“Hey, Labao, I was worried about you,” said Harvard. “But I see there was no reason to be.”
“Hey, Captain!” Eugene beamed. “Nah, I’m beasting it up as usual. And yourself?”
“Can’t complain.”
A captain shouldn’t.
Harvard laid out his offerings, fruit and chocolate and—since this was Eugene—protein bars and energy drinks. Eugene murmured thanks, then nodded, not subtly, toward the door. Harvard cast an amused eye toward the hovering girl.
“Just came to bring gifts and go.”
“Thank you!” Eugene told him. “You’re a man of discernment and good judgment, Captain. Unlike some, naming no names, obviously I’m talking about Nicholas.”
“Tact and good shoulders,” confirmed the blonde. “Exactly what one wishes for in a captain.”
“Ah, thanks,” said Harvard. “And thank you for taking care of our Eugene.”
“I have a beautiful, giving nature,” announced Melodie. “Many have remarked upon it.”
“Also, you lift.” Eugene beamed again as he bestowed this accolade, and Melodie beamed back at him.
“Free weights are such an essential part of fitness.”
Harvard had noticed Melodie hanging out with her friends yesterday. Melodie, Marcel from Exton, and the boy who’d just humiliated Nicholas in front of the whole camp.
“Your friend Bastien won a match against our teammate earlier.” Harvard frowned. “He made quite a show of it.”
Melodie bristled in defense of her friend. “Bastien was led astray. That boy Aiden told him to achieve a crushing victory and win a date!”
A date. Harvard forced away the familiar and horrible idea of Aiden on a date with someone else, and focused on Melodie’s accusation. It couldn’t be true. Aiden wouldn’t ask a stranger to crush Nicholas. He would never be that cruel. Bastien must’ve been overly dazzled by Aiden’s presence, just as everyone else was. Just as Harvard was. Bastien was another in a long line of boys who fell all over themselves trying to please Aiden, who Aiden casually picked up and as casually threw aside. Because it amused Aiden to play around with other people.
But Aiden wouldn’t do this.
Against all the evidence Harvard’s heart said, Aiden couldn’t possibly.
Harvard didn’t want to listen to his stupid, treacherous heart anymore. It was always wanting to soften toward Aiden, believe the best of him, tricking Harvard by going uneven in his chest when Aiden was near. Harvard resented his heart more than Aiden, and then resented Aiden for that, too.
Aiden could sometimes be cruel when he was hurt. But why would Aiden want to humiliate Nicholas, who was one of his teammates?
Harvard felt that the more he tried to hold on to Aiden, the more Aiden was slipping away. He was hiding behind his facade, his smiles, the version of Aiden everyone else saw. Harvard had always believed he had the key to the secret door, to Aiden’s true self, but now it was as if that door had closed forever.
Eugene, a born team player, looked torn between his impulse to be loyal to a teammate—and his impulse to be loyal to a teammate.
“I’m sure Aiden was only messing around. He didn’t mean any harm.” He hesitated. “Aren’t you sure of Aiden, Captain?”
Harvard paused for too long, then spoke at last, to drown out the protesting thumps of his own treacherous, hopeful heart.
“I always was.”
Eugene, who truly was a brocean, frowned. “And now?”
Harvard hesitated. They were interrupted by a nurse, who informed them Eugene appeared to be doing great and had a strong constitution. Harvard translated the French to Eugene, and they fist-bumped, then Harvard tactfully left Eugene and Melodie alone.
He had the impulse to pull out his phone and text Aiden. No matter what he was doing, Aiden would always drop everything to come cheer Harvard up. But he couldn’t do that anymore.
He’d always been sure of Aiden before. It was different now. He could barely look at Aiden, doing drills under the blue dome of the Camp Menton salle d’armes with easy grace, as if Aiden were wind or light made flesh. When he did look, he was torn between these new intense feelings and the urge to shout at Aiden because he wasn’t trying.
Harvard shouldn’t let his heart get in the way of his responsibilities.
This hadn’t been a great day for the Kings Row team. Harvard was the captain. It was his job to keep up morale. He had to find his team and find the right words to cheer them. He had to make things right with Aiden.
This was all such a mess. He didn’t know how to get back to normal. But he had to keep trying.
20 SEIJI
The rules of Camp Menton forbade the younger trainees going off grounds, so Seiji went to the farthest point that was permitted, at the edge of the trees by the sea. He stood there alone for a while. Once it got dark, Seiji trailed back through the lemon trees. Then Seiji’s first stroke of luck of the day occurred, and he ran into his captain.
Harvard was walking and staring at the ground, with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his hoodie, but when he saw Seiji, he smiled. The captain had a nice smile, steadying as a hand on your elbow.
“Are you looking for someone, Captain?”
“I was looking for my team,” said Harvard. “How’s camp so far, Seiji?”
“It’s fine,” said Seiji.
It wasn’t a lie. Seiji had enjoyed practice bouts against fencers who were on his level. Camp Menton itself was fine. The problem wasn’t the camp; it was that Seiji was in the worst group, and Jesse was a witness to Seiji’s humiliation.
He wasn’t going to complain to Harvard about that. They were a team, and his captain had done nothing wrong.
“How’s Nicholas?”
“I assume he’s fine,” said Seiji. “I haven’t spoken to him since he lost the match against Bastien. I told him he’d embarrassed himself, and I left.”
Seiji was familiar with the type of pause that followed. It was the type of pause that happened when someone wanted badly to tell you that you’d made a social error.
“Uh… maybe you hurt Nicholas’s feelings by telling him he was embarrassing. Nobody feels good right after losing a match.”
Seiji frowned. “I hurt Nicholas’s feelings?”
When Seiji risked a glance up at Harvard, he didn’t look as if he were judging Seiji. He looked earnest, in the same way Harvard did back in the Kings Row salle when he was instructing Nicholas on a move and very much wanted him to listen.
Seiji was glad to have Harvard as his captain, even though Harvard needed to work on his low lines. He would rather have Harvard as his captain than anybody else.
“Sometimes our friends can hurt us worse than anybody,” the captain said, his voice very soft. “Your opinion matters to Nicholas. He doesn’t want to embarrass you.”
“Then he needs to get better at fencing!”
Harvard sighed. “He’s getting better every day. And you’re helping him get better. But when you lose a match or—or something else important to you—sometimes you feel bad, and you want your friends to be there for you.”
When you lose a match, sometimes you feel bad. In Seiji’s experience, that wasn’t true. Usually, when Seiji lost a match, even if he was frustrated by failure, he could appreciate the opportunity to learn by fencing a worthy opponent.