It was kind of sad; the first thing Pete noticed about the kid was his ass.

Though, really, how could you not notice it? It wasn’t Pete’s fault that some genius had decided to make the school’s colors red and yellow, or that someone even smarter had decided that the softball team should wear tiny little butt-hugging red track shorts. And it certainly wasn’t Pete’s fault that the soccer fields were elevated above the softball diamond, giving him a perfect vantage point.

So, really, Pete couldn’t have avoided seeing that adorable little butt, snug in its tight red shorts, the synthetic fabric gleaming slightly in the watery February sunlight.


It was while Pete was observing all this that he got hit in the back of the head by a soccer ball.

“Pay attention, Wentz!” his coach barked from the sidelines, planting his hands on his hips. Pete just shrugged, turned, and punted the ball neatly into the goal, leaving both the goalie and the coach sputtering in wordless fury. Grinning his infamous Pete Wentz grin, Pete jogged off to grab a drink of water with his laughing teammates.

Really, the whole thing was exactly the sort of thing that Pete thought was funny. He found endless amusement in life’s little ironies, and had thus acquired the label of having the damn weirdest sense of humor on the soccer team. He had thought that was pretty funny, too.


After the whole soccer ball incident, Pete managed to stay focused while he was on the field (his head still twinged a bit from the impact of the ball). But the moment the coach ordered him off the pitch to take a break, he found his attention drawn inexorably over to the softball field.

Tryouts had been just last week, so the junior varsity team was moving a bit slowly still. From Pete’s elevation, the players looked like a bunch of shimmery, flame-colored dolls in red shorts, yellow shirts with red sleeves, white knee socks, and big black cleats. They were oddly fascinating to watch as they darted (or, in some cases, lumbered) around the diamond, kicking up clouds of reddish dust as their cleats tore up the dry clay.

The loud shriek of the whistle distracted Pete momentarily, but it was only his apoplectic coach screaming at the unfortunate participants of whatever hellacious drill he was forcing on them now. Pete turned back to the softball players, mulling over the fact that the softball coach never got nearly as close to a hemorrhage as the soccer coach. In fact, the man seemed almost apathetic as he watched the softballers fumble and drop the ball yet again. Pete couldn’t blame him; being the coach of the boys’ junior varsity softball team was nothing to get excited about, especially considering the team’s recent defeat by their own school’s girls’ junior varsity softball team. Pete could just see the coach wondering why he hadn’t gone into baseball instead.

Looking over the members of the team, Pete wasn’t surprised that the girls had kicked their asses. Almost all of the players looked supremely unhappy to be there, and the few that seemed to be into it were actually worse than the rest. How depressing.

Pete got jerked out of his reverie by his coach screaming at him to get his useless behind back on the field. As he jogged out onto the freshly cut grass, he thought of that mysterious pair of shorts that had caught his eye from all the way up here. Maybe it would be a good idea to figure out whose ass that was. Not, he reminded himself sternly, while he was playing. He didn’t really want a repeat of his little space-out moment earlier.


Somehow, Pete thought as he dragged himself into the locker room an hour and a half later, Coach must have known what he was thinking. So it was no wonder that the obviously raging homophobe of a soccer coach had played him in the scrimmage for an hour straight. Any other time during the season, Pete would’ve brushed it off like nothing, but he was in no condition to handle it now. God, every damn muscle in his body hurt.

Whooping and screaming at the unfortunate softball players, the soccer team promptly took over the showers, using their “we-play-a-tougher-sport-so-get-the-hell-out-you-damn-pansies” excuse like they did every day. Pete decided to skip the locker room showers today; for now, he just wanted to go home.

Shouldering his bag, he made his way towards the locker room exit, stepping aside to allow his team’s 200-pound goalie to shove an unfortunate blond freshman into a bank of lockers. The kid slid slowly down the rust red metal, his legs splayed out in front of him. Pete stepped over his pale, grass-stained shins, effectively blocking the goalie from taking another swing at him.

“Go take a shower, Clements,” Pete sneered, wrinkling his nose up in disgust. “You fuckin’ stink, man.”

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re just a fucking flower, Wentz,” the goalie snorted, turning his back on Pete and the freshman to beleaguer someone else.

