One look at Jesse, and the rainbow-bright bubble of Nicholas’s dream had burst.
You have this shiny pedigree dog you’re super proud of, but hey! Guess what. Here’s some unimpressive mutt on the doorstep. Exciting, right?
No.
Nicholas shook his head as he walked into the salle, feeling slightly sick at the thought. He met Harvard and Aiden on their way out and brightened. Their captain was the coolest.
“Hey,” said Harvard, continuing to be the coolest, and hit Nicholas in the shoulder in a bro way. “Getting some training in? You’re better every day, Cox.”
“Blah, blah, blah, freshman, blah,” Nicholas heard Aiden remark. “Blah, blah, blah, hair, blah.”
Nicholas knew Aiden thought he was ignoring him on purpose, but Nicholas actually found it really hard to concentrate on what the guy was saying. He got this particular sneering lilt in his voice, and Nicholas knew he was gonna say something to indicate that Aiden was so great and Nicholas was such garbage. Nicholas couldn’t help it, his attention slid away like—what was the phrase Coach Joe used?—water off a duck’s back. Nicholas had heard that kind of stuff plenty of times before.
Nicholas gave Aiden a blank look. Aiden was shaking back his fancy hair, wearing an angry expression. Nicholas wondered what Aiden had to be mad about. Aiden didn’t usually seem ruffled by anything. And he’d just been training with the captain, which must have been really fun. Aiden always had someone to train with.
Harvard and Aiden were best friends, people said, who’d known each other since they were little. Imagine having someone you got along with that well, who stuck around that long. Especially someone as great as Harvard. Aiden had no idea how lucky he was.
It must be awesome to have a best friend. Nicholas had never had one, but maybe Seiji would be his best friend someday? Yeah, Seiji probably would.
He carefully put Seiji’s broken watch to the side as he grabbed his mask and épée.
He chose his piste and moved into an étude, going over the footwork Coach had insisted he practice. Nicholas was left-handed, and Coach said that could be a huge advantage, but he had to know how right-handed fencers moved, too. He tried out right-handed advances and retreats; advanced, retreated, advanced six times and remembered to retreat once, reached the end of the piste and spun, advanced, retreated, and went into an advance lunge.
Nicholas allowed himself the luxury of moving fast and forward, the way he wanted. He fenced with imaginary partners to work off his restlessness, trying to make himself tired enough to settle into training.
Coach Joe had always said it was important to keep in shape, so Nicholas used to run laps around the block until it was dark, even though the neighborhood was lousy. If you moved quickly, that wasn’t a problem. Safe within the unblemished walls of Kings Row, Nicholas fenced with shadows and heard the thunder of his own heart echoing through his body, just like his feet falling hard as he raced down the cracked sidewalks of his city.
Keep moving, Nicholas. If you’re fast enough, none of it can catch you.
5: AIDEN
The team was bonding. Or at least attempting to do so in the most ridiculous way possible.
Aiden, personally, was leaning against the farthest wall in order to further disassociate himself from these people.
The whole tableau was awful and unsightly.
The freshmen were being atrocious, as usual. Seiji had his arms primly crossed over his meticulously ironed shirtfront and was refusing to participate in trust falls. It was obvious Seiji would have to be clobbered into unconsciousness before he would permit himself to fall into anyone’s arms. Nicholas had his arms crossed (not primly) over a hoodie that looked like he’d been using it to mop up dirt. He also seemed twitchy about trust falls. Aiden was prepared to bet the end result would be Nicholas crashing down in the wrong direction and breaking his nose. That would be at least mildly entertaining.
Eugene was running in circles saying, “Fall at me, bro! I’m open!” It was possible Eugene was Aiden’s least favorite teammate.
Harvard had taken off his uniform jacket and was rolling up his shirtsleeves, ready to catch any of his teammates in his strong arms.
Well. Maybe the whole tableau wasn’t unsightly.
Aiden looked away, across the floorboards on which the high window was casting a triangle of light, toward the wicked woman who had perpetrated this horror upon them.
Coach Williams wore a dispirited expression—who could blame her?—but she didn’t call a halt to these lunatic proceedings. Whatever happened, it was on her.
“Are you ready to do trust falls, team?”
“Absolutely not,” drawled Aiden. “As per our agreement, I am Trust Fall Switzerland.”
“Wasn’t talking to you, Aiden, but looking forward to your essay!” said Coach.
Aiden winced.
“Coach Williams,” Seiji appealed, “I also wish to be Trust Fall Switzerland. If one of us got injured doing this, it would impede our ability to fence, and that would be a disaster.”
“You will not get hurt falling onto practice mats. If by some freak chance you did get injured doing this, Eugene or Nicholas would substitute for you on the fencing team,” said Coach. “Hence, why we have reserves.”
“As I said,” Seiji told her, “that would be a disaster.”
Nicholas made a rude noise. Seiji shot him an annoyed look. Aiden judged that Nicholas’s chances of being caught during trust falls had just taken a nosedive.
Coach, perhaps perceiving the same thing, 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.