I look him in the eye. “Really, though. I’m gay.”

“He kisses like Elliott Smith sings.”

“Maybe you should stop having heterosexual sex, Jacques.”

“I don’t know if I mentioned this, but Nick has the most raspy-perfect singing voice in the world.”

“So if you think I’m not attracted to you, Simon, you’re crazy.”

“And then I lean over and kiss him softly on the neck, just below his jaw. He turns to me and swallows.”

“Really, though, there are only two kinds of weather: hoodie weather and weather where you wear a hoodie anyway.”

“Being secure in your masculinity isn’t the same as being straight.”

“I don’t know, Jacques—there’s something about you that makes me want to open up, and that’s slightly terrifying for me.”

“Audition?” asks Bram, smiling so quietly. And when he looks at me, I feel this happy sort of ache. “Tryouts.” I blush. And I smile back at him.

“You get to exhale now, Simon. You get to be more than you have been in... in a very long time. You deserve everything you want.”

“You guessed it was me.” “Well, yeah,” he says. He looks down. “I kind of guessed a long time ago. Except I thought maybe I was just seeing what I wanted to see.”

“I like no endings,” I say. “I like things that don’t end.” He squeezes me tighter and kisses my head, and we lie there.

“My boyfriend. My brown eyed, grammar nerd, soccer star boyfriend.”

Jacques a dit. Right? —Blue

Nora shrugs. “You could deny it.” “Okay, I’m not going to deny it. I’m not ashamed of it.”

“Good job this weekend, Spier,” says Garrett. “Pretty friggin’ funny.” “I didn’t know you were there.” “I mean,” he says, “Greenfeld made me go three times.”

“Or we could just do other things instead of talking. I mean. I’m just saying. —Your Zombie Jacques”

“I guess I can imagine us having perfect nights sometimes. And I’ll probably feel like shouting it from the rooftops, too.”

Nick and I look at each other. “I’m not holding your hand,” I tell him, smiling a little. “All right”—he nods—“but know that I would.”