Chapter 5: Gentry's

Gentry's was loud enough on Saturday night to shake the bottles on the shelf.

Dash stood against the far wall with a beer he had not touched and watched the door.

He had told Rory he was there for the music.

Rory had looked at him for a long moment and said, "Sure."

The floor was packed with students, and the bass thudded through the boards.

Wilder was at the bar in a black T-shirt with his hair pushed behind one ear.

The ear with the stud.

The other one stayed covered.

Dash had followed him from Haverford House at a distance of forty feet, like a coward.

A week of living with a boy he hid at breakfast and kissed in the dark had made him into someone he did not recognize.

A man in a gray button-down leaned in beside Wilder and said something close to his ear.

Wilder tilted his head toward him.

He nodded.

He smiled, a slow, unguarded smile Dash had never earned, and the man put a hand on the small of his back.

Dash set the beer on a table.

He did not remember crossing the floor.

He only knew that the next moment he had a fistful of gray button-down and was walking the man backward into a pillar.

"Go find someone else," Dash said.

"What the hell, man?"

"He's taken."

"Am I?" Wilder said behind him.

The man swore, shoved at Dash's chest, and thought better of it when he saw the size of him.

He melted into the crowd.

Dash turned around.

Wilder stood with his arms folded and his face pale and bright with fury.

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