FenceStriking Distance - Sarah Rees Brennan Page 0,60

the yellow plastic ring flew and spun and settled onto the peg.

Harvard looked around for Aiden to ask which stuffed animal he wanted, and was quietly pleased when he turned and Aiden was right there, taking his hand.

“Well done, baby,” Aiden whispered—oh, a dating thing to call somebody. After a surprised moment, Harvard smiled, the taste of lemonade bright in the back of his mouth. That was sweet.

“Wanna pick a bear?”

Aiden’s small smile was like the sparkle behind the leaves, hinting and promising at light. “First, show me how to win my own.”

“I’ll do my best.”

He put a hand on the small of Aiden’s back and positioned him in the correct stance. Aiden promptly dropped the plastic ring he was holding. Harvard picked up the ring for Aiden, shaking his head. He guided Aiden’s arm for the practice throw, leaning in to ask if he could see where it should land. When Aiden glanced back, Harvard smiled at him encouragingly, closing an arm around Aiden’s bicep and squeezing in a reassuring fashion.

The ring Aiden threw almost hit the guy behind the stall in the head.

“Wow, that wasn’t good,” Harvard said. “You’re not good at this!”

Aiden gave him an outraged look. Harvard supposed he was partly to blame for not being a skilled teacher, but he still couldn’t lie and say the throw had been good. Without honest feedback, how was Aiden supposed to improve?

He picked out a bear about the same size as Harvard Paw, who had an approachable air… for a bear.

“You’re bad at this game, but you’re still cute,” he told Aiden, and gave him the bear. “There, a friend for Harvard Paw at last. What do you want to do next?”

Aiden was hesitating. Harvard was suddenly concerned he’d messed up. Maybe he shouldn’t have said that.

Harvard had won the bear and so he’d thought he might be allowed to call Aiden cute; Aiden had said Harvard was cute yesterday, so he’d been thinking… that must be an acceptable thing to say. Surely Harvard hadn’t messed up too badly yet. Surely everything was okay.

Aiden tucked his new bear under his arm. He paused for long enough that Harvard worried everything wasn’t okay after all, but when he spoke his voice was soft. So Aiden must have only been thinking through his fairground options. “I think it would be nice to go on the Ferris wheel with you.”

Harvard wasn’t actually crazy about heights, but he wanted Aiden to enjoy himself, so they went and Harvard tried not to focus on the ground. He had good feelings about the ground when they were together, but he became deeply uncomfortable when he and the ground were apart.

It became far easier not to focus on the ground when Aiden said, “You should put your arm around me.”

“Sure,” said Harvard, thankful for the guidance. He did. “Like this?”

His arm slid easily around Aiden’s shoulders, and Aiden’s body fell in naturally against his. The lights of the Ferris wheel, gold and blue and crimson, caught and sparkled and spangled in Aiden’s long, curling lashes. Aiden turned in toward him, and Harvard mirrored the movement without thinking, chests pressing together.

Aiden murmured, “Just like that. Then I distract you from the heights!”

He was pretty distracting, all right. The fairground beneath them became a background, blurred, like a calm sea of multicolored lights beneath them.

As they departed the Ferris wheel, they ran into someone who was a spot of darkness among the bright lights. Jay was one of Aiden’s many exes, if you could describe guys who Aiden saw for one wild never-to-be-repeated night as exes. Some of those guys accepted this with the philosophical attitude that good things were not meant to last. Some of them took it hard.

Harvard had felt bad for Jay at the time. Now that he saw Jay storming toward them with narrowed eyes fixed on Aiden’s and Harvard’s linked hands and a clear intent to spoil their evening, Harvard felt considerably less bad for him.

“Oh, so that’s how it is?” Jay snapped.

“That’s how it is,” Harvard responded in a level voice.

Jay didn’t even glance at him. His eyes were fixed on Aiden, as they usually were, hungry and mad about it.

“I guess this was always gonna happen.” Jay’s smile was humorless. “But you wanted to, what’s the phrase, sow your oats? Have fun with as many people as you could before you finally put Harvard out of his misery?”

It was such a bizarre misread of the situation that Harvard didn’t know