”

  Adam lived in a basement apartment at one of the aging brick complexes on the edge of Annapolis. The apartment was smal
l, practically an efficiency. One bedroom, one bathroom, and a kitchen–living room–dining room combo. All beige carpet, white walls with dark photography prints everywhere, and minimal furniture. A tiny two-seater kitchen table was tucked into the corner by the oven, and there was a couch and an end table, but no television. Just piles of books everywhere. Cluttered, but neat and orderly.

  The air was peaceful here, and Nick took a long breath for what felt like the first time all evening.

  “You can put her on the bed,” Adam whispered, though they’d been speaking normally in the car and she hadn’t stirred.

  Nick shouldered through the doorway and eased Quinn onto the bed, pulling a black and blue–checked quilt over her sleeping form. Her breathing still felt regular, and the air whispered nothing of danger, so he felt pretty sure she was fine.

  Then he straightened and realized he was in Adam’s room. Alone.

  It felt quiet and intimate and smelled like oranges and cloves, and Nick didn’t want to leave.

  But what was he going to do? Sit here?

  God, he felt so selfish. Quinn was lying here, practically unconscious. He should have just taken her to his house initially.

  But then Adam wouldn’t have called.

  He reached for the normal mental barriers to tell himself to shut up, but here, in someone else’s space, it was a lot harder to lie to himself.

  He needed to leave.

  Adam stuck his head through the doorway. “I started some coffee. How do you take it?”

  This would be the perfect opportunity to decline, to get out and go home.

  “Just cream,” he said.

  When he was sitting at the little table in the kitchen, his hands wrapped around a mug, he fought for something to say.

  But all he could think about was the way Adam’s hands had poured cream into the mugs, or the graceful way he moved about the kitchen, or the shape of his mouth or the brown of his eyes or the—

  Adam sat down and Nick jerked his eyes back to his mug. He took a quick gulp.

  “How’s the coffee?” Adam’s voice was amused. And close.

  This table was too damn small.

  “It’s great. Thanks.” Nick still couldn’t look at him. His cheeks felt warm, and he hoped that was just the steam from the coffee. He doubted it.

  Adam was silent for a long minute. A weighted minute.