Bailey did this thing when he concentrated extra hard. He had to tap his feet or shift constantly or stuff his mouth with a pencil. He always made himself look fucking ridiculous, rolling that gnawed pencil across his lips and nibbling at it with his pearly white (if not a little crooked) teeth.

Objectively, that should have bothered Nate far less than when he clicked a pen or made his chair squeak as his heel jumped.

But, for whatever reason, when he stuck that pencil in his mouth, heat crept over Nate’s body and red bled into the edges of his vision. He felt like he had just shuffled around on the carpet in socks and was charged full of static, ready to shock anyone or anything nearby.

Then Bailey’s eyes flicked up from his assignment and met his gaze. He smirked around the pencil. Nate felt like he had been struck by lightning.

“Take that thing out of your goddamn mouth,” he growled.

Around them, other kids filed in for homeroom, sleep-deprived and shuffling like zombies. They looked between them warily.

Without taking the pencil out of his mouth, Bailey snarked, “Why don’t you mind your own business?”

Nate shot to his feet, and the kids at the desks directly around him leaned away. One of them fell out of his seat and plopped to his ass on the ground with a surprised gasp. Bailey remained unphased, teething at the pencil and turning away from Nate completely.

He did not glance back up even as Nate stalked toward him, shoving chairs and desks out of the way with awful screeches and clatters. When he spoke, he talked into the papers on his desk. “Leave me alone. I’ve got to finish this before second period.”

Nate reached him, plucked the pencil straight from his mouth, and snapped it in half. He smacked the two pieces on Bailey’s desk and spun around to return to his seat. Then, there was an indignant snort and a small hand on his arm, fingernails digging into his skin. Bailey slipped past him and stomped over to his desk before he could reach it.

“Why’re you being such an asshole first thing in the morning?” Bailey complained, picking up Nate’s bookbag from where it lay slumped against one leg of the desk and unceremoniously turning it upside down to dump it all over his desk. A couple of textbooks fell out, thumping awkwardly face down with pages curled beneath their weight. A few notebooks followed, with pens and erasers and an empty coffee cup, which he’d already drained on the bus.

Bailey gestured to the cup. “Someone piss in your coffee?”

Before Nate could respond, he picked up a pencil, squinted at the broken tip with disdain, and then marched off toward the ancient pencil sharpener on the wall.

Nate fumed at the upheaval on his desk, the red crowding his vision further as the rest of the classroom faded. He turned to go dump out Bailey’s backpack or something equally petty in retaliation but caught sight of a boy grabbing Bailey. His face was vaguely familiar since they were in the homeroom together, but Nate could not put a name to it.

Bailey jerked and looked around. The sharp annoyance in his expression drained away to wide-eyed shock when he saw that it was not, in fact, Nate grabbing him. He was dumbfounded for long enough that the kid managed to pin his arms behind his back. The pencil clattered to the floor, still unsharpened.

Whoever the kid was, he knew Nate. He called over to him in a nasty, haughty tone, saying, “I’ve got him for you, Nate. Quick, teach him a lesson before Cartright gets here.”

Cartright was their chronically late homeroom teacher. Nate lifted his brows. Because honestly…what did the kid think? That Nate needed help pinning Bailey? He could have already socked him in the nose if he wanted to. Who the hell did this kid think he was?

Bailey seemed to think the same thing, the shock bleeding away to annoyance as he looked over his shoulder with an incredulous expression. The whole classroom was dead silent as Nate marched across the room, navigating desks without breaking eye contact with the kid. He grinned, pulling Bailey’s arms back further, making him grunt at the stretch.

For his part, Bailey did not appear afraid of Nate’s approach. He looked rather put-upon.

“See what you’ve done?” He groused, trying to shake the kid off. “Why couldn’t you have just left me alone?”

Nate ignored Bailey as he reached them and frowned at the kid. “You think I can’t fight my own fights?”

The kid blinked a few times and stammered, which just pissed Nate the hell off, so he punched him right in his stupid, presumptuous face.

Everyone who had been sitting around holding their breaths began gasping and jeering. Cartright arrived just in time to see the kid’s head snap back because he was a limp noodle who didn’t know how to take a punch. Bailey wrenched himself away and stumbled beside Nate, rubbing his arms.

When Cartright hollered for an explanation, Nate shrugged and said the kid was bullying Bailey. Bailey showed the deep red impressions left by the kid’s grubby fingers on his arms, and the rest of the classroom nodded and went along with the story. All three of them ended up in the principal’s office anyway.

Bailey was about to blow his top, absolutely seething, because he would not have time to finish his assignment before the second period. All Nate could think about was the marks in the shape of fingerprints left on Bailey’s arms. But Bailey wouldn’t let his thoughts wander, getting right in his space and poking a finger at his chest. Nate just looked down at the darkening bruises on his wrists.

Then Bailey was suddenly yanked back off his feet. His fingers stretched out to brush Nate’s shirt, but they could not grasp the fabric in time. And Nate was too slow to grab him back. He watched in horror as Tanner hauled him away by his hair, fist tangled in his bright pink locks. Bailey’s white sneakers scraped against the asphalt.

But he was still shouting at Nate, eyes round and hurt and looking anywhere but him. Even as he told him to fuck off. Still seething about how his assignment was going to be late. A drip of blood oozed out of his nose and over his upper lip.

