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Arlo rolled his eyes but skipped the song back. He never could resist Cascada when he was in a good mood.

“And besides, I went to a specialist once, I think, and I turned out just fine.”

Arlo stifled a snort and jerked the wheel so the car swayed. “Debatable.”

Bren tried to look indignant, but was too distracted by a thought—really, stuff like this was probably a sign that the counselor had missed some things back then. Arlo really was a good big brother. He couldn’t help but wonder if that might translate into other useful skills down the road. Worth thinking about in a decade or so.

8

“Need a tissue or somethin’?”

A smile inched across A.J.’s face without his permission, and he shoved Bren in the shoulder. They were sitting on the floor outside the music room, the first to show up, so there weren’t many witnesses to the mild assault.

He didn’t know when he’d started doing it, but he’d caught himself staring at Bren and blinking in slow, even beats sometime in the two weeks since he’d materialized in math class. Every time he closed his eyes, he half-expected Bren to pop out of frame, back to Ireland.

“You weren’t supposed to be paying attention.”

Bren leaned back against the wall and fished an apple out of his lunch bag.

“I’m always payin’ attention, like.”

Small miracle A.J.’s eyebrow didn’t fly right off.

“I always pay attention when it’s you.”

He shoved him harder that time, and Bren let himself slide sideways onto the floor.

“You’re real mean in Canada, you know that?”

He would have kissed him for how dopey his smile looked when he said it, but he decided to settle on pulling Bren back upright instead.

“Dude! Did you see?”

A.J. looked up in time for Nat to come tearing around the corner to the drama hall, face red from something more than having run here. Based on the look Bren was wearing, he didn’t know what she was on about either.

“Fuck, you didn’t! Get up!”

A.J. didn’t have time to let out a proper groan before she’d pulled him up by the hood of his bunny hug. It was all he could do to tug Bren by the hand before the three of them were off, back the way he and Bren had just come.

“You know you’re technically interrupting a date, right?”

Bren laughed, but Nat, who was marching ahead like an over-eager park ranger, scoffed.

“Then don’t have your date two feet away from where we eat lunch every day.”

“Do you think that door trick still works?” Bren asked through a mouthful of the apple he’d managed to hang onto despite the sudden departure.

Nat stopped at the bulletin board in front of the doors that led down into the drama room and pointed, much to the confusion of the small group of underclassmen who were gathered around it. Yu was standing off to the side, snapping pictures with his banged up old camera.

A.J. caught Bren’s confused look but kept focused on the board since it looked like Nat was a hair away from parting the freshmen like the Red Sea.

“The Peacock Player’s Drama Troupe regrets to inform you that this year’s fall play has been delayed until the second semester,” A.J. said, standing on his tiptoes to see further down as his heart fell past his sneakers. “This is thanks to Mrs. Lovell’s commitment and dedication in securing the rights to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1983 masterpiece, Cats, in place of the usual January musical. This will be by far the most ambitious musical the Peacock Players has attempted in recent years. Sign up below for auditions this Friday, but please be aware that this musical will take significantly more time, effort and energy than past years.”

A.J. knew his smile looked unsettling as he felt it pulling at the corners of his mouth, but he couldn’t help it. Not only was the musical early since it had swapped places with fall play, but they were doing Cats. Not a single line of spoken dialogue, no real plot to get in the way of the fun of it all and—his cheeks burned at the thought—Bren in spandex.

“You’re still going to sign up right?” A.J. asked Bren, who didn’t seem to grasp what they’d read.

“Ah, a musical? I dunno. You’ve heard me sing.”