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At the usual table outside Monday morning, Nick was still lost in thought. He'd thought he'd come to some idea of what to do, what he wanted, last night, but just like every time he believed he'd come to a conclusion, something would confuse him again, throwing him back into the chaos of "What if" and "But I'm not" and "How is this possible" and … Charlie.

He was startled when his friend Harry came up to him, clapping him on the arm. "Nicholas!"

"All right?"

"How's it?"

"It's fine," Nick told him. "Normal." It was anything else, but Nick wasn't about to talk to Harry about any of this.

"Pleased for you, mate."

"So, uh, what's up?"

"Here to talk about a party, mate."

"Party?"

"My sixteenth birthday party. St. George's Hotel, this Saturday. You're going to be there."

Nick nodded. "Uh … yeah. Sounds good."

"You'd better bring some cool people with you, as well." Harry stood up and went to join another group of their mates.

Cool people? Did Nick know any cool people? He knew Charlie, but he was pretty sure Charlie wasn't the kind of cool person Harry meant.

Imogen detached herself from the group she'd been talking to and came to Nick's side, crowding him on the picnic table. "You going to invite me?"

He scooted over to make room. "Um, only if you're cool enough, apparently."

"Um, do you not think I'm cool, Nick Nelson?"

"Fine, I—I guess I can invite you, Imogen."

She smiled. "Yeah. Yeah, definitely."

Nick slid into form just at the last minute again, not sure what he would do when he saw Charlie—and when he did see Charlie, he wished he had come in sooner. Everything seemed better when he was sitting in his spot next to Charlie, looking at his face. But there was barely time for the usual exchange of "hi"s before it was off to classes.

"See you at practise?"

"Yeah, all right."

That was it for the rest of the day, as Nick tried to focus on school while his head was a kaleidoscope of confusion and longing and fear and a lot of other feelings he couldn't even name, much less manage.

The locker room felt weird—for the first time, it seemed awkward to change his shirt in front of Charlie. Charlie didn't seem to notice, and Nick was irrationally annoyed at him. Why was Nick the only one in torment? Couldn't Charlie want things he wasn't supposed to want, too?

And, of course, Harry made it worse. Trust Harry to find just the wrong moment to be … Harry. He was loudly listing off all the people invited to his party, and he looked at Nick. "You know Tara Jones is going to be there."

Nick remembered kissing Tara at a party once, years ago. He'd liked it, if he recalled correctly. He'd liked her. So what was going on with him now?

"Mate, she is fit," Nick's friend Sai said.

"And Nick is going to have his pick of two girls." Harry laughed.

Nick looked at Charlie, to see if he had any reaction to that remark, but there was nothing. Why was Nick stressing so much when Charlie clearly wasn't interested in him at all?

"Who's the other?"

"Imogen, obviously," Harry said. "Everyone knows she fancies him."

Nick had had about enough of this. The whole conversation would have been bad enough under normal circumstances, but today, in front of Charlie—he wasn't having any more. He turned to the other two boys, snapping, "Hey, what?"

"Oh, um … Nothing." Sai at least had the grace to look uncomfortable. "We were talking about Tara Jones. Apparently she's going to be at Harry's party."

"What about her?"

Harry grinned at him. "Just thought you might be interested, mate."

On the other side of Charlie, another of the boys, Christian, stood up and joined the conversation. "Didn't you have some childhood romance thing with her?" There was general laughter, and Nick wanted to knock all their heads together. Why did they care?

He sat down and pulled on his shoe. "We don't have a thing," he said firmly. "We just kissed at a party one time."

"Yeah, that was like, three years ago," Harry said. "Nick's got a thing with Imogen now, anyway."

"No! No, I don't," Nick said, increasingly desperate to finish this conversation.

"He has two proper fit girls trying to get with him, and he's not even bothered."

"If you're not into Imogen, then Saturday night's your chance with Tara," Harry told him. "That's all I'm saying."

Nick could see it now—a whole party of constantly having girls shoved at him. Girls he wasn't interested in even before he had started thinking he might be interested in someone else entirely.

He should claim to be sick and not go. Maybe instead of going to the party, he could hang out with Charlie.

And do what, exactly? Wish he understood himself and what he wanted? No, better to go to the party, and hope his friends would forget all about it. Or hope he would forget all about this … weirdness, and decide he liked one of the girls. How much easier would that be, to do what everyone expected him to do?

"Yeah," he said to Harry at last. "Maybe." He glanced at Charlie, and Charlie looked away, which told Nick exactly nothing about what either of them was thinking.

At home that night, he regretted agreeing, letting Harry talk him into thinking it was right to tell stories about two girls who probably weren't interested in him anyway. And he regretted not talking to Charlie all day. He reached for his phone, wanting to text him, but what could he say? He still didn't have the first idea what he wanted.

Nick was early to form the rest of the week, though, not about to make the same mistake twice. Seeing Charlie helped, made Nick feel more … himself. Even though he wasn't quite certain at the moment who that was, whoever he was felt more comfortable with Charlie than with anyone else.

Friday morning as he sat there an idea came to him, an idea which was terrible and tempting and a lot of other things Nick couldn't quite define. He looked up as Charlie came in, watching him as he sat down. Everything seemed better when he was with Charlie, when he could look at his face and hear his voice.

Charlie said "hi", as usual, as he sat down. For once, Nick didn't say it back. He was toying with this crazy idea, and whether he was going to follow through on it.

He started to ask the question, thought better of it, decided not to, and then it came out anyway.

"Do you want to go to Harry's party?" he asked abruptly. "With me."

"Oh." Charlie looked shocked. "I … I don't know. It doesn't sound like my sort of thing."

Nick was surprised at how desperate he felt at the idea of Charlie not going to the party with him. "Please come," he said. "I want you to be there." He tried to pretend it didn't sound like he was asking Charlie out, because he was far from sure that he wasn't.

Charlie smiled shyly, his eyes lighting up in a way that made Nick's heart beat faster. "Okay."

Feeling better than he had in days, Nick smiled back. Charlie looked away, but Nick couldn't seem to do the same, caught studying Charlie's profile as though the answers to all his questions were hidden there. Suddenly, the party seemed like the most exciting event ever, and Harry a genius for having one.