“Yeah, I know, but—”
“What, you think I was doing some kind of favors for him? Like the only way he’d be friends with me is if I was blowing him on the side?”
“No! Jesus, I never said that!” Nate’s cheeks were redder than ever. “But I know what I saw.”
Cody shook his head again. “I’m pretty damn sure Logan never kissed me. I mean, Christ, I think I’d remember if he had!”
Nate wrapped his hands around the steering wheel as if grounding himself. Another gust of wind hit them, rocking the truck a bit. Sunlight flashed off the light-blue stone in the senior ring Nate still wore, even though it was for the wrong school. “You were in the hallway, right before you left. He had his arm over your shoulder, and Jimmy and Larry were walking by, and he pulled you close and he . . . he kissed your hair.”
Cody remembered the moment. He remembered the way Logan’s face had bumped into his head. He hadn’t even realized it had been intentional. And now here was Nate, freaking out over that?
“On the head?” Cody asked, pointing to the very spot where Logan’s lips must have touched, fighting hard not to laugh, because laughter seemed so wrong. “You thought something was going on because he kissed me on the head?”
Nate sighed. “I guess.”
Laughter rose up in Cody’s chest before he could stop it, and the next thing he knew, he was doubled over in the passenger seat, laughing in a way that felt close to hysteria. His chest ached. Tears streamed from his eyes. Some part of his brain told him to get his shit together, that he was acting like a nut job, but it felt too good to let go. To just let the sheer idiocy of the entire incident take over.
“Oh God,” he finally gasped, clutching his stomach. “I wish he was alive to hear that. He’d have gotten a real kick out of it.”
Saying it out loud made it real—he could see the expression on Logan’s face and hear the exact tenor of his laugh—and then Cody wasn’t sure if he was laughing or crying. It felt like some strange mixture of both. After all the time Logan had spent telling Cody that Nate missed him, and their jokes about whether or not Cody would put out after homecoming, and then to have Nate misinterpret something so simple as a friendly kiss, if it had even been that—Cody still wasn’t convinced it had been anything more than a clumsy head bump—was more than he could stand. When he finally got control of himself again, he realized Nate was sitting stone-still in the driver’s seat, his cheeks still red, his jaw tight, obviously hurt by Cody’s laughter.
Cody wiped his eyes as his laughter subsided, watching the way the sunlight shone through Nate’s carefully moussed blond hair. He didn’t know how he could feel so many things at once. Logan’s death still hurt more than he could bear, and he dreaded another shift without him at the Tomahawk, but his laughter had made him realize that it wouldn’t be that way forever. The conversation with Nate, as ridiculous as it may have been, made him see that remembering could bring joy as well as grief.
And Nate had given him that, whether he’d meant to or not.
Cody leaned across the seat and grabbed him, pulling Nate by the front of his jacket until they were face-to-face. He felt like he’d said “thank you” so many times since Monday, but it wasn’t enough this time. He wanted to hug Nate, except there was no space to do it properly. He wanted to kiss him, but he was afraid of making that mistake again. He found himself staring into Nate’s eyes, trying to gauge the length and breadth of what he saw there.
They stayed like that for a moment, Cody debating what to do, Nate just watching him, until Cody finally realized he needed to speak. He needed to say something to let Nate know that he’d done everything right.
“I missed you like crazy,” Cody finally said. “I’m really glad to have you back.”
And the smile Nate gave him was like warm August sunshine on the icy mass of his grief.
Cody gave up trying to explain to Nate why they shouldn’t let their friendship be seen at school. Nothing he said changed Nate’s mind, and Cody was happy enough to have the desk next to him in social studies not go empty.
Every morning, Nate picked Cody up on his way to school, then drove him home or to work at the end of the day. Sometimes he even picked Cody up after work and drove him home. And any hour that wasn’t taken by school, the Tomahawk, or sleeping, they spent together. Sometimes they watched TV or played with the deck of cards Cody had retrieved from the wagon. Sometimes, if the weather was nice, they drove around in Nate’s car, exploring the back roads that surrounded Warren. Weeknights were often spent doing nothing more than sitting at Cody’s kitchen table working on homework together. And if Cody felt Nate’s gaze on him more often than seemed normal, if he noticed the way Nate sat a bit too close on the couch or found any excuse at all to touch him, Cody chose to chalk it up to friendly concern.