Turning to go on his way, Pete was met with the freshman’s hopeful, nervous grin and a proffered, leather glove-stained hand. He raised an eyebrow at the hand that was intended for him to take, then walked off, leaving the kid sitting disconsolately on the concrete floor.

Pausing a moment at the locker room door, Pete turned around and took a quick look around the room, just to make sure his world was still running as usual. A flash of red caught his eye, and he spotted a very familiar ass poking out from around one of the banks of lockers. Leaning sideways slightly, Pete caught a glimpse of the blond freshman bent over forwards, untying the laces of the cleat on the foot he’d propped on the bench.

Humming to himself, Pete pushed open the door and stepped out into the brisk spring air. Well, mystery solved. He could now recognize the kid from front and behind. What luck he had sometimes.

Laughing at yet another joke only he understood, Pete tossed his backpack into the back seat of his car and drove home.


That same night found Pete flipping idly through last year’s yearbook, something he rarely did. But what might have seemed like an arbitrary act of boredom actually had a point. Slowly, almost unwillingly, his fingers flipped to the middle school section of the book, paging past the babyish fifth graders, gap-toothed sixth graders, and overexcited seventh graders, until…

Ah, yes. There they were. Sulky and pizza-faced, with unwillingly smiling mouths filled with the gleam of braces, the eighth graders did not exactly end the middle school section on a brilliant note.

A photo caught his eye, and Pete examined the train-tracks grin of a very familiar face. Blond hair clipped into a short buzz cut, the kid’s pale face was surprisingly clear of acne, except for up towards his hairline. The grainy quality of the photo darkened his eyes so much that Pete couldn’t tell what color they were, no matter how closely he peered at it. He had his nose pressed against the thick, shiny page when he paused to ask himself exactly what the fuck he was doing. Mentally slapping himself, he sat up straight and took another look at the kid’s face. Something told him that he’d seen the kid before, even before he’d saved his ass from Clements earlier that day.

And then he remembered; his one previous contact with the blond freshman had been much earlier in the year, when the kid’s loud, high-pitched yelp of “HOLY SHIT!” had stopped the entire hallway in its tracks. It turned out that blondie boy’s Jewish stoner friend had dyed his dark, curly Jewfro an unfortunate shade of platinum blond. The kid’s loud, profane outburst had caused the entire hallway to turn and stare at him, which had caused him to flush a brilliant shade of red. Pete had found this incredibly funny, but no one even glanced at him askance when he half fell over laughing. He was Pete Wentz, glamorous upperclassman and star of the soccer team; he could laugh at whatever the hell he wanted. The look the little freshman had shot him had been halfway between envy and hatred. Pete could read it all in that look: “Why is he better than me? Life isn’t fair.”

No, life wasn’t fair, Pete thought as he ran his thumbnail across the yearbook page, engraving a thin line under the smudged print of the freshman’s name. It certainly wasn’t fair that a kid with looks like that had to get saddled with a name like that. He ran his forefinger over the words one last time to ensure that he wouldn’t forget it. Then, he snapped the yearbook shut, the three words burning into his brain.

Patrick Martin Stumph.

For some people, life just wasn’t fair.


The weekend came and went in a listless blur, and Monday afternoon found Pete jogging back out onto the soccer field, his uniform a flare of color against the dull gray sky. It was the first game of the season, and he was determined to start things off well.

So, apparently was the rest of the team; by halftime, they were ahead by three goals. Pete, buoyed up by their lead, jogged onto the field for the second half to loud cheers from the watchers in the stand. As he squared up to the other team, he heard a fair few girls squealing his name, but it didn’t distract him much. Something about girls this year irritated him; they were too loud, too dopey, just too annoying to be attractive. On the other hand, it might just have been him, but he really didn’t have time to ponder that now; the other team was in possession of the ball, and one of their biggest players was driving it straight towards him.

Feinting to one side, Pete made like he was going to head off a pass, then darted back in and swept the ball out from under his opponent’s feet with one smooth kick. Pete set off down the field with the ball, leaving the guy he’d just stolen it from standing, astonished, like a stupid statue.

Chuckling to himself, Pete wove his way past the other team’s defense and was just about to shoot the ball when something caught his foot, sending him flying forwards. In a last, desperate attempt to score, he smashed his foot into the ball before tumbling to the ground with a noise along the lines of “Sploomf.”

