“I’ve got a temper.”

  “What were you arguing about?”

  “Stupid stuff. It doesn’t matter.”

  “You threatened to kill him; I think it matters.”

  Louis sat back, emerging from the locker, and looked up at them. “Did I really say that?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  Louis shrugged. His posture was changing, one arm coming up across his chest now, hand on his shoulder, then his neck, then his throat. A defensive movement. Because he was lying? Or because he was suddenly realizing he was alone with two strangers who might be accusing him of murder?

  “I don’t know,” Louis said. “When I get really mad like that, it’s all a blur.”

  “Why don’t you tell us what happened?” Shaw suggested.

  “He cut in line at the refectory. When I told him to move his ass back, he mouthed off. I grabbed his arm. He knocked my tray out of my hand. My food went everywhere.” Louis shrugged. “I lost my shit. I kind of remember screaming at him, and then I went back to my room and calmed down. The end.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Seems like an extreme reaction,” North said. “Do you always lose your shit when somebody ticks you off?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “When was the last time you saw Flip?”

  “Sunday. That thing at the refectory, that was Thursday. Friday, we weren’t talking. It sucks at a place like this; it’s so small, everybody knows everything. Fridays and Saturdays we’re allowed to go off campus, although curfew is at nine on Friday and ten on Saturday, which is total bullshit. Normally, the fourth-years go out together—well, not Abigail because she never does anything fun—but I was still pissed at Flip, so I did my own thing Friday. Saturday, things were cooling off. We went out together, the fourth-years. Sunday, I saw Flip at lunch. And in the house, of course.”

  “You live in Washington too?”

  Louis nodded as he pulled on the rugby shirt. When his head popped through the collar, he added, “Yeah.”

  “Do you have a best guess what time you last saw him on Sunday?”

  “Early afternoon? I don’t really know. The house was pretty empty. I think I left around two or three. I’d finished my homework and I wanted to get in some pool time, and I think the house was totally empty.”

  “You think?”

  “It’s not like I went door to door.” He cocked his head. “You guys really don’t seem like cops.”

  “I never said we were cops,” North said. “I said we wanted to ask you about Flip. Do you have any idea where he might be?”

  “Maui? Tahiti? A friend’s house, laughing at all the dumbasses who are looking for him?”

  “You think this could be a practical joke?”

  Rising, Louis pulled the mesh shorts from his locker. He stepped into them; the fabric barely hit the middle of his thigh. “Flip wasn’t really a joker, but what else could this be? I mean, nothing happened to him. So he’s doing this because he wants to.”

  “Why would he want to do this?”

  “Maybe he just needed to. Haven’t you ever needed a fresh start?”

  “He’s about to graduate. He’s about to have a fresh start.”

  Louis considered his socks, dropped them on the floor, and shoved his feet into a pair of slides. “Nah. Not with his parents riding him.”

  “Are there problems at home?”

  He made the classic teenage noise that expressed the ineffable stupidity of adults.

  North refused to acknowledge that he understood, so he said, “What does that mean?”

  “You know what kind of kids go here?”

  “Rich, bratty ones.”

  “Sure, all right. You know what kind of parents they have?”

  “Rich, bratty ones.”

  “There you go.”

  “What about his sister?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Louis sobered for a moment. “That was really sad.”

  “What happened?”

  “Um, she drowned or something?”

  “Or something?” North asked.

  “I don’t know, man. Flip wouldn’t talk about it at all. I heard she drowned, but I don’t know where I heard that.”

  “We’re trying to figure out if Flip’s home life might have been worse than usual,” Shaw said.

  “He doesn’t have a home life.” Louis closed the locker. “None of us do. That’s the whole point. He never seemed to mind going home, if that’s what you mean. Nobody was beating the shit out of him; I had a couple of friends with parents like that. He wasn’t cutting himself, he wasn’t anorexic or overeating, he wasn’t depressed. I know what you’re asking, and I know what it looks like, and that wasn’t Flip.”

  “But you think he ran away to escape his parents?”

