Page 79

“I won the lottery. Why wish it away if you’re already levelin’ up?”

It was a mark of how much he loved the idiot beside him that A.J. kissed instead of punched. Bren seemed to be waiting for it, and heat rose in A.J.’s chest as their tongues battled for them. Bren won, but it wasn’t like A.J. had been trying all that hard.

The kiss didn’t build into anything more intimate the way every other one had, and before the year was over, A.J.’s head was resting on Bren’s shoulder.

“So,” he said, fingers trailing along Bren’s abs before finding his hand. “Irish A.J., how do you think that’d go?”

Bren made a thoughtful sound and stared out into the night.

“Well, you’d talk normal for one. Say sorry a lot less.” A frown coloured Bren’s face then. “I don’t think I like this game.”

A.J. craned his neck to kiss the curve of Bren’s jaw. “I’d still be me, even if I sounded like Mickie.”

Bren’s shudder had him shaking his head like a dog, but he plunged on. “Right, so you’d sound nothin’ like Mickie. Born over on Rory’s side of town. We’d probably met the same way, just earlier.”

“You’d harass me about my wee discman?”

Bren shook his head. “Probably just run up and say, ‘Tag! You’re it,’ till you got the idea, like.”

“So we’d be friends right away?”

“Yep. Little me was charmin’ as fuck. Then, let’s see. Birthdays and sleepovers and all that shite. First Communion for sure.”

“I’m catholic now?” A.J. asked, hurling the thought at Bren.

“You’re the one who wanted to be Irish. Oh, you’d be the one to make friends with Rory. Convince him I amn’t bad as I am loud.”

A.J. leaned into the borrowed life. Six years of Bren by age eleven, not to mention a prolonged kinship with Rory. What a charmed life his doppelganger lived.

“What about later?” A.J. asked, and Bren tilted his head. “After hormones.”

Bren looked thoughtful again. “Mam would have figured me out a lot sooner. No more sleepovers, anyway.”

“A whole life together but we can’t do it in your bed? Sounds like a decent trade-off to me.”

“Arlo!” Bren said, clutching at his imaginary pearls. “I was talkin’ about shiftin’. But hey, if you insist.”

A.J. traced his free hand along the skin above Bren’s steadily beating heart.

“Years and years together.” A.J. tried to keep the smile on his face but didn’t quite manage it. “Lucky little prick.”

“Hey.” Bren tried to tilt A.J.’s face up, but things were better in the crook of his neck just now. “Hey!”

A.J. let his chin be lifted now.

“We will have years together, you hear me?”

His voice stumbled and he wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

“Look,” he nodded at the clock above the stubby bookshelf on the other side of the loft. “That’s two already.”

Their lips met for the first time in 2008, and A.J. had to remind himself that it wouldn’t be the last.

Why was he crying? This wasn’t goodbye.

It wouldn’t ever be.

“Happy New Year, Bren,” A.J. said, looking up into eyes that he was grateful to have known for as long as he had.