FenceStriking Distance - Sarah Rees Brennan Page 0,52

he told Harvard soothingly. “It is like fencing. Remember when we were little, how you used to have to go over everything the coach taught us with me all over again? You’d move slowly so I could copy you, and tell me what to do every step of the way, and I learned how to mimic every move until I could do it on my own. Dating will start coming naturally to you.”

“Well, it’s not like you can carefully guide me through all the motions of dating,” Harvard said ruefully. Then his tone changed, becoming the captain’s voice, the one he used when he started to see a plan forming. “I mean… could you?”

Their familiar room seemed to tilt right into an alternate dimension. Aiden thought for a dazed moment that perhaps he hadn’t heard Harvard right. Or possibly Aiden was having a hallucination. It had been a difficult day.

“What?”

“Could you teach me to date?”

Harvard was looking at him expectantly, as if he’d really asked Aiden that question. As if Aiden really had to answer.

Aiden said, “No!”

“Do you think I’m hopeless?” asked Harvard.

His shoulders slumped again, the light that had woken in him at the thought of a strategy extinguished. Aiden wanted to bring it back.

Aiden cleared his throat and said, “I don’t think you’re hopeless.”

A light flickered in Harvard’s face. “Then—couldn’t you help me?”

“I…,” said Aiden.

His heart was beating too hard, the continuous flutter of a trapped thing that couldn’t resign itself to captivity. It wouldn’t work, he told himself. But what if it could? No matter what Aiden sometimes imagined, he wouldn’t ever really try to date Harvard. Deep down, Aiden had always known that was a dream. He knew where romance always led: the sound of a slammed door and a sports car in a driveway. Trying to have everything meant losing it all.

They had to stay friends. If they were friends, they could be friends forever. Only… this might buy Aiden a little time, to get used to the idea of Harvard with someone else. To have something for himself. He couldn’t keep Harvard, but he could keep a memory.

This wouldn’t hurt Harvard. Aiden would be helping him. Harvard had asked him to. Anytime the practice dating started to feel too real, Aiden could remind himself that this was all for someone else. Harvard was only doing this to get Neil back. If that was what Harvard wanted, Aiden would get it for him.

Hardly letting himself think about what he was doing, Aiden nodded.

Harvard’s whisper was almost wondering. “Would you really?”

Aiden’s throat was dry, but he got the words out anyway. “I told you already: Whatever you ask me for, the answer is yes.”

17: HARVARD

Aiden was sitting on Harvard’s bed, fiddling with his teddy bear, a lock of hair escaped from his gracefully messy bun and curving into his face. His eyes were fixed on the wall behind Harvard’s head.

Harvard kept reliving the moment on Neil’s porch, when Neil had looked at Harvard with what seemed almost like pity, though there was anger there, too. As if Harvard had got things so wrong it was frustrating, when Harvard had thought with Neil there was a chance of getting things right. He wanted that chance back.

“Thanks so much,” Harvard told Aiden. “This is going to be great.”

“Yes,” Aiden said at last in a slow, thoughtful tone. “This is a good idea. You know how dating works in theory. You read your mom’s magazines, no matter how much I implore you not to. But theoretical experience is no substitute for practical experience.”

Harvard nodded, already trying to think of exactly how they should do this. “You can show me how dating works. Practically.”

Aiden’s voice was somewhat distant. He was sitting still. Perhaps he was planning, too. He was very good at seeing the weak points in a plan or an opponent. He was the smartest person Harvard knew, and Harvard had never been so glad to have Aiden on his team.

“Sure. This is my area of expertise. You can practice dating with me.” Aiden’s pause lasted a fraction of a second. “For Neil.”

Something about that made unease drum a warning beat in Harvard’s chest, but Aiden was right. Harvard needed to get better at dating so he could win back Neil. Second-guessing a plan was fatal. A captain had to be confident.

“Here’s the most important thing to remember when we’re planning,” Harvard said, falling back on what he was certain of. “The thing that can’t change. I don’t want