  With a practiced roll of his eyes, Louis shook his head. “I told you: I don’t know. I’m just saying what he might have done. He might want a fresh start. He might be playing a joke.”

  “Would Flip have done something like that?”

  “Jeez, I don’t know.”

  “Sure you do,” Shaw said. “You know him well enough. Is he cruel? This is a cruel prank, if that’s what it is. When he knocked the tray out of your hand, did he do it on purpose? Is he a bully? Does he like to cause trouble?”

  Louis’s face screwed up, first in irritation, and then in something else. “Is it weird if I say, no, but…”

  “But what?”

  “He’s always trying so hard to be perfect. It’s fucking annoying. Perfect student, perfect athlete, perfect guy. The teachers are obsessed with him. Everyone is, really.” A surprisingly mature laugh escaped him, droll and dry and pained. “Even me, although I guess I did threaten to kill him. But it’s like something is off. Or missing. Or not quite real. Ever been in his room?”

  “Yes.”

  “Like that. Flip would be perfect all day, all week, maybe even a month. And then one of his little gears would slip, and robot boy would blow a gasket and do something really stupid. Like that stuff with Lauren.”

  “Who’s Lauren?” North asked.

  “She thinks she’s one tough bitch.” Louis grabbed the gym bag from his locker and cracked his back. “She’s a student here. She calls herself a drug dealer, but I’ve never seen her sell anything. I think smoking cheap weed behind the greenhouse is about as close as she’s ever gotten. Flip and Lauren got in a huge fight in Kish’s classroom; I didn’t see it, but I guess Flip went ape. Broke a desk in half or something. And there’s been guys on campus, sketchy as hell. Put it together yourself.”

  “Someone told us those guys had nothing to do with Flip.”

  “Hiwet?” He said her name like he wanted to scrape his tongue clean after. “Little Gossip Girl bitch baby Beyonce?”

  “Try saying that three times fast.”

  “And I bet she had Jos with her, right?”

  Shaw nodded. “He was there.”

  For some reason, Louis found that funny, although the sound was mean this time. “She likes to pretend she knows everybody’s shit because we all know her shit. It gets old after a while, and after a while, you realize she doesn’t know anything the rest of us don’t already know.”

  “What’s her shit?” North said.

  “I’m not a gossipy old queen,” Louis said. Then, with a smirk, he added, “Yet. Look, it’s been fun, but if neither of you is going to stick a cock in me, I’ve really got to—”

  “What’s your relationship with Flip?” Shaw asked.

  Louis adjusted his grip on the gym bag. After a moment, he said, “What does that mean?”

  “It means, you said you’re interested in him, and the argument you described looked minor but escalated quickly. That’s a classic symptom of fights between people who have very strong emotions for each other.”

  “My very strong emotion was that Flip was being a prick cutting in line. That’s all.”

  “There wasn’t anything else? Even something unofficial? Maybe you—”

  “Maybe I jerked him off under the covers at night, is that what you mean? Grow the fuck up. I’ve got a phone. I’ve got Grindr and Scruff. If I want to get laid, I hang dick and let some loser thirty-year-olds beg for it.” His voice softened, but the edge only grew sharper. “I’m the only fag boy at this school. The rest of them can pat themselves on the back for how open and accepting they are, but I know how they look at me. Fuck them. In two years, I’m going to be swimming in Tokyo. At the Olympics. These pieces of shit can suck vag.”

  The intensity of his rage left North speechless for a moment, and before he recovered, a door opened and footsteps echoed off the tile. “Louis? What the hell is taking so long? We’ve got to break down tonight’s practice before I go home, so move your ass.”

  Louis’s whole body tightened at the sound of the man’s voice. With an angry look at North and Shaw, as though this were somehow their fault, he hurried away and disappeared around the corner.

  “You were swimming for shit tonight,” the man said, voice fading now as he and Louis headed for the exit. “You picked up those two-tenths of a second you dropped last week. That’s bullshit; you’re better than that.”

  Louis answered, but the words were muffled.