Tanner shoved Bailey into the car, and Nate should do something. But his feet were stuck to the ground, and his heart was stuck in his throat. He could not shout. He could not do anything. Bailey disappeared. And Tanner winked at him.

And Nate’s eyes flew open.

Only the thundering of his heartbeat roaring against his eardrums was real for a few moments. Then he realized that his hands were buried in soft, tangled sheets. He was staring at his bedroom wall instead of Tanner and Bailey in a bar parking lot.

He flopped back against the mattress. The tight breath he let out tasted shaky and sour. A long time passed before the adrenaline stopped coursing through him enough that he could relax, let alone go back to sleep. But, he refused to get out of bed and fetch a drink of water or face whatever the hell that dream had been about, instead staring at the wall until his eyes ached and he finally drifted back off.

When he woke up next—to sunlight slicing across his bed and birds chirping outside his window—the nightmare felt even more warped and strange. He turned over onto his back, folded his hands over his chest, and whispered, “What the actual fuck?”

He frowned at the pattern of his blinds in stripes of sunlight and shadow over his legs. Not only was he thinking of Bailey constantly while awake, seeing him around every corner and reminded of him every few goddamn minutes, he was dreaming about him. He was not even sure if that morning with the pencil and the kid in homeroom was a memory or if it was a scenario his brain cooked up from details of actual events that went down back in high school. 

Lying around and thinking about shit had never been his forte, so he kicked the sheets a few times to untangle his legs and rolled out of bed. After a quick shower, he thundered down the steps and into the kitchen.

His dad sat at the kitchen table, mechanically spooning cereal into his mouth as he gazed blankly at the little TV on the counter.

“Morning,” Nate opened one of the cabinets to grab a bowl, then collapsed into a chair across the table from his dad, who just grunted at him.

The man had never been a morning person, which Nate thought was hysterical, given that the man married the ultimate morning person. Since Nate’s mom did not appear to be about the house, she was probably out on her run or already at the gym getting ready to open.

Nate’s dad was lucky if he made it to work on time a single day out of the entire work week. But he worked for a small, family-owned accounting firm, and they never seemed to mind. Nate dragged the cereal box and milk jug closer to make himself a bowl, which finally got his dad’s attention.

“You heading to the gym?” he asked, taking in Nate’s cut-off shirt and gym shorts.

“Yep.” Nate realized he had forgotten to grab a spoon and hauled himself back out of his chair with a groan.

“I don’t get you, kid.” His dad jabbed his spoon in Nate’s direction.

Nate, who had just gotten his own spoon out of the drawer, pointed it at himself in mock innocence.

“Yeah, you,” his dad accused. “What is the point of going out last night if you aren’t going to let yourself sleep in this morning?”

Nate honestly could not sleep in if he tried. Nightmare aside, he’d barely managed to fall asleep in the first place, too preoccupied with replaying every second of the altercation with Tanner and everything that happened afterward. How Bailey filled the cab of his truck with the fresh, earthy, woody scent of whatever cologne or body wash he used. The way he sounded when he moaned because of the cake. How he’d eyed Nate after the admission that Nate might not be as straight as he appeared at first glance.

He was reminiscing about it again, standing there in the middle of the kitchen with a spoon in his hand, replaying Bailey’s words like he was watching a film. He shut the utensil drawer and cleared his throat. “How’d you know I was out that late?”

His dad pursed his lips and raised a brow. Parents had their ways. “I was up until almost one last night bingeing that show I was telling you about. The one with-”

“This is pathetic!”

Nate's sister, Karlie, swept into the room. She was in a little camisole, with sleep shorts on, and was in the middle of tying her long hair back in a bun that, given the silky smoothness of her straight hair, would nearly immediately fall out and need to be redone. Nate and his dad both watched her gesture wildly at the kitchen table.

“What’s pathetic?” Nate asked, parking himself back in his seat and shoving his cereal around with the spoon.

“This is what qualifies for a Saturday morning breakfast?” She pinched the bridge of her nose, “Whatever happened to the weekend breakfasts of my childhood?”

She had been living in dorms during her freshman year and came home for the summer only last week, like most of the other college kids who returned from campus this time of year. At nineteen, she enjoyed telling them all about how much of an adult she was now that she had a year of living away from home under her belt. And Nate’s dad never missed an opportunity to throw that teasingly back into her face.

“Well, you aren’t a child anymore,” he shrugged. “There’s some bacon in the fridge if you want to whip it up. I wouldn’t mind a few slices.”

Karlie pouted at him, and he smiled warmly back. In all reality, their parents were incredibly proud of her. She’d managed to get along well with her dormmate and kept her grades up. While she no doubt partied like the rest of the freshman, she had not gotten into any trouble, and – most importantly – she had come home safely to spend summer with her family.

Nate began eating his cereal as she opened the fridge and frowned into it. He was glad for the distraction and injection of normalcy. The house had been unusually quiet without her around. Even with their mom’s vibrance, something had been missing from their little unit. Having Karlie back home returned a piece of the puzzle. And chased away the lingering strangeness of the night before.

Which did not last long. As soon as Nate waved them goodbye, grabbed his wallet and keys, and bounded out the door, he had to face his truck. Which Bailey had sat in last night.