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Bren looked at him, at last. He was staring down at his own hand as it traced circles in the dirt.

“Why’d you say it then?” he asked, trying to keep the huff out of his voice.

A.J.’s finger made another half dozen circles before he picked up a pebble and rolled it along his palm.

“Don’t you ever think about how much harder I make your life?”

Just when he thought he was going to bob, the lad threw in a weave. From the way A.J. was fiddling with the pebble now, Bren knew it wasn’t the time to reply.

“Like. If we weren’t dating, you’d only have to worry about the Certs, and what you were gonna do after school. Now, you have to worry about that, classes over here, a musical, and which country you’re going to do . . . whatever you decide you want to do after school.”

A.J.’s eyes had welled up in the middle of his soliloquy, but he’d frowned and wiped them with the back of his hand with a frustrated grunt.

“And . . .” He was staring down at the place where he’d picked up the pebble, brow knit like there was something disgusting there. “You wouldn’t have to like guys and stuff.”

Bren cracked open his Red Bull and took a swig before leaning back on his palms.

“Am I allowed to answer now?”

A.J. nodded but didn’t look up at him.

“You don’t make my life harder.”

“Bren—”

“Let me ramble for once, will you?”

A.J. gave a small chuckle and his head twitched like he wanted to look at him.

“You don’t make my life harder. And you didn’t make me like lads.” Memories of how wide he smiled whenever Colin stopped to talk to him back in third year surged inside him. “I always did. I was just too thick to realize it.”

He opened the bag of crisps and popped a handful into his mouth.

“And I didn’t have anythin’ planned for after school. So tell me what you wanna do and I’ll go along with it, like.”

A.J.’s lower lip disappeared as he took a breath through his nose.

“Alright. What else you got?”

“Bren, that’s the other thing. What if you move to Canada and we break up? If you’re only here for me, you’re going to have to go back home, then you’ll be, like, however long it took for us to break up behind where you want to be in life—and hate me because of it.”

“Lad, look at my face.”

He waited for A.J. to look up from his clenched hand. He knew he sometimes had trouble reading expressions, but if he didn’t see “lovesick idiot” stamped across his forehead, they should probably have him looked at by a professional.

“If I’m smilin’ now, do you think there’s anything you could do that would make me hate you?”

A.J.’s eyes softened but there still wasn’t a smile there.

“You flipped me off this morning.”

“And you told me I should go back to Ireland.”

Shame settled in on A.J.’s face as his eyes pulled back down.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the full deal with Mam. Didn’t think it mattered since I’m gonna get all nineties.” A.J. looked caught between touched and exhausted, and Bren scooched close enough that their hips brushed. “Honestly, I’m more scarlet about flippin’ you off. You hate me ’cause of that?”