Chapter 2
Nick started asking Carrie if they were sitting with the band at lunch, instead of waiting for her to approach him about it. Which Carrie was thankful for, so she could be with her girlfriend. Nick had ordered Reggie’s present for Secret Santa online the day after the drawing. A red shirt that had black letters on the front. It read Fledgling, because of the book series they bonded over, but Nick chose red because of the flannel Reggie wears all the time. Red was his color. It was scheduled to arrive two days before the gift exchange. He was probably too excited about it. They had a week until the exchange, and when he got to the table that day, Reggie set a book in front of him. The book after Tempted. Nick raised an eyebrow as he picked up Burned turning to look at the other boy.
“You said you couldn’t find it anywhere.” Reggie shrugged. “I have extra copies of all of them. You can have that one.”
Nick was a little taken aback. “Are you sure?”
Reggie nodded with a grin, “Yeah, when you finish it I’ll give you the next one.”
“At least let me buy the copies from you.” Nick argued, but Reggie shook his head.
“Don’t worry about it. They were given to me, so now I’m, like, paying it forward.”
“Reg, didn’t your parents-“ Alex started but Reggie nodded and he stopped.
“Yeah, that’s how I have doubles of them. My parents both bought the sets as make up gifts when they missed my birthday last year.”
“Your parents missed your birthday?” Nick asked before he could stop himself.
Luke shook his head, “It was the third year in a row. They show up with make up gifts a month or two later.”
“Luke, please, stop talki-“ Reggie let out a loud yawn, effectively cutting off his sentence. “Sorry, I’m a little tired. I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
Alex leaned forward, brows furrowed, “Reg, you said you were heading to bed at like nine last night.”
Julie looked at Reggie with sad eyes, not pity but sympathy, “Are they doing it again?”
The bassist sighed, turning to Nick and Carrie, the only ones that didn’t look like they understood, “My parents, uh, they argue a lot. They’ve been getting better, but it’s close to the holidays so they’ve been arguing again.”
Luke muttered under his breath, “Arguments usually don’t end with one of the people or their kid getting hurt.”
Nick was worried about Reggie. The worry didn’t exactly go away when he realized Reggie had been so tired that he fell asleep in their study hall at the end of the day. Nick sat with him after the bell rang, and just waited til he was ready to wake up. When he woke up, he panicked. Nick calmed him down, promising to drive him home since he missed the bus, but Nick could still see the tension in Reggie’s shoulders as they got into his car. He managed to calm the darker haired boy down, just by talking to him and taking the long way to his house. But when he parked, he could hear the arguing, even though the windows were up and none in the house were open. Reggie asked him if he could drop him off at the studio instead, so he did. Nick decided not to leave, unless Reggie asked him to, so he asked if the bassist wanted to watch a movie or something. Reggie smiled, turning on the vhs player he’d put in the studio so he could force the others into an original trilogy Star Wars movie. They fell asleep on the couch together that night.