  Whatever he’d said made the man laugh. “I don’t think so. If you think I didn’t notice the extra three pounds when you weighed in today, you’re out of your mind. Power versus resistance, that’s the trade-off. You’re dropping those three pounds. And maybe an extra, just to see if it helps you lose those two-tenths again. Last night, your mother was saying that she thinks—”

  But whatever she thought, the words were cut off when the door slammed shut.

  “Wait,” Shaw said. “That was his dad?”

  “Or coach is doing double duty,” North said. “Come on. This place smells like bleached assholes.”

  “It probably brings back fond memories,” Shaw said as he kept pace.

  “What happened to the quiet game?”

  “All those swimmer boys you’d bring back and bang so loud I could hear them screaming at the other end of the hall.”

  “Enough, Shaw.”

  “And it does explain why you were reading that article on DIY asshole whitening.”

  That was too far, which meant they had to spend the next five minutes with North trying to shove Shaw inside a locker, and Shaw fighting to escape and giggling so loudly that North barely managed to keep a smile off his face.

  When they finally stumbled outside, the May air was sweet and clean after the chemical tang inside the pool area, the breeze cool enough to raise goosebumps on North’s bare arms. The world had gone black except for the security lights, which shed hazy spheres like dandelion puffs. A night bird called softly, and then something a little too large for North’s liking—a possum, he guessed—shot away from the dumpsters next to the health center and into the brush. Branches shivered and rustled. Then silence.

  “What do you say we try to track down Kishor? He’s got to be home by now, and it sounds like he might know something about Flip’s fight with Lauren. If nothing else, we can sweat him a little more and see if he gives up anything else.”

  “Ok,” Shaw said, “but—”

  His phone buzzed. He answered, caught North’s gaze, and mouthed, Jadon. “Uh huh. Uh huh. Well, I don’t see why—I’m not saying you did, I’m just—ok. Yes, ok. Thank you.”

  “What crawled up his butt?” North asked when Shaw disconnected.

  “He’s probably just tired.”

  “Jadon never cuts you off. Once I watched him listen for an hour and a half while you explained how you were going to recreate Susan B. Anthony’s brassiere, which you claimed had been revealed to you in a dream.”

  “You were listening too!”

  “No, I was trying to watch the Super Bowl. I was just too lazy to move the TV. Or kick your ass out.”

  “You were taking notes. I saw you!”

  “I was trying to figure out if women at that time even wore bras, and it fucked up my search results for a month, Shaw. And don’t try to get me off topic. Jadon is irritatingly patient with you; why did he keep talking over you right now?”

  “Oh. Well, why don’t I tell you while we walk very quickly back to the car?”

  Shaw didn’t wait for an answer; he caught North’s hand and tugged, leading him in a brisk walk up the hill and past the tennis courts.

  “Shaw.”

  “He’s going through a really rough patch. He tried to work things out with, um, that guy. And it didn’t work out. And I said maybe they should try—”

  “Nope. The real bit.”

  “Jadon might have been the tiniest bit worried about me. About us, really, because I know you’re basically his best friend.”

  “I fucking better not be. Why is he worried about us?”

  As though in answer, blue-and-red lights whirled to life, and a siren blatted once as a cruiser pulled onto the access road.

  “Maybe because of that,” Shaw said with a sigh.

  Chapter 15

  AFTER TWO HOURS, Diamond let them go. Most of that time, North and Shaw spent sitting at her desk in the Juvenile bullpen. The smell of sour sweat and old cigarettes competed with an artificial air freshener labeled Jumpin’ Juniper, which stank worse than the rotgut gin Shaw remembered North loving during senior year of college.

  “This should have been a trespassing charge,” Diamond said when she walked them out. “Do you understand that? The school is private property, and you don’t have any right to be there unless you’ve cleared it with them. Especially not after the head of school told you that to your face.”

  “We were hired—” North began.

  “Don’t raise your voice to me,” Diamond said.

  North managed to swallow whatever he thought about that. In a tight voice, he asked for an update about Kishor, the teacher who had been trying to steal Flip’s clothes.

