Chapter 2
It comes out bitter, but it's hard to regret it when he gets to watch Taro choke on his cream soda.
Really choke, like he's dying.
His spastic coughing catches the eye of the only other customer in the restaurant, and then, naturally, of its owner.
Marco sticks his head out from the kitchen and Taro waves him over, almost frantic.
I'm busy."
"Jace says Leo got a girlfriend," Taro gasps out.
"Oh." Marco wipes his hands on his apron and inclines his head to Jace, gives him a quick once-over, like he's seeing him for the first time.
"I didn't know you were into that."
"I'm—" Not, he almost says, but runs the words over first and realizes it might be a little much.
He and Leo have a social agreement.
If Leo wants to—to waste time with some girlfriend, that's none of Jace's business.
"It's fine."
They give him the particular look he's used to getting, if usually from Dan.
"No, seriously.
I'm fine."
Taro looks at Marco, Marco looks at Taro, and then Marco walks back into the kitchen.
He comes out a moment later with a plate of pasta smothered in cheese, tomato sauce, and what might be basil.
It smells like heaven.
It smells like it could make Jace forget why he's sitting here and not on the back of Leo's scooter heading up the mountain, or out to the beach, or to the skatepark.
Anywhere.
Anywhere, with Leo, felt like something new.
His nose feels stuffy all of a sudden.
Well, maybe he's allergic to basil.
Jace's mind is the type that can chew on something for hours and days and still find something new to gnaw on.
It's on the tip of his tongue whenever he shares space with Leo now, and the weird part is that nothing else changes.
Leo follows him out of class and up to the roof for lunch the next day like this little revelation meant nothing to him at all and he hasn't got some secret paramour waiting for him.
How secret could it be?
Maybe she's some real babe.
Leo could pull that off.
As soon as they get out and under the sun and in relative private, Leo unbuttons his uniform jacket and stretches out, straight up, all his long lines on display in the shock-bright sun.
His stubborn paleness is starting to give way to the edge of a tan.
Well, almost.
The strip of skin exposed over his abs is still pale as paper, but he's getting actual muscle now.
He always had it, but now it's serious.
Jace peers up at him.
"Did you get bigger?"
Leo stares down at him wide-eyed.
His mouth works, but no sound comes out.
"Yeah," Jace tells him, "Yeah you are."
"I am?"
"You're getting taller." Jace shifts to his feet and gets as close as he can to do a quick and dirty estimation of his height against Leo's, and yeah, he has gotten bigger.
They used to be eye-to-nose, but now it's more like eye-to-mouth.
Jace has a perfect view of his lips and this close he can see the new scar at the edge of his mouth, the result of a particularly bad fall a while back.
He let Jace dab antiseptic on it—"It's bad." "It's not, you big baby.
It's just a little blood." "I don't—" "I know.
I got it."—with only minimal complaining.
"See?
You are taller." Jace pinches the strip of exposed skin on Leo's hip.
"Nice.
Must be all the skating.
It builds muscles you didn't even know you had."
Leo has gone still and silent.
His breath is a little off, a little forced.
When Jace looks up, his face is blooming with color.
"This heat really gets to you, huh?"
"Yeah," Leo murmurs.
"We don't have to eat up here.
You could eat with your girl, you know.
I don't mind."
Leo pushes at his shoulder, forcing him back a step.
"Who said it was a girl?"
"It's not?"
"Is that an issue?"
Jace waves his bandaged hand.
"No, no. I'm just trying to figure out which guys in our class are dateable.
Aside from myself, obviously."
"Obviously."
This is a whole new wrench, a whole new aspect to this thing that Jace has to chew over.
The pickings in their class were few and far between before Leo showed up.
Even Jace has had his share of love letters and behind-the-school callouts.
Okay—one, but that's a lot!
Of all the boys in their class, there might be two that are within Leo's sphere of hotness.
The hair, the height, the allure of his newness, the edginess of his occasional trips to the admin office for skateboard related crimes.
It's a lot to compete with.
No, scratch that.
No one is on his level.
Jace, maybe, barely, and only because he knows that the better half of Leo's coolness is down to the simple fact no one else has seen him faint at the sight of his own blood or pull his sandwich into pieces before he eats it.
"Okay, look, this is killing me.
You've gotta give me a hint about who it is at least."
Leo's face twists around the frankly obscene bite he's taken.
"Mmmm," he says eloquently and then nods and says what might be an okay. And good.
Jace sucks at riddles, but he can make something out of this.
He's known everyone at their high school for years longer than Leo has, and he has a memory for it.
Every sordid detail, every time someone fell on their face at a school festival or tried to ditch out on cleaning duty.
Once Leo has swallowed, he takes a breath and shuffles over on his butt to sit directly in front of Jace's lunch, cross-legged.
"What do you want to know?"
"Um...
What are his best qualities?"
"He's kind.
He helps me out, even when I don't know I need help.
He's patient, and—"
Jace slaps at him.
"Enough, enough.
My teeth are gonna rot out." Those are all things Jace could do, if Leo would let him.
Nothing special, nothing new.
It's also no clue as to who it could be.
"But what does he look like?"
"That's cheating," Leo chides, but then gives him a long, hard look, and murmurs, "He's as handsome as you are."
"Oh, cheating!
Cheating?
That's cheating!" Jace waves him off and away.
"But seriously.
He sounds like a great guy.
I'm happy for you." The words make his lunch burn in his gut.
He might be sick.
Maybe it was spoiled.
Leo stands to follow him, gathering his bag and the remnants of his lunch.
He really is."