The next day, at school, Trent acted like nothing had been said. There was no mention of Ethan, Trent’s house, or anything they’d argued about.

If they’d argued. Conner still wasn’t entirely clear on that.

Maybe he should just be grateful. Trent could just be one of those ‘it happened in the past, so let’s forget it’ people. Which would be fine, if Conner was also someone who could do that.

As he couldn’t . . .

“Will you stop that?”

Kira snatched his soccer ball out of his hands. Conner looked at her in surprise, not having realized he was doing anything particularly annoying. He hadn’t been trying, anyway.

“Throwing this,” she explain. “You were driving me mad.” She tossed it into the air, catching it again neatly, just to illustrate the point. And then again. And again. “You know, this is kind of addictive.”

Trent, walking between them, laughed.

Conner tried to. Neither of them seemed to notice, going off into some discussion that he didn’t bother following. Both of them sounded happy, cheerful . . . while he was stuck moping, with a nagging feeling that something wasn’t right.

Up ahead, he spotted a familiar blue shirt. Ethan. Good. Talking to Cassidy. Conner still couldn’t believe they were going out. The general consensus among his friends was that you’d have to be mad to date Cassidy—just look at how she treated Devin.

Conner thought Ethan could handle it.

“Hey,” he said, nudging Trent. “There’s Ethan.”

“And Cassidy.” Trent sounded amused. “I still can’t believe those two.”

“At least you’ve never seen them holding hands.” Kira tossed Conner the ball, not giving him any warning, then giggled as he almost dropped it. “I have an idea!”

“No,” said Conner.

“What is it?” asked Trent, obviously not realized that when Kira looked that innocent, anything she was thinking was bound to be bad.

“A double-date,” she said, not managing to keep a straight face. “You two, Ethan, and Cassidy.”

Trent laughed. This time, Conner didn’t even try.

Kira was joking. But the idea of going on a date with Cassidy and Ethan felt terrifying. That would mean Cassidy knowing, and Cassidy most likely broadcasting the fact throughout the entire city.

“Hey,” said Kira. “I was kidding.”

Up ahead, Cassidy walked away from Ethan. Conner threw the soccer ball back to Kira and sped up. Trent moved to walk next to him, but Conner clapped Ethan’s shoulder, using the Blue Ranger as a human shield.

He didn’t know why. He just didn’t want Trent next to him.

Ethan didn’t seem to notice the tension. “What was I thinking?”

“First date jitters?” said Conner.

Ethan shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. This is my first date ever.”

“No way,” said Trent. Conner nodded. First date ever? He’d had that years ago.

But then, Ethan did have a suspiciously close relationship with his laptop . . .

“Oh, I think it’s sweet,” said Kira.

“A 20-gig hard-drive with a 512-meg portable back-up is sweet,” Ethan corrected her. “This is pure torture.”

Conner didn’t bother even trying to work out what a 20-gig-whatever was. But he didn’t tease Ethan about it, either. He couldn’t remember ever seeing his friend look this nervous before.

He put his arm around Ethan’s shoulder, this time with no ulterior motive. “Dude, don’t sweat. We’ll put you through dating boot-camp. When you’re finished you’ll be Cassidy and Casanova. The power couple of Reefside. Right, guys?”

“Yep,” said Trent.

Kira nodded. “Absolutely.”

--

First lesson, of course, was math. As soon as they’d sat down, Trent asked, “Are you mad at me?”

Conner looked down at his math book. “No.”

Silence. Conner could just imagine Trent’s look of frustration.

“I’m just having a bad day,” he said. “I don’t know why.”

A few seconds of silence. Then, “Do you want to meet up later?”

“Ethan’s boot-camp. You could come.” God knew Ethan needed all the help he could get. Conner snuck a sideways glance at Trent, who looked tense and upset.

And suddenly found it much harder to stay mad. “I’m sorry. I’m just having a bad day. It’s not you.”

Trent smiled. “Then I’ll just have to try and cheer you up, won’t I?”

Thinking of ways he might do that was enough to make Conner feel better already.

--

Conner might have been serious when he’d started trying to teach Ethan to dance—though Trent doubted it—but the lesson had quickly descended into the two of them doing an exaggerated tango around the room, mainly to make Kira laugh.

It ended when Ethan flung Conner onto a sofa and pirouetted across the room to Kira. Trent wandered over to the sofa, the twist of Conner’s body as he lay sprawled there enough to catch his eye.

Reminding himself not to stare, he said, “Have fun?”

Conner grinned, no sign of his earlier bad mood. Trent felt a moment of jealousy, that Ethan could cheer Conner up without even trying, but pushed it away. He should just be grateful.

“I can’t dance either,” he said, sitting beside Conner.

The other boy frowned. “You can’t?”

“No. Will you teach me?”

Conner stared at him for a moment, doubtful and suspicious. “You can so,” he said accusingly.

Trent had been trying to keep a straight face, but it became too difficult. “Yeah. I just wanted to see if you would.”

Conner laughed, and Trent felt the urge to lean forwards, touch him. Not even sexually, just to feel that Conner was there, laughing and happy. But he could hear Ethan and Kira chatting on the other side of the room, and he knew what Conner’s response would be.

