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Nick relossy wooden boxes lowered into the ground, and finding shattered glass everywhere Michael had called the cops Chris had holed up in his room to cry Gabriel had storeance

Nick had cleaned up the mess

Five years, and the memory still had the power to knock the breath out of him "I don’t really want to talk about this"

"I’m sorry," Adam said softly "I didn’t mean--"

"It’s fine" Nick tried to shake off the e to be upset about--I mean, we still have oldAnd then after they were gone, no one really felt like taking pictures of anything ful"

"Your brothers weren’t into trips to Sears wearing identical sweaters?"

Nick half smiled "No"

Adam pulled his phone out of his pocket and held it up "Say cheese"

"Don’t take my--"

"Too late" He turned it around so Nick could see

Ada, so the photo captured his mouth in a thin line His shoulders were hunched and his eyes dark

"Delete it," he said

"No way" Ada a picture of soood chance he rinned and said, "Wait, now I need another picture"

This time, Nick let hiers

"If you delete the them" Nick turned the phone around and took a picture of Adarip on Nick’s heart

He texted it to hied "Come on Show me the upstairs"

At the top of the stairs, Nick pointed at each room in turn

"Chris, Michael, Gabriel, "

But there was so here, in the upstairs hallway, breathing the sa and contentment

Adam started forward, and Nick expected him to head for his bedroom But Adam went to Gabriel’s door

Nick didn’t follow hiainst the wall He didn’t want to think about Gabriel now

"I expected your brother to be a slob," Ada around the door frame to peer in

Gabriel kind of was a slob, but they’d all learned pretty quickly that if they left the place a mess, there wasn’t anyone around to pick up after them Nick frowned "Why?"

"Because he’s careless"

"He’s not--"

"He is He’s hurting you and he doesn’t even realize it"

Nick couldn’t exactly deny that

Adam abandoned Gabriel’s rooo in?"

Nick nodded and followed

But Adam stopped short Nick knehat he’d spotted without even seeing around him "What’s with the air mattress?"

"Hunter sleeps there He’s my temporary rooed "I don’t really think about it" He sh some stuff with his ht "He’s also Gabriel’s best friend"

Ada his arms on the back "Then why doesn’t he rooed and dropped onto the end of his bed "I have more floor space Gabriel and I used to share this room, until

well, until we didn’t have to anyot around to cleaning out the ht away Two years had passed before any of theeer for his own space Nick hadn’t wanted hio

And now the tables were turned, with a drawer full of college letters offering him a way out of this house Maybe out of this town

"So serious," said Ada he wanted to talk about "I’lad you’re here"

"Me, too" Adam paused, then unwound himself from the chair to join Nick on the end of the bed He found Nick’s hand and threaded their fingers together

Then he said, "Are you still hoarding a stack of unopened mail?"

"Yeah"

"Why haven’t you opened them? What are you afraid of?"

Nick shook his head "I don’t know"

Adam hesitated "I don’t think that’s true You know"