“You look fucking awful, my dude,” Liam pointed out. He reached forward, running his fingertips along the ashen-colored rings under his eyes. “You haven’t been sleeping, or what?”

“What.”

Liam’s lips curled into a disappointed snarl. There was no afternoon light anymore, now that the sun was setting at three in the afternoon on a good day. In fact, all days started dragging, and shadows became a rarity past five in the afternoon. So much so that Sam started yearning for them. Yearning for a time when the sun shone past three. “Still thinking about Family Night?”

Sam waved his hand away as he prepped the kitchen for dinner, taking out plates to put them in the oven to warm up a little. The burgers and fries could be cooked when his mother returned from work. “Do you need help with math, or what?”

“Unwind, first,” Liam groaned, rolling his eyes. “I’m not doing homework with a tightass.”

“Then go home,” Sam snapped back. “You don’t have to have dinner with us.”

“Jesus Christ,” he whispered, standing. “Something’s really got your goat.”

Sam wrinkled his nose, producing one indignant sound after another, before the rubber band snapped back, become lax and limp with exhaustion. “So what if I’m still thinking about it?” he asked. “So what if I – I told Nate I didn’t want to talk to him ever again.” Liam nodded, and Sam could have commented on the mocking gesture – like he was the one being analyzed for being crazy – but Sam seemed unable to cap himself. “But he, just, can’t stop himself. And what’s worse is that neither can I. I’ve grown accustomed to his face in the worst way possible. How can someone not get ‘I never want to talk to you, again’ and still see that as a chance to rewind the clocks? How stupid is the guy? What’s worse – he’s not stupid. He’s a smart piece of shit, but he's manipulative and floats like a freaking butterfly and he – when he dismisses people the way he does, it pisses me off. He –” Sam cut himself off, then, realizing where and what he was prodding into was uncharted, soft and sensitive, and he grimaced at the thought of what he could discover if he kept digging. He glanced at his best friend and frowned. “So my apologies, if I don’t want to talk about it with you, Liam.” Sam turned on his heels, started aggressively humming a Sam Cooke song to calm himself, and started fidding with cups and glasses before annoyance ate away at his resolve to ignore. He glanced back into the dining room, watching Liam watch him, and muttered, “Sorry.”

Liam inhaled and leaned against the back of one of the dining chairs. “It’s okay.”

He knew he meant it. “Still. Doesn’t excuse me being a piece of shit to you.”

He cracked a smirk. “You are a piece of shit, though. One with a brain like a fork in a garbage disposal.”

“Shut up.”

“Another topic, then,” he offered. “What was his brother like? I can only imagine Golden Boy's sibling to look like something from Hercules.”

That was a question he hadn't considered, mostly because he never really met Tyler Quinn. They went to the same school for three years before he graduated, sure, and his work ethic, from rumors Sam heard, were admirable, but Sam never actually knew him, only knew of him. He never operated in the older Quinn's orbit, either. Sure, everyone knew and adored him, but Sam never understood the appeal. It made sense that Nate would inherit those qualities – Sam could only imagine, even before meeting them, what the guy's parents were like – but the desperation and neediness oozing from Nate, now, was characteristically his.

“Look, we don’t have to talk about it? Okay?” Liam threw his hands up in defeat, and Sam realized he'd let a full minute pass between them in silence. “I, just, don’t like seeing my people like this.”

That’s one of the things Sam liked about him; this dogmatic faith in the people in his circle. It’s why his dad was so taken with him when Sam and Liam started hanging out, and why Sam couldn’t bear to express half the negative honey-textured gunk that nestled between his ribs. Even if Liam would’ve understood. Or tried to.

“Come talk down to me, then,” Liam said lightly, waving Sam back over. “I’m ready to learn how to do this goddamned shit.”

Sam cracked a smirk and returned to the dining table.