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“Right? You’re welcome.”

“You’re all heart, Nicky.”

Nick opened his mouth to say something about how boringtoday had been, or about how he’d fought with his dad, or maybe even about how Shadow Star and Pyro Storm had brawled all-out the night before. He could have said any number of things. But then his mouth was hijacked by a rebel part of his brain, and he said, “You kissed me on the cheek yesterday.”

Seth’s eyes widened above his blanket. “I… did?”

“Wow,” Nick breathed. “I didnotmean to bring that up. Honestly, I was going to try and work my way up to it in like five or six weeks.”

“And yet there it is.”

“Right? I’m braver than I give myself credit for.” He grinned. “I’m going to make a good Extraordinary.”

“It’s weird how not weird it is that I can totally follow your line of thinking.”

“You’re fluent in Nick, I guess.”

“Years of practice.”

Nick felt like he was about to burst. “So the kissing! We should talk about the kissing!”

Seth winced. “I would really rather not, if it’s all the same to you.”

Nick patted his foot under the comforter. It felt like he was wearing boots, but it must have just been the blankets. Seth would never wear boots to bed. That would be ridiculous. “Too late. It’s already out there.”

“It’s not that big of a deal.”

That caused a strange twist in Nick’s stomach that almost felt like disappointment. “Oh.”

“I mean, friends do that all the time.”

“They do?”

Seth shrugged. “I read they do.”

“What? Where?”

Seth was sweating even more. “The internet.”

“Where did you find that?” Nick demanded. “I tried to look it up, and all I could find were quizzes about what I’d be like in bed that I absolutely did not take!” He’d taken three of them. According to one, he was a modern woman in the streets, and a tigress in the sheets. He didn’t know what to do with any of that. Tigers werecool and all, but he didn’t think he had the posture to be a modern woman.

The comforter dropped a little. “Why were you looking that up?”

Nick blanched. “Um. For reasons completely unrelated to the topic at hand.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” Nick said, suddenly defensive. His skin felt warm, and he wondered if he’d already been infected. “You know I like to look things up. It’s one of my things.”

Seth was looking at him strangely. If Nick didn’t know any better, he’d have thought Seth was almost… hopeful. “I just—I don’t know. It felt like the right thing to do. I was going to face… all that flooding, and I didn’t want to do it without saying goodbye.”

“All that flooding,” Nick repeated.

“Right.”

“So you kissed me.”

“On thecheek.You’re acting like I stuck my tongue down your—”