The screech of the whistle registered faintly in his ears as he sat up woozily, rubbing his pounding head. Out of the corner of one eye, he saw one of the other team’s defenders looking very proud of himself.

Damn idiot must have tripped me, Pete thought fuzzily, heaving himself to his feet. There was something going on behind the goal he’d been shooting for; a steadily growing group of people was crowding around what looked like a body stretched out on the ground. Unease swelling in his stomach, Pete ambled stiffly over, slipping past two overexcited softball players to see what was going on.

There, in the center of the crowd, sat a small, pale boy in a softball uniform, his hands cupped over his face in an attempt to staunch the flow of blood pouring out of his nose. Pete couldn’t see the kid’s face, but he had a pretty good idea who it was. The sickly feeling in the pit of his stomach grew as he glanced around and noticed the soccer ball sitting on the ground a few feet away. The soccer ball that his foot had collided with just a few minutes ago. The soccer ball that he had just driven into this kid’s face.

“Wentz!” Pete turned around slowly to see his irate coach shoving his way past the stunned onlookers.

“Yeah, Coach?” Pete replied slowly, resisting the urge to wince as his coach came closer.

“Take him to the nurse,” the coach ordered, pointing to the bloody freshman with one stubby finger.

Pete paused; this, he had not been expecting. Then, he frowned; he wasn’t about to miss the rest of this game to walk this kid all the way over to the nurse’s office, which was on the other side of campus from the sports fields. “But, coach-”

“Wentz. Nurse. Now,” the coach growled, grabbing Pete by the elbow and dragging him over to where the freshman sat, still clutching his still-bleeding nose.

“It’s—okay,” the kid gasped, trying ineffectually to keep the blood from squirting out between his fingers. “I’m fine. Really. You don’t need to. Help me, that is-”

“Yes, he does,” Pete’s coach said firmly, clapping a hand on Pete’s shoulder just a little too hard. “It’s his fault you’re bleeding; he’ll take you to the nurse.”

“Alright,” Pete sighed, bending down and helping the freshman up. “Whatever you say, Coach.”

“Damn right whatever I say,” the coach snapped, giving Pete a sharp push in the direction of the nurse’s office.

“Alright, let’s go,” Pete grunted, taking the kid gingerly by the elbow and leading him off towards the locker rooms. “We’ll get you some paper towels for the road, m’kay?”

The kid just nodded, blood oozing out from between his fingers and spattering onto the ground, leaving a trail of crimson behind him. A pang of guilt shot through Pete at the piteous sight the kid made. To think that he had inflicted this on the guy he seemed to be developing a secret crush on…well, it was just another reminder that, no, life wasn’t fair.

A silence grew and stretched as Pete held the locker room door open for the kid and walked past him into the bathroom to yank a wad of paper towels out of the dispenser. The freshman took them gratefully, immediately pressing them to his nose to staunch the river of blood pouring down his face. After the flood had slowed down a little, he risked putting down the wad of paper to give his hands a quick rinse in a nearby sink.

While he did that, Pete pulled towel after paper towel out of the rusty metal dispenser until his hands couldn’t hold any more. He had a feeling they’d be needing as many as he could carry.

“Thanks, man,” the freshman said finally, turning off the water and pressing a fresh towel to his face. “You should probably get back. To your game. Now,” he added, leaning against the sink in a failed attempt to be casual.

Pete blinked at him. “What?”

The kid shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “I’m just saying. You don’t have to walk me over to the nurse. I can get over there. Uh. By myself. And. Uh. I don’t want you to miss your game or anything.”

“Nah, don’t sweat it,” Pete shrugged, draping an arm around the shorter boy’s shoulders and steering him towards the door. “Coach would definitely know something was up if I showed up again this quickly. Besides, I feel kinda bad about clocking you in the face with that soccer ball. I’d feel worse if you passed out on the way to the nurse and nobody figured it out until you were dead from blood loss.”

“That would kind of suck, yeah,” the boy agreed with a faint laugh as Pete pushed open the door. “I don’t really wanna pull an Attila the Hun…”

“He died of a nosebleed?”

“Yup,” the kid nodded. “Got drunk, got a nosebleed. And then choked to death.”

“Attractive,” Pete snorted.

“Since when was Attila the Hun, like, the model of attractiveness?”

“Good point,” Pete acknowledged.

