In less than thirty seconds, I’ve managed to take him from joy to grief. He loves Carey like a brother and looks after Carey’s parents as if he is their son. He turns his head to get himself under control and clenches his jaw so tight I can see the bones working.

“I’m sorry,” I say when he swipes a hand across his face. “I didn’t think about how that would sound.”

He nods and squeezes my fingers. “No, I should’ve known better. I just . . . you know.”

Wished for it so hard, you thought it might be true.

“Yeah, I know.” I let him go.

“What’d he say?” he asks, changing the subject.

“That he missed us.”

“That’s it?” He bumps me with his shoulder and gives me a doubtful look. Carey tends to be long-winded in his letters.

“No. There was other stuff. Personal stuff.”

Blake seems to guess I’m leaving the important things out. He searches my face for an explanation, but luckily he’s not Carey who can read my thoughts.

“Before . . . when Jamie was giving you a hard time . . . you said he knew about the picture. He saw it, then? He knows it was me.”

It’s not a question, but I nod.

“The tattoo,” I say slowly.

A longer answer isn’t really necessary. The three of us got tattoos together before Carey left for basic, sneaking to Blake’s tattoo-artist brother since my father would never have agreed to me getting one. Only three people in the world could recognize the ink on Blake’s back. His brother, Carey, and me. His mom hated tattoos, so he’d purposely placed it low enough on his back that his clothes had to be coming off to see it. Say, like in a picture, with a half-naked girl all over him. I still don’t know what the bird means to him. We’d all agreed that the tattoos had to mean something we could live with for a lifetime, but he wouldn’t tell us about his.

“But . . .” He sounds puzzled, and I glance up to find him staring into space. “I talked to him, Q. We talked after the picture came out. He didn’t say anything. Why?”

I shrug. “You’d have to ask him.”

“What’s going on? He acted like everything was fine with you.”

Two guys and I love them both. Loyalty divides and subtracts me from both of them.

“We were friends before all this,” he whispers. “That has to count for something.”

Carey comes first. Right now, he has to come first. But there has to be a middle ground. What can I say without breaking my promise? I weigh my words.

“He doesn’t have the right to be upset.” He’s gay. “I told you we broke up that night.” That much is true.

For six months I’ve let Blake think that I lied to him the night we slept together. When I agreed to pretend to still be Carey’s girlfriend, it seemed easier to let Blake think of me as selfish: a manipulative bitch who’d used him in some kind of game with Carey. Easier to let him hate me for using him, as if my heart hadn’t been involved at all, than to admit I had to give him up for Carey. And how Blake hated me!

The kiss in that picture Jamie posted . . . it began so differently. It happened out of anger and frustration and Blake’s need to prove that I cared about him. I’d shown up at the summer scrimmage as Carey’s date, before he deployed, and Blake had pulled me under the bleachers. An argument about our night together turned into the kiss that was our last. If Blake had wanted to punish me for using him, it didn’t work. The kiss became more than we expected. Something far more real.

I can’t think about that, can’t remember how much more I wanted. For months, I’ve shoved my feelings for Blake aside. It’s hard to do that now, when he looks like I’ve punched him in the gut. The taut way he holds himself. Mouth turned down and drawn tight.

“You really broke up?” He leans forward in desperation when I won’t respond.

This matters more to him than it should. Knowing I didn’t lie that night doesn’t change the fact that—in the world’s eyes—I went back to Carey the next day. It’s obvious that it does matter, though. All I can say is “Things aren’t always what they seem.”

His eyes pinch. I’ve hurt him. A lot.

This might be my breaking point. If anyone but Carey had asked me to keep this secret, I would tell. Right now. Because I want Blake like I’ve never wanted anything. But there’s more at stake than my feelings.

An image of Carey’s battered body floats in my memory. When he came to me asking for help and asking me to keep his secret, it wasn’t words alone that swayed me. Nor did I make my promise lightly.

As for Blake, as far as he’s concerned, I toyed with him. I slept with him and rejected him. Keeping my promise hasn’t made me a saint. No, I’m fucked up and wishing I could have Blake, the one person I’ve hurt the worst.

Still, he lets me shoulder the blame alone.

“Why haven’t you come forward?” I ask bitterly. “Confessed it was you in the picture?”

“You destroyed me, Q.” Hurt rubs under the anger in his rough voice. “You knew I cared about you.”

I’d guessed. The way he’d watched me had hinted at what he felt. Why else would I have driven to his house? I had something to prove to myself, and I knew he wouldn’t refuse.

“You wanted me. Not him. Me.” He’s daring me to deny it, and I can’t. “But the next morning, you ran away while I was sleeping and then you showed up at that damned game with him. Like we never happened.” He drops his hand. “How could you fucking do that to me, Q?”