Alex couldn't remember the last time he'd been this excited for his birthday. In about two weeks, Halloween would come and he would be eighteen years old. Then October would be over, and his father would be happily married, and he and Ziro would be brothers. Life was going to be vastly different, all in the span of two days.

The group insisted on throwing Alex a party, and for the first time in his life, Alex agreed to the idea. He still wanted some part of it to be a surprise, though, so he'd decided that he didn't want the group to let slip any of the party planning details, and lately his volunteering at the school library was becoming the perfect way to avoid their party planning committee.

And now, while hauling a cart occupied with a unorganized load of graphic novels over to a far back shelf, Alex was beginning to find it increasingly difficult to contain his growing excitement. He'd been smiling so much that several other students and teachers he'd passed by had sent him puzzling stares.

"Quit it," Lev groaned. He appeared from the other side of the shelf flipping through a comic book.

"I can't help it," Alex whined. "After today, it'll be one more day closer to my birthday. You're just grumpy cuz I'll be older than you."

Lev lifted the flabby comic book and lightly thwacked the side of Alex's skull. "I'm grumpy because you decided to start volunteering three times a week instead of the usual two. But I will admit, it is nice not hearing any bad jokes for a couple hours every other day."

Alex grabbed the comic book and gave Lev a mild smack to his forehead. He retreated quickly then, to the other side of the bookshelf when he heard Lev growl, and tried as best he could to shield himself despite getting some distance away.

"I would get you back for that, but I have a stupid essay to start, and Evan keeps texting me to hurry. I have to tell you something though. Come here, I'm not gonna hit you."

"Promise?" Alex meekly grinned.

"Yeah yeah, whatever. Come on."

Alex waddled back towards Lev and scooped up his outstretched hand. Lev then pulled him in with a gentle tug, leaving their noses mere inches away from touching, and their eyes in each other's orbit. Alex was glad this was happening where no one could see them; he couldn't see his cheeks but they felt hyper-inflamed.

"I'm gonna make this as short as possible, and then we're never gonna talk about it ever again. Got it?" Lev said.

"Y-yeah, I got it. Tell me."

After a long breath, Lev continued. "You remember the version Ziro told about the whole 'Nick' thing, and me?"

"Yeah..."

"Okay, just to have the record straight and out there, it was all true. But...there was an important detail that Ziro wasn't aware of then. Nick manipulated me, and I fell for the whole thing until it was too late...and he kissed me. I kissed him back too...it was my first kiss, and I've been wanting to finally tell you since we had a sleepover..."

Alex retracted his hand from Lev's, and went in wrapping his arms tight around Lev's shoulders. Alex felt Lev tense a bit, but he didn't take long to settle into the embrace.

"Is that all?" Alex asked softly. Lev shivered against him, his lukewarm breath caressing Alex's neck.

"Y-yeah," Lev stammered.

"...I'm so sorry that happened, that he did that to you..." Alex told him.

"You're not mad?"

"At you? Course not, but I am pissed at Nick. He hurt you, he lied to you, he used you. Why the hell would I be mad at you?"

Lev finally reciprocated the hug, and as his arms elevating somewhere around Alex's back to enfold him.

"Aw, hey, don't cry, Nova," Alex soothed.

"I'm not crying," Lev scoffed. He withdrew his arms and took hold of Alex's cranium, using it as leverage to haul him off. Alex didn't fight him, letting himself be pried off of Lev's frame. "That's all I had to say, I'm going. See you later." Before he turned to leave, he gave Alex a swift peck on his cheek before a soft flick him on his forehead.

"Hey! You promised you wouldn't hit me!" Alex whispered.

"No, I didn't!" Lev grinned as he strode out of the library, leaving a mildly pained Alex to his cart of graphic novels.

While shelving books away, Alex couldn't help but think about the perplexing interest of his relationship with Lev, that Nick had. Lev's recent disclosure had provided some explanation, but Alex was starting to accept that there might never be a complete one for the vexing conundrum that was becoming Nick Pierce.

As he turned a corner into another shelf aisle, he began to hear a spew of hushed words from an unpleasantly familiar voice. What was just as concerning, were the sounds of someone else's familiar voice, engaging in conversation with the other. Feeling a bit panicked, Alex inched closer to the bookshelf's edge on the opposite side of the isle, and kept his presence shrouded and silent as he listened in.

