Ford felt his heart pounding in his throat. He pulled back far enough to look at Tycho, not because he wanted to but because he couldn't resist. His expression was stricken and could not have been more so if Ty had physically pushed him away.

"It's not a lie," he protested before he could think better of it, but there was no point in trying to argue, was there? All he could offer was more insistences, and if Ty had already decided those were too cheap, he had nothing else to give. He had tears in the corners of his eyes again and this time he pulled his own hand up to clear them, rubbing the heel of his hand against his cheek.

(He was going to have to walk home after this, he thought distantly; he'd need the cold air of a February evening to mask how red his eyes would be. The girls could not know he had been crying, when he told them he was going to marry Miss Farley.)

"It's not," he insisted again, but quiet and weak by comparison.

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