  “I’m going to talk to him when I get around to it.”

  “Talking to him won’t—”

  “I’m sticking my neck out for you two because Jadon asked me to,” Diamond finally said. “Don’t piss me off. And don’t make me regret it.”

  When they got in the GTO, Shaw squeezed North’s arm. Neither man talked as they left the parking lot. North drove hard: sharp bursts of acceleration, sudden braking, turns too fast. He must have been lost in thought because they were halfway back to his Southampton duplex when he swore, signaled, and cut toward an exit.

  “It’s fine,” Shaw said. “Let’s just head back to your place. I don’t need to go home, and we’re both exhausted.”

  North didn’t answer; he just accelerated again, the GTO tearing up asphalt as they slingshotted along the curve of I-44.

  The puppy greeted them, tail wild, when North let him out of his crate. A note on the whiteboard from Pari said, In crate at 9, which meant the puppy had only been alone for an hour. At first the puppy just pranced around, nails clicking on the floorboards, whining at North and then occasionally pausing to yap at Shaw. He was probably getting too big to be called a puppy, Shaw thought, but he didn’t have a name yet. Then North scooped him up, grimacing as the puppy licked his face, and carried the puppy outside. After the puppy had done his business, North let him back inside and locked the door, which required an extra push because the door no longer hung plumb in the frame.

  They undressed, took their turns in the bathroom, and crawled into bed. The puppy spent a good half an hour walking on top of North, sniffing, and turning every once in a while to growl at Shaw—all of this while North read on his phone. Shaw tried to coax the puppy onto his lap, but the puppy would have none of it. Then Shaw tried to commune psychically with the puppy, which turned into meditating, which turned into snoring himself awake a couple of times. He jerked awake again sometime later. The room was dark, and the mattress shifted as North stood.

  “Go back to sleep,” he whispered. “I’m just putting him in his crate.”

  But Shaw was awake with that strange clarity of interrupted sleep, and he lay, warm and comfortable and staring up into the darkness, until North came back. North lay down, and Shaw rolled onto his side and kissed North’s arm.

  North made a quiet noise. “I thought you were going back to sleep.”

  “Don’t want to sleep.” He slid closer. North had chosen cut-off sweats and a loose tee for pajamas that night. Shaw rucked the tee up a couple of inches and kissed the bare skin of North’s abdomen. Warm, salty, dense with muscle.

  “Baby, I’m tired.” North’s hand ruffled his hair. “And if I’m honest, kind of not in the mood.”

  “You’re mad.”

  North made another quiet noise. When Shaw kissed his belly again, he carded Shaw’s hair and said, “Bullshit way to end the day. Come on, let’s go to sleep.”

  “You’ve got all those feelings pent up.” Shaw curled his fingers under both waistbands—cut-offs and boxers—and slid them down a few inches, exposing the thick mat of dark blond pubes. North’s dick was halfway to erect, but it was pinned down now by the elastic. North wiggled his hips in silent frustration, but Shaw tightened his hold on the waistbands, keeping North trapped. “Maybe you should do something with them.”

  “I don’t want to do anything with my feelings. I want to go to sleep.” But his voice was hoarse, his cock hardening, the discomfort of the elastic barrier making him reach down.

  Shaw nuzzled his hand away and then planted a kiss on the patch of hair, breathing in North’s scent.

  “You’re such a fucking tease,” North said, his breathing shallower now, faster.

  “What are you going to do if I stop teasing you?”

  “Lie here and make you do all the work for once.”

  “That doesn’t sound very nice.”

  “Fuck nice. I want you to fuck my brains out. Is that too much to—oh Jesus.”

  In one quick move, Shaw yanked the cut-offs and boxers down and took North in his mouth. He went slowly at first, teasing, suckling, even nipping—and being rewarded, in turn, by muffled swearing that grew more and more frantic. Then he took North to the root. He’d gotten better at this over their months together, and if Shaw were honest with himself, he’d been surprised by how much he liked it. Especially when North took over, grabbing him by the hair or ears and setting the pace.