“Hey, uh. I never got a chance to, uh, thank you,” the kid said after a brief silence. “You know. For saving my ass from that fat kid the other day.”

“Don’t mention it,” Pete shrugged. “Besides, this evens it out. I saved your ass, but I also hit you in the face with a soccer ball. We’re even now.”

“But now you’re making sure I don’t die on the way to the nurse,” the freshman pointed out. “So, we’re not entirely equal.”

“Alright, I guess I’ll have to write your name down for owing me one,” Pete joked.

“It’s Patrick,” the kid told him. “Patrick Stump.”

Pete bit back a stalkerish “I know,” and settled instead for, “I’m Pete Wentz.”

“Yeah. I figured,” Patrick nodded, pulling the towels away from his face. After briefly inspecting the crimson, sodden mass, he made a face, balled the paper up, and tossed it into the nearest trash can. Without a word, Pete passed him another stack of paper towels.

“What do you mean by that?” Pete inquired.

“Well. Uh. Most people in high school know you,” Patrick explained, pressing the fresh paper towels to his nose. “Plus, I heard the cheering. When you started playing. It’s not hard to put two and two together.”

“So you were watching the game?” Pete hadn’t meant it as an accusation, but Patrick instantly flushed the color of a beetroot.

“I…uh. I was waiting for my turn. In the batting cage,” he explained hastily. “So I was. Watching you guys play, yeah.”

Grinning, Pete tightened his grip around Patrick’s shoulders. The younger boy flushed; he’d evidently forgotten that Pete even had a hold on him.

“See anything you like?” Pete asked, his grin bordering on a leer. Patrick’s blush deepened, trickling down from his hairline and disappearing past the collar of his shirt.

“Uh. I don’t. Uh. Really know much about soccer,” Patrick mumbled, looking away.

“That’s okay,” Pete smiled, taking pity on him and backing off a bit. There was a pause as they meandered down the covered walkway on the outside of the middle school building. It soon turned into an awkward silence that lasted all the way to the front door of the little shack-like building that had been designated the nurse’s office.

“Um,” Patrick said as they came to a stop. “Thanks. For, uh, walking me here and stuff. Good luck with your game…”

“Thanks,” Pete nodded, suddenly awkward. Patrick shrugged off the arm that Pete still had slung across his shoulders and turned to open the door.

As the knob turned, Pete was filled with the sudden impulse to do something, anything that would break the discomfort of this situation. His hand acted on that impulse by reaching out and ruffling Patrick’s fine strawberry blond hair.

Spinning around, Patrick cocked his head at Pete and gave him a quizzical look to beat all quizzical looks.

“See you around,” Pete told him, flashing him his widest, most innocent smile.

Somewhat stunned, the younger boy nodded, eyes wide and the tiniest bit glazed. Seeing that his tactic had worked, Pete smiled even wider and even dared to wink at the blond boy before he turned on his heel and flounced off.

He could have sworn that he heard Patrick chuckle in disbelief as he opened the nurse’s door.


“Around” turned out to be several days later, on a disgusting February day. The brief taste of spring everyone had been enjoying (an Indian Spring, you could say) had completely vanished, leaving the skies gray and heavy with rain. That rain broke forth one afternoon, pounding down onto the still-brown grass of the soccer field and churning the softball diamond into thick mud.

It was through this rain that Pete trudged late that afternoon. Cold, tired, and soaked through, Pete felt that the only possible joy the world could hold was the nice dry, warm, and hopefully empty locker room.

Slipping and sliding through the mud puddle conveniently situated right outside the door to the locker room, Pete mentally cursed his coach. Why had the stupid man kept him behind, on today of all days, to practice his damn outside curve volleys? Just because he’d missed a few shots in the last game didn’t mean he had to freeze in the rain while Coach smirked at him from the shelter of the equipment shed.

Finally, finally, he made it to the door and pushed it open. Checking the clock just inside, he cursed to himself. Coach had kept him fucking late. His parents would flip, and he really didn’t fancy driving home in this rain. Sighing, he headed on towards the door of the boys’ locker room. The silver lining here was that the locker room would be empty; all the other sports’ practices were long over.

