FenceStriking Distance - Sarah Rees Brennan Page 0,17
sighed and rubbed the place between her brows where frown lines were forming. “Eugene and Harvard, you’re up.”
Harvard threw his unworthy mentor a brilliant smile. “Sure.”
“I’m ready, Captain!” yodeled Eugene.
This was the guy who Coach Williams thought should be Harvard’s roommate? Aiden gave Eugene a look of pure disdain. Eugene stopped mid-yodel, his mouth hanging open in dismay.
“Coach won’t let you do trust falls because you suck at teamwork,” Nicholas muttered to Seiji.
“One, two, three—” said Coach.
“I don’t want to do trust falls, and I’m excellent at teamwork,” Seiji muttered back.
Nicholas shoved Seiji, which wouldn’t have mattered if Seiji hadn’t been thrumming with tension and standing at the edge of the mat. Seiji staggered off-balance, and the mat spun with him. Nicholas and Eugene, on high alert for falling, both reached for Seiji.
This left trusting Harvard obediently tumbling backward on Coach’s word onto the exposed wooden floor with nobody to catch him.
The world became a blur as Aiden leaped into action. Open-mouthed faces, light, walls, and practice mats all were streaks of color as though someone had hurled random paints at a canvas. Aiden might have done a shoulder roll. He wasn’t sure of anything that happened in that handful of confused seconds, except for the result: Aiden on his knees, Harvard in his arms.
“Hey,” said Harvard, and smiled.
In the distance, Aiden was aware Seiji had righted himself and was fussily brushing off his uniform as though he’d fallen, while loudly criticizing Nicholas and Eugene for getting in his way. Probably Coach was also still there. Weather was probably happening, of some kind, somewhere. Beyond the window.
Aiden expended a great deal of effort in not being too physically aware of Harvard. On a certain level. Aiden was very physically comfortable with Harvard on another level. They’d grown up together. They used to take naps, sharing the same mat or the same bed, holding hands with Harvard Paw cozily tucked between them. Even at Kings Row, their beds were pushed close together and they watched movies with Aiden kicking Harvard in the calf or Harvard’s shoulder pressed up against his. It wasn’t so different from the naps. It was all about context and keeping Aiden’s life arranged in the correct categories: what was important, namely Harvard, and then—strictly separated—everything else.
Now everything was a mess.
There was a distinct lack of strict separation in the warm fact of Harvard in his arms. Harvard, open shirt collar blazing white against his glowing dark skin. Aiden was as close as the shadow of Harvard’s collar against his skin. Harvard was looking up at Aiden, gaze calm and steady. Harvard, broad-shouldered and built for football as well as fencing, was actually too heavy for Aiden, but Aiden wasn’t letting him go.
There was only one way to express the outrage Aiden was currently feeling about the universe.
Softly, because he hated even saying it, Aiden said, “You could’ve been hurt.”
“Nah,” replied Harvard. “This went great. All according to plan.”
Aiden wasn’t used to Harvard being spectacularly wrong. “This went—how did this go—”
“I fell because I knew one of my teammates would catch me,” Harvard explained. He was still smiling. “One of my teammates did.”
They heard the sound of Coach’s authoritative step moving from mat to floor, coming toward them. Aiden’s arms tightened around Harvard.
Harvard patted Aiden’s arm. “Thanks, buddy. Now let me go. Gotta captain.”
With no choice in the matter, Aiden did. Harvard climbed to his feet without a backward glance and went into a huddle with the coach from which the words “could’ve gone better…” were heard. Aiden, head reeling and utterly bewildered, found refuge in rage.
“You miscreant idiot freshmen,” he began in scathing tones.
“I’m not a freshman—” said Eugene.
Aiden pointed at him accusingly. “Which is why you’re the worst of all! You should know better!”
A throat was cleared behind him.
“Aiden,” said Coach Williams, “is right.”
A thunderstruck silence followed. Coach had never said anything like that before. Even Aiden found it tough to handle.
Coach Williams prowled forward as she continued: “It pains me to say this, but you guys put on the worst display of team bonding I’ve ever seen in my life. Maybe the worst display of team bonding since the Stone Age, when the weakest person on the team would have their skull harvested to play the next game with.”
Aiden laughed.
Nicholas asked, “Did that actually happen, Coach?”
Coach pointed to a sign on the wall that read Did that actually happen, Coach? She made an encouraging gesture and Nicholas glumly began to run suicides.