He reared back in surprise. "Shut up! Only Lexi gets to call me cute." I started to walk away but he caught me again. "Promise me she'll say yes," he demanded.

I rolled my eyes. "I promise she'll say yes."

"Spit-swear on it."

"What? No! Gross. What's wrong with you?"

I tried to get to the bathroom but he swiftly blocked my path. "Spit-swear," he said again, trying to contain his laugh. He spat on his palm and held it out.

"Yuck, Ethan. That's disgusting."

I tried to get past, but he blocked me again. "Do it!" He waved his spit-filled hand in front of my face. I started dry-retching. Pushing him out of the way, I tried again to get past. He continued to block my path. His shoulders lifted with his laugh.

Then he did it.

He smeared his hand across my face.

"You asshole!" I squealed, but you couldn't hear me over the sound of his laughter.

I squared my shoulders and narrowed my eyes at him. He understood. "Oh shit," he muttered, his features evening out.

I raised an eyebrow. "Game. On."

"Fuck." He bolted, jumping over the bed and running out of my bedroom.

I chased him, but somehow I'd started laughing, too. He ran down the hallway and straight into Tristan. "Whoa," Tris said, lifting his hands to block me. Ethan hid behind him. Coward.

I tried to pass him to get to Ethan but he, too, blocked me. "What the fuck is going on right now?" he scolded. "This is just like the Epic Missing Cookie Battle of 2003." He was laughing, too. We all were. "By the way," he continued. "I totally ate that cookie."

Ethan and I stopped laughing immediately. Shit just got real. "What?" we both asked.

His laugh became silent when he saw how serious we were. We blamed each other about that missing cookie for a good five months, and froze each other out completely. Meals with two non-speaking twelve year olds were not good times. "You ate it?" Ethan deadpanned.

Tristan swallowed loudly, looking from Ethan to me and back again. He nodded once, his eyes wide. "Yes."

"Swear it?" Ethan asked him.

He nodded.

"Spit-swear it?" I said.

"What?" He scrunched his nose.

Then in unison, Ethan and I spat on our hands and offered it to him. "Do it," we both insisted.

Tristan's face contorted to a look of disgust. "No. Fucking. Way."

Ethan's eyes met mine. "Game on," I announced, lifting my chin.

Then, simultaneously, Ethan and I wiped our hands across his cheeks. He squealed. Not a manly one, either. Ethan's head threw back with the guffaw that took over him. "You sound gay," he yelled.

Tristan wiped his cheeks with his sleeves. "I'm am gay, asshole."

***

"Soooo," Tristan mocked in a high-pitched girl voice. "Who's the boy?"

He'd walked in just as I opened the bathroom door after I'd finished showering and frantically scrubbing my face of Ethan's spit. His question made me stop in my tracks. For a moment, I wanted to tell him all about Logan. Instead, I lied. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Bullshit," he said calmly, taking a seat on my bed. "I know you too well, Dim. Who is he?" He smiled eagerly, waiting for my response.

I couldn't lie. I'd been doing it too much already. Slowly shutting my door, I faced him. "You can't say anything to anyone, Tris. Swear it."

He laughed. "As fun as it was to pretend we were kids just then, we're not, we're grown-ass people. I don't need to swear on anything. You know you can trust me."

"Fine." I paused, thinking of my next words. I felt the corners of my lips turn up, and before I knew it, I was grinning.

Tristan sighed. "How long's he been back?"

My eyes went wide. "What? How do you know?"

"I'm not an idiot. You shutting the door, keeping secrets, that goofy look on your damn face." He blew out a breath. "I take it Ethan doesn't know?"

I shook my head slowly. The guilt slowly developed into a knot in the pit of my stomach.

He made a frustrated noise as he rubbed his face with his hands. "This is not going to end well, Dim. Especially with you keeping it from him."

"I know," I said quickly. I sat on the bed next to him and did my best to persuade otherwise. "It's complicated, Tristan. We know we have stuff to overcome, and issues to deal with, but we just want some time. We just want to be together without the world judging us. We just want to be happy, even if it's for a little while." I felt the sob rising up my throat and swallowed it down. I hated this. I hated thinking about what might happen. Not even about when we went public, just Ethan's reaction. He was the only one who mattered to me. "I know it's hard to understand—"

"Wait," he cut in. "You do realize I'm gay, right?" He laughed once. "If anyone knows what it's like to be afraid of judgment, it's me."

"Valid," I agreed.

"Dim, there's a reason I came out to you first."

"Yeah? What's that?"

"Because. You don't judge, you don't ask questions, you just accept things for what they are. You accept people for who they are, regardless of who they love. You understand that you can't help who you fall in love with.

"I think, deep down, Ethan's the same. But it goes both ways, Dim. You can't help being in love with Logan, just as much as Ethan can't help loving you. And either way you look at it, you and Ethan—you're both trying to protect the people you love."