“No, I was glad to hear it. That’s great,” Brianna told him. “You stick to that. You seem like a good kid, Aiden.”
“No, I’m not,” Aiden said. “I am devastatingly good-looking, however.”
Brianna laughed, then sniffed. “Sorry I won’t get to meet you.”
He’d always expected to grow up like his father, Aiden realized. But he hadn’t been raised only by his father. There had been a succession of beautiful, brilliant women. Some of them had cared about him. Most of them hadn’t. All of them had left, because his father was who he was. Still, in the end, Aiden would rather be like his gorgeous and not-entirely-evil stepmothers.
“You can still meet me,” Aiden proposed. “I’m planning to get-together with another almost stepmother of mine, someday soon. You could come, and we could all trash my dad at a Michelin-star restaurant and put the bill on his tab.”
“We’ll see,” Brianna answered, but Aiden thought it sounded like she was in for a meeting of the Almost-Stepmothers Club.
He hung up the phone and looked around the ballroom of the yacht. Catering had set up a huge buffet, so Aiden wandered over to the desserts and took three cupcakes. He ate only the icing off the top, though that was depraved cupcake hedonism. He was feeling low, and so it was off with the cupcakes’ heads.
He was getting kicked out of Kings Row, and it was all his own fault. Everything he’d ever tried to make himself feel better, to feel less alone, hadn’t worked.
He texted the relevant group chat that his after-party was off.
There were several boys at Camp Menton, and several more in Menton, who would come running if Aiden called. They always did.
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.
There had been comfort at Kings Row, as well as everything Aiden truly loved: Harvard and fencing. Kings Row was the first place where Aiden had ever fit in, felt wanted, realized all his dreams of being extraordinary, lived with someone who he loved and who loved him back. He would never get to go back again. There was nothing Aiden could do to make himself feel better, in the face of this loss.
38 NICHOLAS
Several hours into the party, Nicholas was carrying cups of lemonade, which was fizzy in Europe, when he spotted Eugene sitting on a picnic bench all alone and oddly forlorn. He made a detour away from the clearing of fairy lights and music, toward his teammate.
“Hey, bro,” he said, wandering over and gently watering Eugene’s head with lemonade. “Having a good party? Did you see Seiji’s hilarious non-dancing? Where’s Melodie?”
“Uh,” said Eugene. “She’s with her friends, I think. She dumped me an hour ago. Said now was that special time in a girl’s life when she must devote herself entirely to the blade.”
“Right,” said Nicholas. “Tough break.”
Actually, he could see Melodie’s point, though he definitely wouldn’t have put it that way. Still, he felt bad for Eugene.
“Ah, I see your teammate has come to comfort you,” observed Melodie from a sheltering tree. “As it should be. I simply wanted to check on you, but since I am here let me say my goodbyes. Nicholas, you need to bulk up, but… to my surprise, it’s been a pleasure.”
Nicholas glanced uneasily at Eugene, not wanting to be a traitor, but Eugene nodded encouragement. Nicholas leaned forward and bumped his fist against Melodie’s.
“For me, too,” Nicholas told Melodie.
She had already turned her attention back to Eugene, her keen gaze melting.
“Eugene,” said Melodie. “You make the best protein shakes I ever tasted. You’re a loyal friend, and you are right about many things. Including hypertrophy specific training. I won’t forget you.”
“I won’t forget you, either,” said Eugene.
He stared after Melodie wistfully as she rejoined her friends. Bastien hesitated, then looked Nicholas’s way.
“Nicholas, I meant to say, thanks for the match. It was great.”
“Ha, no, it wasn’t,” said Nicholas cheerfully. Bastien reflected Nicholas’s grin back to him. “Would you show me a couple of those moves you made, but in slow motion?” Nicholas asked with hope.
“I’d be pleased to,” Bastien told him. “But you mustn’t feel bad if you can’t get the hang of the moves right away. They are rather advanced. I feel a little bad for showing off, but the prize was a date with Aiden, so I felt I must win in style.”
“Well, since the prize for winning the fencing match was a date with Aiden”—Nicholas raised his eyebrows—“it was kinda a relief I lost.”
Bastien laughed. “Anyway. I’m sorry, Nicholas.”
“Forget about it,” said Nicholas.
Bastien turned back to Marcel and Melodie. The Bordeaux Blades enjoying their last night together before Marcel had to go back to America. Across the orchard, the Leventis twins were laughing at each others’ jokes, and Nicholas couldn’t tell which was the one who usually frowned. He supposed it would be nice to have a twin, someone to learn fencing and laugh with.
Well. Nicholas might not have a family, but he had his team.
Nicholas leaned against Eugene comfortingly. “Sorry, Eugene.”
“Hey, no, bro. It’s been great to come to Menton, even if I couldn’t fence. I’ve met so many amazing people. You know who’s super nice?” Eugene answered his own question without pausing. “Jesse Coste.”
Nicholas stared at Eugene in shocked betrayal. Sadly, Eugene took this silence as encouragement.
“He’s totally my Camp Menton bro. He helped Melodie with me when I had my allergic reaction, and tonight he sat with me when I was sitting alone, feeling sorry for myself, and told me tough break for getting sick and not being able to train at camp. Get this—he asked if my dad would be mad at me for not fencing. Like, why would my dad blame me for being sick?”
As Eugene told Nicholas about Jesse Coste’s great personality, Nicholas thought back to Marcel’s words about Jesse being the best and drawing the best to him.
“Wait, do we hate Jesse?” Eugene asked, registering Nicholas’s silence. He sounded panicked. “Nobody told me we hate Jesse! I thought we could all be bros.”
Nicholas thought of Jesse Coste, who made Seiji go tense as a struck blade, but who was inextricably tangled up with Seiji despite that. Jesse, who had chosen Exton over Kings Row because he didn’t have to cling to the only link to his father. If Jesse ever considered anyone a rival, it was Seiji and not Nicholas. Jesse knew with unshakable certainty that he was the best.
“No, Eugene,” said Nicholas. “Jesse and I are not, and will never be, bros.”