“Oh no,” said Aiden. “I’m a terrible bully myself. But I didn’t enjoy seeing my teammate get mocked by European fencers.”
“Let me make it up to you.”
“Go make it up to Nicholas,” Aiden snapped. “If I want to be with someone nasty and pretty, I can look in a mirror. I have no interest in wasting time with a second-rate copy of me. And I’ve already forgotten your name.”
He stormed off. Harvard was being the perfect captain and looking after his teammates, so it was safe for Aiden to go back to their room and retrieve Harvard Paw. It was a comfort to hold on to him. Also, perhaps if he walked around holding on to a stuffed animal, people would stop bothering him.
When he came down to dinner, people still bothered him.
It was absurd what people would let you get away with, just because you were ridiculously good-looking.
“You’re a true original,” some guy told him.
No, Aiden thought, I am a clearly disturbed individual carrying a stuffed animal through France.
Aiden shrugged. “Well, I’m not a reproduction. People have tried and failed to make copies.”
He fussed around with his teddy bear, propping it up against a water glass, then realized his mistake when Harvard came to find him. He wished he could hide the bear. It was fine if everyone at Camp Menton thought he was weird, but he didn’t want Harvard to know he was pathetic.
“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.
“This is why it would never have worked between us, Valentino,” Aiden called after him.
When he glanced up at Harvard, he found Harvard already gazing down at him. Harvard was probably thinking about Aiden’s worthless ways.
“I’ve already had dinner with the team. The older trainees are allowed down into the town,” Harvard said. “Wanna come with me?”
Yes.
“Sorry, I have a date,” Aiden bit out.
“With who?”
Aiden made a dismissive gesture. “You know I never remember their names.”
Harvard took a deep breath, then said, “Cancel it.”
Aiden closed his hand on the bear’s stuffed arm, unobtrusively, behind his plastic water glass. Harvard didn’t mean that the way it sounded.
“I think it would be good for us,” said Harvard, heartbreakingly earnest. “A chance to—get back to being best friends.”
“Don’t you think our bond is unbreakable, buddy?” Aiden made himself laugh.
Harvard didn’t laugh. He stood there looking steadily down at him, as sincere as Aiden was insincere.
“Yeah, I do,” he said, making Aiden’s joke serious. “Come with me, Aiden. Please.”
Aiden went. He didn’t stand a chance against Harvard. He never had.
It was a beautiful evening on the Riviera. Aiden was walking down the Esplanade des Sablettes with the boy he loved, trying desperately to think of a way out of this situation.
The issue was, Aiden thought with gathering unease, their surroundings were picturesque and romantic. The sun was low in the sky, turning the Mediterranean into a wash of gold and tinting the mountains beyond purple, and happy couples seemed to be decorating the esplanade like the palm trees that lined the walkway. People were holding hands, all in love.
He’d held Harvard’s hand a few times when they were pretending to date. Harvard had reached out and held his hand first, and it had felt as if nobody had ever done it before.
Now the back of Aiden’s hand brushed against Harvard’s, and Harvard jerked back as if Aiden were a scorpion who’d stung him.
Aiden clung to Harvard Paw, lifted his free hand, and pointed desperately at a stall. “Ice cream!” he said. “Let’s get ice cream.”
Once they were at the front of the line, Aiden put on his reading glasses to study the menu. He didn’t wear reading glasses on dates, only when he was comfortable and didn’t care about being more attractive than usual. Then Aiden proceeded to be disgusting and inconsiderate.
“I will have the lemon sorbet, and he will have”—Aiden searched among the ice creams and found the obvious winner—“the fig and foie gras ice cream,” Aiden declared grandly in French.
Harvard rolled his eyes, fond. “My friend’s joking. I’ll have the blood orange sorbet.”
Spoken in Harvard’s low serious voice, French was sexy, Aiden thought with horror. Aiden hadn’t heard Harvard speak French before. How could his best friend betray him by speaking French in France?
They’d always planned to go together. Aiden had been to France before, obviously—he was a spoiled rich kid whose dad had a yacht in Menton—but he’d never been to France with Harvard before. He’d last visited France with… some guy? Aiden didn’t recall. Last summer Harvard had cruelly abandoned Aiden to go to France with his parents and learned to ride a motorcycle.
No, Aiden told his treacherous brain. Do not think about the motorcycle.
They ate their ice cream in an awkward silence. He and Harvard had never had an awkward silence before. Aiden didn’t even dare look at him.
Aiden had always known that if he ever pursued anything with Harvard, he would ruin the best thing in his life. Well, here was ruin.
Aiden searched his mind frantically for some way to prove to his own disordered mind that this wasn’t a date. Flirting with other people! If he flirted with other people, everything would work out.
He heard a click of high heels behind him and whipped around to give his latest pursuer a melting look.
He went for maximum purr. “Mademoiselle?”
“Madame,” corrected the woman of around fifty, who was wearing a gray power suit. “Very flattered, but happily married, and you’re a touch young for me. What I wanted to say was, I’m a scout for a modeling agency. May I give you my card? You’re a stunning young man, and don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise.”
“They don’t,” said Aiden morosely.
Well, that was a disaster. Harvard was laughing as Aiden threw the card in the trash. Aiden shoved Harvard’s shoulder, then pulled back his hand and stuffed it into the back pocket of his own jeans. Harvard’s shoulders weren’t safe.
“Wow, don’t sulk. The nice lady thought you were a stunning young man,” Harvard said, his voice sweet and affectionate. Aiden wished Harvard would just stab him.
Instead, Aiden tried to keep up the joke. He batted his lashes. “What do you think?”
Oh yes, Aiden. What a good joke. Extremely hilarious.
Had Aiden teasing Harvard always sounded like flirting? Was he being pathetic now, or had he been pathetic this whole time?
Maybe Harvard was just noticing how pathetic Aiden was now. Harvard went conspicuously silent. Aiden bit down on his lip hard.
Someone tugged on Aiden’s sleeve and said, in a small shy voice, “Pretty.”