He pulled back, ignoring the confusion appearing on Conner’s face. “I better go see Ethan. I’ve seen him eat. He needs all the help he can get.”

--

“He’s arrived!” squealed Kira, as if they couldn’t see for themselves. “She doesn’t look too mad he’s late . . .”

No doubt Ethan would want to kill them if he found out they’d used the view-screen to spy on his date. But it would be three against one, so Conner didn’t feel too worried.

“It’s still not exactly the best start,” Trent pointed out.

Kira’s smile faded to a frown as she watched Ethan struggle with the picnic baskets and folding chairs. “Maybe we shouldn’t have given him so much stuff.”

In Conner’s opinion, Ethan needed all the help he could get. But he was standing a little too close to Kira to make saying that wise. “Shh. I want to listen.”

“Sorry,” Ethan said. “Traffic. I, uh, hope you’re hungry.”

Cassidy’s frown softened into a smile. “You didn’t have to go to all this trouble. I’m glad you did, though.”

Conner grinned. “My man! Making big points there.”

“Ah, how cute is he?” cooed Kira.

Trent exchanged a glance with Conner. “So far, so good.”

A water-bottle floated up off the table. Conner stared in alarm, starting in surprise when Dr. O’s voice came out of nowhere. “Looks like I’m not the only excellent teacher around.”

Ethan might think it was cool, but Conner just felt creeped out. “Has Hayley got any ideas about making you visible again yet?”

The water-bottle floated back onto the table. “Unfortunately not,” said Dr. O.

Conner scowled at the place he thought Dr. O stood. “Like you’re not enjoying being invisible.”

“It has its upsides, but I think it’ll get annoying fast.”

Trent touched his arm, the light touch enough to focus all Conner’s attention on him. “I thought you wanted to listen.”

“I really shouldn’t be letting you do this,” said Dr. O, making no move to stop them. No move Conner could see, anyway.

On the screen, Cassidy and Ethan were sitting in awkward silence. Cassidy said something, but Conner didn’t hear what: Trent’s hand distracted him, moving from his arm to slide across his back, Trent’s arm wrapping around his waist.

He relaxed into it before he thought, only after coming up with all the reasons why he shouldn’t. Kira was focused on the screen, but who knew where Dr. O was looking?

And even if Dr. O knew, the idea of being seen still made Conner uneasy.

“What?” Trent whispered. “You’ve gone all tense.”

Kira’s attention didn’t waver from the screen, but Conner still wondered if she’d heard. He took a step away from Trent, freeing himself from the comforting warmth of the arm around his waist.

Rather than answer Trent, he turned back to the screen, where Ethan was talking. At least that was better than sitting in silence—or so he thought, until he heard what Ethan was saying.

“ . . . I was playing this one, Battle Stations Extreme, and I was up against all these other players, and they had way more weapons than me . . .”

“No!” Why was Ethan telling Cassidy about that? “I specifically told him not to go into geek mode!”

Kira shook her head. “That is so not good.”

Trent stayed silent.

Cassidy had managed to change the subject, asking Ethan, “Oh, speaking of games, I’m covering the big play-off on Sunday, are you gonna go?”

Which was nice of her, but Conner winced just thinking about Ethan’s response.

“I don’t really like basketball,” said Ethan.

“Does he walk around with his eyes closed?” complained Conner. “I mean, I don’t follow football, but how did he manage to miss the fact that there’s a big game coming up? It’s been all over school!”

“Football,” said Cassidy, looking a little impatient.

“Oh,” said Ethan. “Right. Sorry.”

“Man,” said Trent. “This is just not going well.”

Kira nodded. “First dates are normally bad, but this is just brutal.”

Conner found himself feeling strangely grateful that he and Trent, for all their problems, had never been as bad as that.

--

Conner had been the one to let slip to Ethan that they had watched his date, and the result had been predictable. But Ethan had eventually stopped throwing things at them and calmed down, dividing his attention between Kira's show and his laptop.

Conner divided his attention between Kira's show and Trent, watching as the other boy served a customer before drifting in Conner's direction. "Hey," said Trent.

"Hey."

"So, you think Ethan's forgiven us yet?"

"I'm sure he's plotting revenge." Which would be worrying, if Trent hadn't been leaning close like that, so they could talk above the music. Conner was finding it quite hard to concentrate on anything.

He missed Trent's next question. "What?"

"I said, do you want to go on a date sometime?"

A date. With Trent. Yes. "Where?"

"I don't know. A movie?"

That would be okay. Just two guys, seeing a movie together. Nothing weird or unusual. Conner had been to the movies with another guy before and not thought anything about it. Except that this would be different, and Conner felt excitement and nerves coiling low in his belly. Stupid, since he'd done lots more with Trent than sit next to him in a dark room, but . . .

It would be a date.

Trent wasn't looking at him, was watching Kira with an expression that looked tense and closed. "It's alright if you don't want to," he said.

"No, no. I do. When?"

"Saturday?"

Conner grinned, cheeks feeling hot. "Okay. I'll call you about times and stuff, okay?"

"Okay," said Trent, just as Kira finished her song and applause broke out around them.

--