Pete shouldered open the door and was immediately surrounded in a thick cloud of warm steam. Blinking, he took a few steps into the locker room, the steam swirling around his face. A muffled, musical sound caught his ear, and he followed it into the shower block. One shower was most definitely occupied, clouds of steam pouring out from above and below the curtain. That steam was accompanied by a voice: a perfect high tenor, clear as the summer sky and sweet as a popsicle. Pete paused in the doorway to the shower block, breathing in the steam and drinking in the voice.

“And from the way that I feel when the bell starts to peal, I could swear I was falling, I’d swear I’m fallin’, well, it’s almost like bein’ in loooove!”

The voice faded away, leaving Pete’s ears ringing with the wonderful sound of it. Almost unconsciously, he started to clap, the smack-smack-smack of his hands ringing out terribly loudly over the faint sound of running water.

From inside the shower came a gasp that echoed off the tiled walls, and the water shut off suddenly. Pete could see some kind of movement behind the shower curtain, which was soon cracked open just the tiniest bit. Just wide enough for the occupant of the shower to stick his head out and stare at Pete with wide gray eyes.

“P-Pete?” Patrick spluttered, his shower-flushed cheeks turning even redder. “W-what are you doing? Here, I mean?”

Shrugging, Pete swiped his sopping bangs out of his eyes. “Coach kept me late after practice. You?”

“I had to wait for a shower,” Patrick explained, almost apologetically. “The soccer team took them all, and then the track team, and then the softball team, and then…me.” He shivered a little, the movement sending ripples across the shower curtain. “Hey, uh, would you mind passing me my towel?” he asked nervously before Pete could say a word. “It’s…oh, uh, on that bench over there.”

“Sure thing,” Pete nodded, reaching over, snagging the towel with two fingers, and tossing it to Patrick, who half fell out of the shower trying to catch it. Pete just saw his cheeks flush again before he retreated back into the shower, only to reemerge a few moments later. Skin dried, hair only moderately damp, and the towel wrapped around his waist, Patrick cautiously ventured out of the stall, testing the chilly tile with one bare toe like a swimmer preparing to plunge into an arctic pool.

“So you really waited all that time for a shower, huh?” Pete grinned, leaning against the tiled wall and feeling the warm condensation seep through the back of his jersey.

“Our hot water heater at home’s broken,” Patrick sighed, narrow shoulders slightly hunched. “And my dad can’t afford to fix it ‘cause of the alimony he hasta pay Mom…but you don’t care about that, do you?” He shook his head as if to clear it, flinging droplets of water into the air around his damp head.

“Sure I do,” Pete said earnestly. He always loved hearing people talk about themselves, and something about this kid had captured his attention like nothing else could. “It’s…fascinating…” He trailed off absently as his eyes wandered from Patrick’s face to the pale body attached to it. Out of his clothes, the little freshman wasn’t quite so stick-like; he still had some baby fat clinging to his chest and hips, giving him a slightly girlish figure. Something about it was oddly attractive…

Pete felt something warm and tight uncurl in the bottom of his stomach, and shifted slightly against the wall. Patrick, noticing the older boy’s roving gaze, flushed a third time. Half-lidded, Pete’s eyes followed the flood of red that poured from Patrick’s hairline down his neck, past his collarbone, over his ribs and around his bellybutton to vanish below the towel. Since his eyes were there anyway, Pete took note of the neat tuck of Patrick’s waist, the smooth curves of his hipbones, and especially way the wet towel clung to his thighs and…well, the area between the hips and the thighs, let’s just say. Pete let his eyes linger there for a few moments before they dropped below the hem of the towel and examined the extant grass stains on Patrick’s knees, the crisp contours of his calves, and finally the ruddy glory of the toes curling against the wet tile.

Patrick cleared his throat loudly, and Pete looked up with a start.

“Well, uh,” Patrick said awkwardly, stepping away from the showers towards the locker room proper, “I’m gonna go get changed…”

“Alright,” Pete said vaguely, suddenly distracted by the realization that he’d just completely, totally, and ostentatiously checked out another dude. The flame in his stomach grew a bit as his mind’s camera replayed the slow pan across Patrick’s hips, down to his thighs, and back up to his face…ooh, that face…

“Shit!”

Jolted out of his little daydream, Pete pushed himself off the wall and hurried into the locker room.

“What is…it…” He trailed off as he rounded the doorframe and was greeted with a perfect view of Patrick’s smooth back, the vertebrae like knots under the skin as the younger boy bent over.

