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

“Sure, if you don’t chuck more stuff at me,” Nick mumbled, scrawling his signature on the list.


“Yes, but I have this particular one, as an assignment for portraiture…”


“For what?” Nick screwed up his face.


“Portraiture,” Tab prompted. “You know. Portraits. Pictures of people.”


“Well, I have to draw someone. And…I was hoping I could use you.”


“What, draw me like one of your French girls and all that?”


Tab flushed hotly to the roots of his hair, and adjusted his glasses. “No,” he insisted. “Of you boxing.So I can draw the motion and speed and things. There’s huge marks for those technical challenges, and the lighting on a person actually doing something is completely different, and…”


“I get it, I get it,” Nick said, and eyed him. “So what do you have in mind?”


Chapter 26