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He didn’t like it when Nicholas wasn’t able to have things Nicholas should have.
Why had he done this? Just because Nicholas wanted to go to Camp Menton. Just because Nicholas hadn’t been trained the way he deserved. Why was it up to Seiji to make that right? What had Seiji been thinking? He must have lost his mind.
Nicholas could tell Seiji was happy about France, too. He was looking at Nicholas, and there was a faint curl of satisfaction to Seiji’s mouth that might have been a smile on someone else.
Jesse had Nicholas’s dad. But Nicholas had Jesse’s fencing partner. Seiji went to Kings Row with Nicholas, not Jesse’s stupid Exton, and he trained with Nicholas every day.
“Could you open your eyes and look at me?” Harvard asked. Aiden’s eyes opened without his consciously willing it. Damn his idiot, treacherous body. Harvard was standing a careful distance from the bed. He didn’t look wrecked, the way Aiden was. He looked like he always did, tall and strong, broader across the shoulders than the average fencer but able to walk softer than anyone, his black hair cropped close and his brown eyes the kindest in the world. He looked like everything Aiden had ever wanted in his whole life.
“What are the people in France like?” he asked Seiji on the morning they were supposed to leave. Nicholas had a hard time getting up early to practice, like he should, but he would spring out of bed to pack for the twelfth time. “They’re like people who speak French.” Seiji didn’t know what else to say. People were confusing and terrible everywhere. “I need a baguette.” Nicholas fretted. “They have baguettes in France.” “Then I need a beret!”
Back when Aiden was ten, he was still kind of short and slight and shy and didn’t get as much attention as he did now. He’d always had Harvard’s attention, of course. Harvard had never seen Aiden growing up as Aiden changing, but instead as the world reacting to Aiden correctly at last. The world was finally giving Aiden his due.
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Said transcendence was Aiden, moving gracefully around the picnic tables toward them. Harvard willed himself to look away. Everybody in the orchard watched as Aiden went by. Harvard had promised himself that he wouldn’t be just like everybody else. He failed to look away, all the same. For a moment, with the shadow of leaves, he thought Aiden looked sad, and Harvard’s heart clenched, feeling for an instant as though they were back in elementary school, when Aiden was so much smaller and Harvard always wanted to protect him. Aiden, has something made you unhappy?
A rich spread was laid out on the creaking tables. There were croissants, and pastries that were kind of like croissants but chocolate, and dozens of other pastries like cream tarts and éclairs. There were cuts of meat and slices of cheese heaped like dragons’ gold. Most of all, there was an enormous amount of lemon-related foods: lemon tarts, lemon curd Danishes, lemon meringue pie, puff pastry lemon knots, lemon cake, madeleines with lemon glaze, lemon bars, lemon meringue tarts, lemon poppy-seed scones, lemon muffins, and lemon ricotta pancakes—no, crêpes—folded up into tidy triangles.
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“Did you hear about Eugene?” Bobby whispered. Nicholas frowned. “I knew he was feeling kind of sick, but—” Bobby’s big brown eyes were bright with sympathy. “It’s as bad as it could be!” Nicholas almost dropped his plate. “He’s dying?” “He is right there, guys.” Dante pointed down the table. “He ate something with pineapple and had an allergic reaction!” exclaimed Bobby. “He fainted and had to be taken to the infirmary. They say they’re not going to let him fence this weekend.” “Oh my God, that’s worse than dying,” Nicholas murmured. Bobby nodded sadly. Dante shook his head wearily at both of
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The Kings Row team sucked. It would have been embarrassing if Aiden had cared at all. He didn’t dare let his eyes linger on Harvard, muscles moving, sleek under the dancing colors shed by the stained-glass windows. He couldn’t watch Harvard move, or watch his constant attentive kindness for everyone but Aiden.
“Where’s Eugene?” Aiden asked idly as Harvard encouraged the others to hydrate. “Did he fake sick? I suspect Eugene is a secret genius.” Harvard frowned in Aiden’s direction, which was the first time he’d really looked at Aiden all day. “Eugene fainted, and he had to go to the infirmary.” Aiden felt confirmed in his belief Eugene was a secret genius.
He wasn’t trying to mess up his life. He was just trying to be someone who could be content with what he had. He was tired of wanting what he couldn’t have.
Aiden was suddenly aware of exactly what he was missing out on—in vivid and soul-destroying detail. He kept thinking if only he’d done it right, if only he’d been better in some way, then Harvard would have wanted to date him for real. Only Aiden hadn’t been good enough. He had to accept that he wasn’t good enough.
Nobody stayed, except Harvard. Aiden had never trusted anyone to stay and care… except Harvard. Aiden remembered Harvard standing at their dormitory window back at Kings Row. The only person Aiden had ever really loved, telling Aiden that falling in love with him was the worst thing he could imagine.
Seiji gave some thought to what Eugene would like best on his card, and he drew a careful picture of protein shake ingredients, with a list by the side to show that the drawing was accurate. He folded the picture and wrote, Recover soon. Then he considered the matter some more and added Bro, because Eugene would like that. Bobby and Dante squinted doubtfully as though they thought Seiji’s card was weird. “Oh, cool card,” said Nicholas, hanging all over him in the way Nicholas did, which Seiji didn’t dislike. “Eugene will be into it.” “That’s what I thought.” Seiji was pleased to be vindicated.