“They fucking hid my clothes!” Glancing backwards at Pete, Patrick’s face was livid, his golden brows knitted.

“They…what?”

“They must have,” Patrick groaned, straightening up and stomping a circle around the block of lockers where his was presumably located. “I know I left my bag right here, and now it’s gone!”

“Maybe someone took it by accident,” Pete suggested reasonably, folding his arms.

“Bullshit,” Patrick snorted, kicking a pile of wet towels from one spot on the floor to another. “My team hates me; I know they’d do it. Will you help me look for my stuff?”

“Yeah, sure.” Pete shook himself out of a detailed examination of the way Patrick’s Adam’s apple moved slightly when he talked and started to cast around vaguely for something resembling a sports bag.

After a few minutes of searching (or at least Pete’s version of searching, which mostly involved staring at random things and hoping that the thing he was looking for would magically appear), Pete was once again distracted. Patrick had started picking up things on the floor, examining them briefly, and then tossing them aside. This in itself was not what Pete found fascinating; what caught his eye were Patrick’s hands. They were so tiny and quick, with long, solid fingers and rounded fingertips. Pete couldn’t tear his eyes away.

“Pete.”

He looked up and found his gaze captured by two gray eyes, currently glaring at him.

“Hmm?”

“You staring into space isn’t getting my stuff found,” Patrick pointed out, planting his hands on his hips. “And I’m freaking freezing, dude. Please, just help me, dude. Then, I swear, I’ll never ask anything of you again.”

“You’re forgetting something, Patrick,” Pete said quietly, taking a step closer to the younger boy and half-melting in relief when he didn’t back away.

“What?”

“You already owe me, remember?”

“Oh, for crying out loud,” Patrick huffed, barely even seeming to notice that Pete had taken another step towards him. “Are you really gonna bring that up now?”

“I’m just saying,” Pete shrugged, moving still closer to the shorter boy, who held his ground. “I mean, you could probably pay me what you owe me and what you’re going to owe me after I find your clothes.”

Patrick blinked, then frowned. “You’re gonna make me pay you to find my clothes? Well, thanks but no thanks, I can find them perfectly well on my ow-”

“I’m not asking you to pay me,” Pete said heavily, rolling his eyes.

“Then what do I have to do?”

“Just…” Pete took another step and a deep breath. “Just…stand still.”

And before Patrick could say another word, Pete had stepped right into his personal space, cupped his chin in his hands, and planted a kiss on his lips. And what lips they were; smooth and soft, they fit against Pete’s wet mouth like perfect puzzle pieces.

And, surprisingly enough, Patrick did what Pete had asked: he held still. That is, until the moment that Pete lifted away his lips.

Gasping for breath, Patrick stumbled backwards, tripping over a towel on the floor and slamming into a bank of lockers. His hands fluttered to his mouth, fingers pressing over his lips like he was trying to restrain them.

“H-how did you know?” he yelped, pressing back against the lockers.

Pete blinked; this was not the reaction he’d been expecting. Not that he’d really thought much about what the reaction would be, but, well, you know. It didn’t quite seem normal.

“How did I know what?” he asked slowly.

“How did you know…me?” Patrick demanded, hands venturing away from his mouth to make angry shapes in the air. “Can you…can you see inside my head? Huh? Can you? Because I thought I was pretty good. I thought I was pretty damn crafty at hiding it, but you…you saw right fucking through it! How did you do it?”

Pete stared at the enraged little guy in front of him, and then it finally clicked.

“You’re gay,” he stated. It wasn’t even a question at that point.

“No shit I’m gay!” Patrick snapped. “Why the hell do you think I let everyone else take their showers before me? Why, exactly, do you imagine that I fucking play softball?”

“I just…I, uh…you didn’t…seem very gay…” Pete said uncomfortably, confused by Patrick’s sudden anger. “I mean…uh…” He trailed off as another thought hit him like a wrecking ball. The weight of it was almost enough to knock him over.

If Patrick’s gay…and I kissed him…and I have a fucking crush on him, for crying out loud…does that mean I’m gay, too?

“Does this make me gay, too?” he blurted out, unable to take his eyes off Patrick’s reddening cheeks.

“No shit,” Patrick snorted, folding his arms.

Cocking his head, Pete paused to think for a second. All things considered, that didn’t sound so bad.

“Cool.” He grinned, reached out, and kissed Patrick again.