Saint Nicholas Read Online Free

was all I cared about.
    Nicholas picked at a thread on his shorts, but neither of us said anything for a long time. We sat in silence, taking in the smell of one another. His cologne made me want to bury my face in his neck and breathe deep while wrapping my arms tight around him, but the question he’d soon ask loomed over my head like a dark cloud, forcing me back to reality.
    “So what was all that back there?”
    I thought long and hard about what I’d tell him. Somehow the truth just didn’t seem right, like somehow it would shatter the moment. Besides, my father had always told me that if I breathed a word about what went on at home to anybody, he’d make me suffer more than I’ve ever suffered before in my life. I hated how afraid I was of him—of his threats—but it was what it was.
    I shrugged but didn’t meet Nicholas’ gaze. I detested lying to him, but was it really lying if I never said anything at all?
    He nodded. “It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me.”
    I quickly looked up to see the sincerity on his face. It was unmistakable, and made me want to cry. I’d always been forced to do things I didn’t want to do, and now here was someone the complete opposite of everything I’d ever known. He couldn’t possibly know how much those words meant to me.
    Nicholas reached out and brushed a strand of hair from my cheek. The feel of his fingertips lightly making their way across my skin caused my breath to hitch and the hair on the back of my neck to prick up, and he smiled at the delightfully uncomfortable way he made me feel.
    I forced myself to swallow, asking, “You always bring girls up here?”
    “Oh yeah,” he said smugly, his hazel eyes narrowing into a mischievous look. “All the time. Helena and I come up here and fool around every once in a while.”
    My face fell. Helena? Who was that, and what exactly did he mean, fool around ?
    Nicholas laughed. “Relax,” he told me, “Helena’s my little sister.”
    Through closed lips I licked my teeth and scowled jokingly at him. He knew how he made me feel, and I liked it. Liked the way he wasn’t afraid to bust my chops over it, like it was no big thing because he liked me, too.
    But as the minutes went by and we stared into each others’ eyes, with mine sometimes traveling down the length of his torso to look at his bare muscles, I got the feeling that this was something new for Nicholas. Maybe it was the way his knee wouldn’t stop shaking, or the way he fidgeted in his seat, but it gave me the impression that he hadn’t been with a lot of girls, if any, and I found that to be even more attractive. It was like he was putting himself out there, and for me. Doing something he normally wouldn’t do because his heart told him it was right.
    I knew the feeling. I’d never so much as kissed a boy let alone sat so close to one outside of school. They were just as much a mystery to me as I figured girls were to them. Yet with Nicholas I wanted to explore. Unravel the wonder behind his laughter and smile, and get to know everything there was to know about him.
    He held out his hand and without even thinking about it, I laced my fingers with his, letting them dangle between the chairs. He breathed deep, saying, “This is nice, isn’t it? Just two people, hanging out.”
    I stared out over the Hudson and nodded. It was nice. The way he smelled, the way he made me feel, it was a nice vacation from my normal sadness, and as our clutched hands swayed back and forth between us, I wanted the feeling to last forever.
    “Tell me something,” he said. “Anything. You pick. I want to know about you.”
    “I don’t have a sister, or a brother, but I’ve always wanted one.”
    “That’s cool. You got a mom and a dad?”
    I nodded.
    “Yeah, Helena’s ten and she’s a holy terror, but you can’t hate little sisters no matter how much you want to, huh?”
    “Are both of your parents around?” I asked.
    “I got a mom, and somewhere I got a