want to chat.”

I shuffle back against the headboard. “How was the party?”

“Okay, I guess. Not great.”

“What did you do all evening?”

“Talked about bullshit. Drank. Started some games.”

“Games?” I know what games he’s talking about, so now my belly is lurching.

“Childish. They thought they were being so funny. Got put in the closet with Susan and I nearly

puked all over her.”

I’m relieved. “Suave.”

“I didn’t want to play anyway.”

Ernie and Bert are always trying to get such a chance. “Why not? Thought you liked her?”

“I do but that’s not the way to start a relationship. I want to take her on a few dates first. Flatter her.

Spoil her. Let it progress from there.”

I loathe every word. “She must be special then.”

“I hope so.” Jace shifts his attention to the shelves behind me. “The stones above your bed. Those

are your favorites, aren’t they?”

I glare at them and shrug. I want to kick him out of my bed. I want to slam the door and be alone. I

want him to stay right where he is until he opens his damn eyes to what’s in front of him. “My favorites

from the weeks I’m here.”

Jace pulls one out, the amethyst he denied giving me. “What’s this one remind you of?”

“Do you like it?”

“It’s my birthstone,” he says. “I kind of have to like it.”

Just as I thought. The stones he’d given me back then meant something.

“So what does it mean?” he asks. “What do you think about when you look at this one?”

“I think about you, actually,” I say while refusing to look at him. “You probably don’t remember

but it happened last year. We were watching classics with Annie. When she went to bed, we stayed up

and watched Silence of the Lambs, and it freaked the shit out of me.”

“I remember,” Jace says, and his voice tickles the hairs on my arms and makes my neck prickle.

“You were trying to be all tough like you could handle it but your shudders were vibrating the couch.”

“Hardly.”

“Coop, I was about to turn it off and send you to bed.”

This I didn’t know. “Why didn’t you?”

“Because you kept saying these stupid jokes,” his voice changes pitch. If he’s mimicking me, he’s

doing a poor job of it. “When does a cannibal leave the table? When everyone’s eaten!” Jace chuckles.

“You kept asking if I could handle it. I knew you were determined to get through it. We each need to

have a movie that freaks us the fuck out so we can laugh at ourselves later.”

I growl at him and swat the back of his head.

“That’s what the amethyst reminds me of,” I say, though that’s not all of it. I also remember when

Jace grabbed a blanket and stopped himself from tossing it to me to lay it over both of us. We were

sitting with our feet curled to the middle of the couch, the rest of our bodies as far from touching as

possible.

Then I got a fright and my foot slipped against his. I waited for him to jerk away from me and

rearrange himself, but he didn’t, and for the rest of the movie our feet were touching.

Suddenly Jace clears his throat, puts the stone away and pulls down the white Cheshire stone, the

most recently added favorite. “And what about this one?”

“That one’s kind of personal.”

Jace smirks. “Remind you of your first proper wank? Your first French kiss?”

“You’re drunk.”

“Yeah. But that gives me courage.”

“Courage to do what?”

“To ask you.”

“Ask me what?”

“Why don’t you tell me?”

“Is this a trick question? Sounds pointless.”

“You don’t get it.” He sighs and picks up another stone. “What about this?”

That one I can tell him.

After I finish the story, he smiles and yawns. “I want to see one more.”

“What’s that?”

He holds out a hand and rubs his fingers. “Today’s stone.”

“Today’s?”

“That’s what I said.”

I slink out of bed and retrieve it from a cubbyhole above my desk. The stone is a layered slice of

sediment I found at the local park down the road when I rehearsed my speech for Jace’s birthday. I

couldn’t think of the right words so I picked up the stone in frustration.

I pass it to him and he eyes it carefully, as much as a drunk guy can. He sniffs it and touches it with

the tip of his tongue.

It’s fast becoming one of my favorite pieces. He hands it back to me and I set it on the side table.

Jace yawns again. “Can I sleep here, Cooper?”

“Why?”

He shrugs. “Warmer with you next to me. Be like camping again.”

I shiver. I want to beg him to sleep in his own bed, to dream of Susan there, but I’m too weak

because I want him here, so I can pretend he’s mine.

“You can crash in here on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“You have to get up early with me. I have something for you.”

“How early are we talking?”

“Very. We need to head out while it’s still dark.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Good night, Cooper.”

“Night.”

His hand fishes for mine and when he finds it he draws lightly over the back. “You’re the best

friend and brother I could ask for.”

Friend.

Brother.

I especially don’t like the second word. It’s trying to snuff out that little flame of hope in my belly,

and I don’t want it to.

I switch off the lamp, drowning the room in shadows and secrets, and lie down.

Jace lulls me to sleep with his heavy breaths.

Sometime in the night, he cuddles under the blankets and drapes his arm around me. It’s warm and

solid there. Different, but it’s a good different. I leave Jace right where he is and continue sleeping

alongside him.

amethyst

He groans when I wake him, and he curses when I make him follow me to the cave. It’s later than

I’d have liked. The sky is a milky grey but it’s still dark enough that the cave glows with clusters of

green light.

We’re always quiet in here. It’s the perfect place to give him his gift.

We sit down in the cave, cross-legged and facing each other. The darkness and glow give us a

greenish aura. Jace shifts and his knees bump against mine. He’s watching me, waiting for me to speak.

I breathe out and dig into my pocket for his gift, which is wrapped in a black velvet bag. I finger it

through the soft bag, and its meaning weighs heavy in my hand. I’ve been looking forward to giving

this to him for weeks but now my hands are clammy and my tongue seems to be stuck to the roof of my

mouth.

I draw out the gift and, without speaking, lift his hand and press the gift into his warm palm. He

stares at me, then stares at his hand. His Adam’s apple juts out with a swallow.

“Cooper—”

I lift a finger to my mouth and shake my head. I want him to like it, to accept it, not to speak.

He trembles as he opens the bag and draws out the greenstone fishhook. It’s simple and dark with

flecks of lighter green. I hope when he looks at it he sees me looking back at him. I hope when he wears

it, we—us and the times we’ve had together—will be in his thoughts.

I know seeing it against his chest will remind me of the moment we met, when I hated him. Hated

him for claiming my dad as his own, hated him for giving me that cocky grin, and hated him for taking

my breath away. Because it was that single moment when it all clicked. When my body screamed to me

how attractive he was, but I twisted it into something dark and ugly. His blue eyes weren’t beautiful,

they weren’t. They were the color of the rubbish bags Mum used in the bathroom; the color of oily

seawater; the color of regurgitated fish scales.

I glance at the hook he’s tying around his neck. It had to be a hook because I want to reel him in.

Even if I can’t or won’t, it’ll be nice to see hope hanging from his chest.