"...I can't do that anymore. I won't," the idle timbre of Jeremi's voice whispered.

"Not asking you to, man. Just wanted to know if you're interested in a taste of something that would surely take some pressure off all those demanding uni applications. You know it would," the overweening intonation of Nick Pierce's voice responded, barely a whisper.

Alex could practically hear the grin slithering onto Nick's face. His heart pounded against the walls of his chest as the deafening silence that followed after the dubious offer went on longer than it should have.

"...I-" Jeremi started.

"Jeremi," Alex cut in, springing out of the aisle and into sight.

Both Jeremi and Nick were seated at a round table, small and wooden and tucked into a corner of the library. Nick looked particularly amused at seeing Alex, while Jeremi was outright speechless.

"Alex. Man, what are you doing here?" Nick asked, as delighted as he looked. "More importantly, what were you doing behind the bookshelf?"

Although Nick had been on his mind for the previous couple of minutes, Alex didn't spare him a glance; he could only focus on Jeremi. "I'm a library volunteer, just doing what I volunteered to do. What are you guys doing?"

Nick opened his mouth to reply, but Jeremi scrambled to it first. "N-nothing. Actually, I was just telling him to go."

Nick's glance at Jeremi was both mocking and disapproving. "Okay, fine. Have it your way. I'll go." He stood, rising so briskly from his seat that a few busybodies glanced over when the back of the chair smacked into the wall. It was the first time that either Alex or Jeremi had seen any hint of agitation from Nickolas Pierce, and it was a peculiar sight.

"Keep up the good work," Nick said to Alex. All his agitation had vanished, replaced with his accustomed cocksure demeanor. "Your service is greatly appreciated." He spun on his heel, striding away and out of the library.

"Alex, I can explain...It's not what it looked like..." Jeremi said when Nick had completely left the area.

"Then what did it look like?" Alex returned. He sat down in Nick's former seat, feeling uneasy now to discover that Nick was involved in drug-dealing, but also at unease because Jeremi had sparingly ever called him by his actual name since they first met.

"I've got this assignment due tomorrow that I haven't started yet," Jeremi said. "So I came here to try and get it done last minute. I had no idea Nick was here too, and when he saw me he came over and...asked if I was interested in V-Dust again. I thought he meant dealing again, but he only meant using it. I turned him down — you saw yourself."

"If I wasn't here," Alex dreaded asking this, "would you have still said no?"

"...Yeah I-um...actually, I don't know." Jeremi reclined in his chair, his eyes searching the ceiling. "I want to say that I would have said no whether you were here or not, but I really don't know."

"Then just say you would," Alex told him. "Say that you would have said no, no matter what. You have more willpower than you know, you know?"

Jeremi chuckled. "Yeah, maybe. I guess so. I hope so, I better be — I don't ever wanna feel the wrath of Ziro Acera ever again."

After weeks of being with the group and coexisting with Ziro's rules, Alex was sure that there were some things that should be kept a secret. Not for the sake of keeping a secret, but to protect the rest of the group from any more worry over something that needed to be put in the past.

"What if...we didn't tell him, or anyone else?" Alex suggested. The thought of Jeremi once being on the receiving end of Ziro's disappointment and anger, was leaving him simmering with even more unease. "I mean, you declined Nick's offer and then he just left. Nothing more happened. If it did, this'd be a different story and then we definitely would tell."

"...I don't know. That sounds like a secret."

"It's not. It's just a personal thing about you, that you don't want to share with anyone."

Jeremi released a timorous chuckle. "But I don't wanna drag you down with me."

"You're not dragging me anywhere. I'm not doing anything I don't want to do."

"Ay, Dios mío. You're something else, No-Nick-"

Their eyes quickly locked, blank stares among them both before crumbling a second later into a rumbustious laughing frenzy, earning the attention of nearly everyone in the library, causing a harsh chorus of hushing to be uttered from all around.

"Okay, that nickname is officially dead as of today," Jeremi affirmed as their laughter finally died down. "I could totally think of something better anyways. I have to warn ya though, it might take some time."

"Take all you need," Alex said. "But start tomorrow and do that assignment already. I gotta get back to the books, so I'll see ya later. You'll join me and my dad on the ride home at five?"

The smile Jeremi wore was brimming with gratitude. "Yeah, definitely."