“Since you don’t speak French”—Seiji cleared his throat—“you should stay beside me.” “Yeah, I will.” Seiji hesitated. “Promise you’ll do that.” “Sure,” said Nicholas. “I promise.”
Nobody else had much confidence in Aiden, but he’d always thought Harvard saw him differently. Saw him less the way he was and more the way he hoped to be. Only, of course, Harvard didn’t see him differently at all. That was why Harvard had turned him down. It was fine, Aiden told himself. It was nothing he didn’t know already.
“Hey, Aiden. I was looking for you.” “I can’t have dinner with the team,” Aiden told him hastily. “I’m having too much fun with Vlad from Hungary here.” “Victor,” said the guy. “From Holland.” “Don’t be difficult, Viggo,” said Aiden. Unfortunately, the guy chose this moment to have some self-respect. He rose and stomped off, leaving Aiden alone with his best friend. Of all the nerve.
Poor Dante. Aiden couldn’t believe Dante had come all this way to attend a fencing camp he had no interest in, purely to be with Bobby. Who, to add insult to injury, only had eyes for Seiji Katayama. Which was why Aiden had decided to remember Dante’s name. Aiden had a lot of empathy for someone who made a fool of themselves over a big crush. Aiden had been there, done that, bought the HELPLESSLY PINING FOR HARVARD LEE T-shirt.
He’d put his heart in Harvard’s hands when he was too young to know it wasn’t safe to give your heart to anyone. They were the best hands Aiden knew. He trusted Harvard not to crush his heart or throw it away, to be careful with it. Even now, his heart was in Harvard’s hands. He didn’t want it back. He wasn’t planning to use it. Honestly, if it were anywhere else, it wouldn’t feel like Aiden’s heart at all.
Nobody was more expert than Aiden at seeming like he was having the best time when he was having the worst time. If other people didn’t know Aiden was unhappy, maybe it wasn’t true. He just wanted Harvard to stop paying attention to Arune. He wanted Harvard to look at him.
“Did you have your first kiss when you were way younger than me, Captain?” Eugene asked wistfully. “No,” said Harvard, who’d had his first kiss less than two weeks ago.
“Seiji, is this person a criminal?” demanded Jesse. “No!” exclaimed Seiji. “Unless you mean in the sense of, Has he committed certain petty crimes? In that case, yes.” That caused Jesse to make the only expression Nicholas had ever enjoyed seeing on his face. Nicholas felt someone should frame it and put it in an art gallery, and title the masterpiece Jesse Coste, Rendered Speechless.
Harvard realized Bastien’s eyes weren’t gloating. They were bleak. “Aiden whispered in my ear, ‘You’re going to lose.’” Just then, the missing Kings Row students appeared. His team. Nicholas was giving some kind of war cry. Harvard couldn’t make it out, because he couldn’t look away from Aiden, who was smiling directly at him.
“Oh my God, you people had your chance for a big, tense fence-off, and you didn’t take it. Knock it off before I bang your twerp heads together. I’m hosting a glamorous after-party, and I’m going to be dazzling in formal wear, and since I had this bonding experience with all of you, I just want to say”—Aiden took a deep breath—“stay far away from my party. Seriously, I hate your faces.”
Aiden had trusted him, but Harvard had lied to him. He hadn’t wanted anything to change, hadn’t wanted his heart any more broken than it already was. He had been a coward. He hadn’t trusted Aiden, had been afraid Aiden would treat him like everyone else, when Aiden had never treated Harvard that way in his life. Aiden had always made it clear he thought more of Harvard than he did of anyone else. Harvard had taken solid ground away from Aiden, and then wondered why Aiden was drowning.
Harvard didn’t need Aiden to talk about it. Harvard already knew what had happened. Aiden had come to Harvard with trust in his eyes, and Harvard had lied. Harvard swallowed. “We keep asking what’s wrong with Aiden. What if we all made a horrible mistake? What if there’s nothing wrong with Aiden? What if there’s something wrong with me?” Harvard was the one who had lied when Aiden depended on him to tell the truth. He was the one who’d been doubting and defending himself and acting like a coward, while leaving Aiden at sea.
Long ago, Aiden and Harvard had been walking across the Kings Row campus together, and he’d been trying to ask Harvard out on a date. Harvard hadn’t understood, maybe because Harvard didn’t want to understand, and Aiden was feeling thoroughly dispirited. Then another guy had whistled at him, and Aiden had thought, Why not? Why shouldn’t he get to feel wanted? Why shouldn’t he take a little comfort where he could? Harvard wouldn’t care. It was like being under a highly ironic curse, being irresistible to everybody except the one person who mattered.
Aiden was sitting at the foot of the bed in formal wear. His hair was loose, and his bow tie untied. Harvard Paw was propped up to sit by his side, and he had a frosted cupcake in hand. Aiden was also whispering seductively to his teddy bear, but Harvard didn’t feel equipped to deal with that issue.
