Life's not easy when your mum's nuts, your uncle is becoming your aunt, and one of your crushes could -- and probably would -- break your face if he found out how you felt about him. That's Tab's life, though, malevolent gods and all. His text-flirting with Demi, the brother of his best friend, is going nowhere: Demi already has a boyfriend and anyway, who dates their best friend's twin? But then, the pining after Nick is going nowhere either, because Nick probably likes gay-bashing on Friday nights for fun. He's gorgeous, but he's dangerous, and Tab knows better than that. So what's a bit of harmless flirting, when one is taken and the other is straight? It's just a bit of fun. That is until Demi is suddenly single, and Nick is not looking as straight and scary as he was before.

The Suicidal Peanut

If one of the gods had ever smiled on him, it was the God of Memory. He had spent so long (a whole five years, ever since his first ever crush) admiring boys from afar that drawing Nick from memory was…well, easy.


And then the door was thumped open by a heavy boot, and the little dark-blue sketches with fluffy lines and soft shading…became insignificant. Because Nick wasn’t fluffy lines and soft shading. He was shaved head and broken teeth and hard muscle and…


And that deep, raspy voice that had the God of Inappropriate and Involuntary Erections sitting up and paying attention. So to speak.


“Watcha drawin’?” Nick asked, the low roll of his voice odd with such a curious uptick in pitch at the end. Tab tried to slide the sketchbook away but Nick was faster, plucking it off the counter and eyeing the doodles. “Cool. Crowd scenes and shit?”


“Practising,” Tab said. “Um, people. In general.”


Chapter 11