Harvard liked a boy. His name was Neil. Aiden was sick of hearing the name.
The whole school was talking about it, because Eugene—Aiden might wring his stupid thick neck—was Kings Row’s worst gossip. The Bons cornered Aiden to ask sorrowfully if it was true. Aiden snarled that it was, and the gaggle looked as though they might cry.
“Worse things happen at sea,” said Aiden.
Did they, though? If they went to sea, Neil might fall overboard.
Aiden couldn’t tell the Bons apart. They were all shiny-eyed and brimming over with effervescent admiration, like mini prosecco bottles on legs. Today, apparently, they’d gone flat, with not a golden bubble in sight.
“If you’re happy for your best friend, we’re happy for him!” declared the tallest Bon.
“Who said anything about happiness?” asked Aiden. “Who cares?”
“We always thought that possibly, when you were done being a glamorous playboy…”
The two other Bons elbowed that Bon in the ribs at the same time. The unlucky Bon folded over with a squeak.
“I’ll never be done being a glamorous playboy.” Aiden pronounced this sentence with a laugh and left the Bons shattered in his wake.
One day the sun would die, and Harvard liked a boy. Aiden’s fan club needed to toughen up and accept life was pain.
Worse than hearing the Kings Row kids chatter about this in a low, continuous hum was listening to Harvard talk about Neil. Harvard didn’t talk about him that much, but Aiden wished he would. If Harvard were excessive about it, Aiden would be perfectly justified in complaining. He could roll his eyes and tell Harvard to lay off, and everybody would sympathize with Aiden about his annoying roommate.
As one date turned into two dates and then metamorphosed hideously into plans for a third, Harvard let the name Neil drop more often into conversations. His phone went off all the time, and when it did, he would smile to himself, private and delighted. He mentioned a plan to see a movie, and Aiden knew he wasn’t invited rather than just assuming he was. Neil was going with Harvard instead. From now on, Neil would be Harvard’s first choice.
How was any of this just or right, Aiden wanted to know? This guy Neil didn’t seem like anything special. Why did Neil get Harvard? He’d known Harvard for precisely six days, as opposed to twelve years. He’d been set up on a date with Harvard because their mothers were friends, and that was all. He didn’t know anything about Harvard. He was some random idiot who drew pictures and played a lot of games on his phone, and he’d been chosen by fate?
Only that wasn’t right. Neil hadn’t been chosen by fate, he’d been chosen by Harvard. If Harvard liked this guy, there was nothing Aiden could do about it.
Aiden missed Cindy. The days when he imagined Harvard might get a girlfriend shone in his memory like a beacon of lost light compared to now, when Harvard seemed like he really was getting a boyfriend. Aiden supposed they’d make it official when Neil asked. Or if Harvard asked, and Neil jumped at the chance.
That Friday night, Harvard went on his third date with Neil, and only then did Aiden realize he’d forgotten to line up one for himself.
His dad called to tell him about another business triumph, and mentioned casually that he was getting married again.
“You’ve gotta be a killer and go for blood, otherwise what’s the point?” Dad asked after delivering that news, without stopping for breath. “You’ve got to be the baddest shark in the ocean.”
Aiden assumed he was talking about work again and not the latest model in wives. Otherwise, Aiden had questions about his father’s love life, and he didn’t want the answers.
“Congratulations to you and Samantha,” Aiden said.
“Aiden, her name is”—his dad paused—“Claudine?”
“In that case… felicitations,” murmured Aiden, and hung up.
He updated the “eight” in his essay. Perhaps he could just say he had infinite stepmothers?
He couldn’t write his essay for Coach. He couldn’t even focus enough to hook up. His only comfort at times when he felt this desolate was Harvard, and Harvard was out on a date.
There was no choice. Desperate measures were called for. Aiden was going to fence.
He plunged out of the dormitory and down the stairs, almost blundering into the wood paneling and almost knocking a portrait of a school benefactor from a hundred years ago off the wall. The benefactor eyed him coldly from within a gilt frame. Aiden was clumsy lately, all his accustomed grace deserting him, but he could still fence. He wanted to slash at the air, to feel something simple and physical so he didn’t have to feel anything else.
It was already full night, the moon turning the quad into a silver square. Aiden determinedly did not think of the first time he’d ever walked under these trees, with Harvard talking about whether they would like Kings Row. Aiden had thought he would like any school, as long as Harvard was there, and had concentrated on bringing up the fair in a casual way. It was the last time he’d tried to ask out Harvard.
When he entered the salle, Aiden registered a figure in white fencing gear moving silently down the gleaming wood floor, and his eyes narrowed with glee. Seiji Katayama, spine straight as a sword and black hair arranged in rigid defiance of gravity, was performing his training exercises. Exactly the exercises Coach had assigned him, performed with mechanical precision. Coach’s exemplary little soldier, whose presence had inspired Coach’s current ambitions for teamwork and winning the state championship.
