wanted to be left behind, but it was impossible and distinctly horrible to think of being like this with anyone but Aiden.
Only very recently, as Aiden dated more and more people and the potential for distance between them started to feel far more real, had Harvard started to feel lonely. If it hadn’t been for Coach suggesting dating, it might never have occurred to him.
Why would he go out and look for a partner when he had one at home? Why would he go searching for a lightning strike when there was all the brightness and all the pain he could wish for, always with him?
He’d never cared about dating, never really felt the need to find someone, because he’d been otherwise emotionally committed all along. Apparently, Harvard’s subconscious was insane, bent on his own ruin. Somewhere in the back of his mind he’d just decided he was Aiden’s boyfriend, without consulting Aiden. Without even consulting himself.
He’d been in love with Aiden the whole time.
This was an emotional natural disaster, the equivalent of an earthquake. This could level every carefully built structure in Harvard’s life.
“We have to stop,” Harvard said, abrupt and desperate.
“Wait, why?” Aiden murmured, reaching to drag Harvard back when Harvard pulled away, barely seeming to understand the words Harvard had spoken. “I don’t want to. You said you didn’t want to…”
He trailed off, hands still grasping Harvard’s shirt, exerting pressure to bring Harvard back where he had been. Aiden’s eyes were heavy-lidded, almost as if he was drowsy, but it was an electric drowsiness.
For a terrifying moment, Harvard looked at Aiden and couldn’t remember why they should stop. Then he looked at Aiden and did remember.
“I don’t want to, but we have to,” Harvard tried to explain.
Aiden looked suddenly wide awake and affronted to be so, like a cat disturbed from his rest.
His voice as sharp this time as it had been soft before, he said, “Why?”
When Aiden had agreed to help Harvard with practice dating, Harvard remembered vividly the exact words he’d used. I know how dating works. It doesn’t matter, and this wouldn’t even be real dating. It doesn’t mean anything. It won’t change anything.
He looked at Aiden, his chest feeling cold and empty, bleak with despair. Harvard was just like all the rest of Aiden’s guys, only worse. He was the one who really knew Aiden, and he should know better.
Harvard said, “Because this means nothing.”
26: NICHOLAS
The next day at breakfast, some teachers came and marched away two seniors. “We need to talk to you about all the watches we found in your room,” the whole cafeteria heard a teacher say distinctly.
The boys went ashen and started pleading and protesting innocence, one of them crying and the other talking incessantly about Daddy, so Nicholas felt kind of bad for them. Then he squinted and stared at the passing criminals in shock. Oddly, Eugene didn’t seem surprised at all. Eugene seemed worried, for some reason. Seiji was eating his tragic breakfast with total calm.
Nicholas jerked his thumb toward the departing guilty parties. “Wow, what a coincidence.”
“There are no broincidences,” murmured Eugene in a fraught voice.
“No, but seriously,” said Nicholas. “I think I know those guys?”
“What do you mean?” Seiji asked, his voice suddenly a razor. “You think you know them?”
Nicholas wasn’t paying attention to Seiji. Usually he did, but his close brush with crime had him distracted.
“Wow, Eugene, this is amazing! We were totally in the same shop as these guys. I guess we were there right before they did the job.”
This seemed to puzzle Eugene, and to enrage Seiji. Many things enraged Seiji, but Nicholas wasn’t following the reasons for his current episode of fury.
“You guess you were there?” demanded Seiji. “When they implied you were a thief and insulted your pride, and you were visibly upset all day?”
“Huh?” said Nicholas. “They what?”
He wondered what he could’ve possibly been upset about that day, and then remembered Robert and Jesse Coste. He couldn’t tell anyone about that. He didn’t want anybody to know about his dad, not until he was better, and… Nicholas realized with a sinking feeling that he never wanted Seiji to find out he had any connection to Jesse Coste.
Seiji had been violently disturbed the time he decided Nicholas fenced like Jesse.
Seiji had told Nicholas he didn’t want to be Jesse’s reflection. He wouldn’t want to look at Jesse’s reflection, either. Especially not such a currently lousy version. It was starting to seem like Seiji had refused to go to Exton and