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bringing up the rear. Even though the fight was over, McGillicuddy stepped between Sean and Adam. A smart move, because these things had been known to flare up again. Which was exactly what the ring of spectators hoped for. Tammy tried to catch my eye. I shook my head.
    Cameron took Adam’s face in both hands and peered at the big smudge under his eye. He let Adam go and hissed at me, “Get rid of him in case Mom comes down.”
    I felt honored to be included in the intrigue. But why couldn’t Cameron ask me to get rid of Sean instead?
    That was okay, for now. Adam needed me. I put my hand on his back and said, “Walk away.” We moved through the yard, toward the side of the house. A pine needle hung from one of his brown curls in the back.
    After fifteen paces, his breathing had slowed almost to normal. I felt him start to turn. “Don’t look back,” I said.
    He took a deep, calming breath through his nose. He was fighting the part of ADHD that made him short-tempered and impulsive. The part that made him attempt to smash his big brother’s face in.
    “Try not to take it so seriously,” I said in what I hoped was a soothing tone. Which was hard for me. Generally I was about as soothing as body lotion with skin conditioners and ground glass, but this was important. “It’s probably a temporary thing. He’s mad at you for making the size jokes this afternoon—”
    “I didn’t start the size jokes!”
    “You finished the size jokes. So he seduced your girlfriend. She said yes because you’ve been together for a whole month. Maybe things have gotten into a rut.” We passed the corner of the house and reached the side yard, where no one lingering in the front yard could see us. I stopped him under the floodlight hanging from the eaves. “Let me look at your eye.” I reached up to cup his face in my hands, like Cameron had.
    “Is my mom going to notice?”
    Yes , I thought. “I can’t tell,” I said. I didn’t want him dashing after Sean to get revenge. “Maybe if we cleaned it up.”
    He pulled off his T-shirt, wet the edge of it with the faucet attached to the house, and brought it to me.
    “Sit down,” I said. “I can hardly see you way up there.”
    We sat in the grass. I leaned close, tilted his face to the light, and wiped at the half-dried blood. He watched me with serious eyes.
    And I felt that tingle again. The same pesky tingle I’d felt when I hugged him in the living room, when I thought he was Sean. Only I knew now he wasn’t Sean. And I’d seen Adam without his shirt a million times, including hours of no-shirt goodness that very afternoon. The tingle stayed.
    This was only natural, I guessed. We both were still pumped full of adrenaline. We were excited about the fight and mad about Sean and Rachel, and jealous. I was leaning close to him, our lips almost touching. He still smelled like cologne, plus something sexier.
    “Well?” His voice broke again. He cleared his throat and said in his deep boy-voice, “Well?”
    “Well, it’s not coming off.” I gave the oozing blood one last gentle wipe and sat back on my heels. “I’m sorry about what happened.”
    He shrugged and kept giving me that intense, serious look. And I kept tingling. It was almost like he was sending me his adrenaline telepathically, and I could feel what he was feeling.
    Which didn’t make sense. Because he ought to be heartbroken about Rachel. But this felt good .
    “The fireworks are starting without you.” I stood up quickly and held out my hand to help him up (for show only—he weighed twice as much as me). He put his shirt back on. Pity. Keeping my hand on his back, I steered him toward the muffled noise of explosions, down through the shadowy backyard to the dock.
    Boys—mostly football players my age or a year older—lit bottle rockets and held them until the fuse sparked almost down to their fingers. At the last possible second, they tossed them into the black lake. A pause. Then deep under the