Or maybe she was cold. Nick tried to get a handle on the temperature in the room.

She picked up the folder with the signed receipt. “Did you boys need anything else?”

“Coffee,” said Michael. “Please.”

She disappeared, leaving them in silence.

Michael cleared his throat. “I don’t know how to say this, Nick . . .”

It was like his older brother had picked up a spear and begun to shove it through Nick’s back. He felt the pain that acutely.

But then Michael winced and looked at him. “Would it be weird if I said that’s not surprising?”

What?

What?

Nick came out of his seat to reach across the table and punch Michael in the shoulder as hard as he could. “You dick. I thought you were about to throw me out of the house.”

Now Michael looked like Nick had checked his brain at the door. “Why on earth would I throw you out of the house?”

“I don’t know! I had no idea how you’d react!”

“You want me to punch you? Cause a scene? We could totally put on a show.”

However Nick had imagined this conversation going, this . . . this wasn’t it.

Some of the tension slipped from his shoulders. Nick took a long breath and blew it out through his teeth.

“How long have you been carrying that around?” said Michael.

“I don’t know.” Now Nick felt dizzy for an entirely different reason. He gave a choked laugh. “I don’t—a long time.” Then he stopped reeling and looked at his brother. “Why not surprising?”

The waitress chose that exact moment to bring their coffee. Nick was glad for the distraction, though. It gave him something else to look at, something new to do with his hands.

When she was gone, Michael said, “It’s difficult to explain. Nothing I would have put my finger on, you know?” He paused, then stirred his coffee. Pointless, since he drank it black—but maybe he needed a minor distraction, too.

“Little things,” he said. “Meaningless things. You’d go out with girls, but you never really talked about them. You’re not aggressive. You’re not . . . Jesus, Nick, I don’t know. I’ve never thought, gee, Nick might be gay, but when you said it, it was like the last piece of a puzzle, if that makes any sense.”

“It makes sense,” Nick said. He couldn’t quite believe that Michael was sitting here dropping a phrase like Nick might be gay without batting an eye.

“Am I the last to know, as usual?” Michael said.

“No. The first. Sort of.”

“The first! I should be celebrating.” Then he raised an eyebrow. “Sort of?”

“Hunter knows.”

“How’d he take it?”

Nick shrugged and wondered if there was a safe answer to that question. Well, you know. Last night, he caught me in bed . . . “Hunter was okay.”