Be a killer, his dad’s voice said in his mind.
Aiden never did like to be alone. Other people were amusing. He could always use them to feel better. Sometimes he could only feel better by making them feel worse than he did. Whatever worked.
“Hey there, Katayama,” Aiden called out. “Fancy a friendly sparring session?”
When Seiji glanced around, Aiden winked. In return, he received Seiji’s usual look, mystified and slightly offended by the world around him.
“All right,” Seiji answered slowly.
Aiden gave a showy bow. Seiji inclined his tidy dark head a bare fraction.
Go for blood, his dad whispered. Otherwise what’s the point?
“Hope this doesn’t bring back memories of the last time I beat you,” Aiden remarked in a silky voice. “Or the first and worst defeat I saw, when Jesse Coste beat you. That’s the one that really stings, isn’t it?”
To Aiden’s own astonishment, when he feinted, he was slightly off-balance. His point wavered as he pulled back, and he had to collect himself and dance backward a step farther than he’d planned. Seiji’s cool black gaze tracked the motion. Seiji missed a lot in life, but on the piste he missed almost nothing.
Maybe Jesse Coste had driven away Seiji because he couldn’t bear the continuous pressure of those stone-cold judgmental eyes. Who would be able to put up with that?
“You’re upset about something,” Seiji observed. “I can tell. I upset people all the time. I know what it looks like.”
Aiden felt his own narrowed eyes open wide in shock. Seiji’s steady dark gaze didn’t falter.
Aiden attacked, slashing cat-quick, using his height as an advantage. Seiji’s blade slid smoothly sideways, parried, then checked Aiden’s next attack when it had scarcely begun. Neither his unflinching gaze nor the pace of his breathing altered at all.
“I didn’t upset you, and I don’t much care who did. But I’m not going to take advantage of you being upset. I don’t upset people for fun,” Seiji informed him coolly. “I don’t employ cheap tricks. I’ll just beat you because I’m better than you.”
He delivered this devastating speech with no sign he realized it was devastating. Perhaps Seiji knew no other way to be.
Aiden couldn’t help letting out a slightly impressed laugh. Seiji Katayama was relentless. It was probably what caused most of Seiji’s problems, that he’d been born basically carrying a dueling sword when everyone else had safety foils.
Seiji came at him, remorseless, contemptuous, and Aiden fell back as Seiji scored point after point. No matter how much Aiden twisted and lunged, in the end, it didn’t matter. The taste of defeat, bitter as ashes, had been lingering at the back of Aiden’s mouth long before he’d entered this room.
“Fair enough,” Aiden conceded and swallowed.
“I try to be,” said Seiji.
Other people might consider that their first match hadn’t been fair, and now Seiji’s victory was. Aiden operated on the principle of all’s fair in everything, so he didn’t feel that way. But perhaps now he understood slightly better how Seiji had felt at tryouts. He found it less amusing than he had at the time.
“Catch you later, Katayama,” said Aiden, abandoning the battlefield to the victor.
It was only after he got outside that Aiden realized he was still wearing his fencing gear and holding his épée. He refused to turn around and go back. Losing to a freshman was one thing. Looking ridiculous in front of a freshman was quite another.
The redbrick of the Kings Row buildings had turned the same color as the lake in the distance. At this time of night, everything was either silver or shadow.
Aiden stood in a wavering, sword-thin line of light between the silver grass and shadow of the parking lot. That was when Harvard’s motorcycle came purring through the golden gates of Kings Row and up the curving driveway, parking close by Aiden.
Harvard took off his helmet and looked up into Aiden’s face, gray Henley stretched tight over his shoulders and turned into pewter in this light, dark eyes warm with affection. No wonder half the school was buzzing about Harvard and his motorcycle.
“Fencing with the moonlight?” Harvard inquired, sounding fond and amused.
“Something like that. How was your date?” Aiden asked in a distant voice.
He could turn distance into words that came up close and cut, he thought. He wanted to. If other people were hurt, he didn’t have to be.
Harvard glowed, transparent as a window with the sun coming through. “It was fun. Actually…” Harvard paused, shy but wanting to confide. Every second of his embarrassed pause felt like a year of horror. “I think it’s going super well. I was worried, you know? That I would… get it wrong somehow. We can’t all be you.”
“No,” murmured Aiden.
This was his best friend. That meant Aiden should be his best self. Sometimes being with Harvard was the only way Aiden knew he had a best self at all.
He let his point drop, electrified steel gleaming among the bright threads of moonlit grass. He fought the urge to say arrêt, and signal surrender.
“That’s great things are going well with your guy,” Aiden told Harvard. “I’m really glad for you.”