His half-hearted agreement was good enough for her, and she motioned to the shelf in front of her. "I'm thinking something practical they can use. What do you think?"

It took them two stores and almost half an hour of searching before Renee finally found what she wanted. By that point it was coming up quick on Renee's next class. Neil still had an hour to kill and he was only a couple minutes from Fox Tower, so he parted ways with Renee at Perimeter Road. She headed across the Green to campus and Neil went the other way to the athletes' dormitory. His room was blessedly empty. Neil dropped his backpack on the floor, sprawled face-down on Matt's couch, and let his thoughts run in curious circles over everything Renee had told him.

By the time he got up for class again, he still didn't know what to think.

-

Frantic thumping on the suite door startled Neil and Matt from their TV lunch on Saturday. Matt scrambled to find the remote where it'd fallen between the cushions, so Neil put his plate aside and hopped up to answer the door. The girls knew Matt kept the door unlocked if he was in the room, so Neil expected to find someone lost on their way to another team's room. Instead a wild-eyed Nicky was waiting in the hall.

"Oh thank God," Nicky said, reaching for Neil with both hands. "Help."

Matt finally found the remote and paused their movie. "What the hell? You all right?"

"I'm two seconds away from being dead," Nicky said. "Mom just called to wish Andrew and Aaron a happy birthday."

"And that's a bad thing?" Matt asked.

Nicky gaped at Matt, but surprise quickly washed away his disbelief. He rubbed the back of his neck in obvious discomfort. Neil expected him to laugh it off. The cousins' first response to personal problems was to close ranks against the upperclassmen. Nicky might not like it, but he'd done it time and time again throughout the season. It caught both Neil and Matt off-guard when Nicky actually answered.

"Uh, yeah," Nicky hedged. "We don't really talk to my family, you know? Dad hasn't said a word to me since he found out Erik's more than just my best friend. Mom calls on Christmas to see if I've returned to God and disconnects when I tell her no. I don't think Aaron's spoken to them since Aunt Tilda's funeral, and Andrew avoids them like they're a contagious disease. He and Dad didn't hit it off too well when they met at juvie."

"It couldn't have gone that badly," Matt said. "I mean, your dad supported his early release, right?"

"Yeah, but." Nicky fidgeted.

"Why did she call, really?" Neil asked.

"To invite us home for Thanksgiving dinner."

"And?"

"And I hung up on her!" Nicky flailed at him. "What else was I supposed to do? I couldn't tell her no, could I?"