The Raven King (All for the Game Book 2)

Neil woke up on Wymack’s couch. It took him a moment to remember where he was, but the view was as familiar to him as the one from his bed at the dormitory. Wymack had dropped everyone else off at the stadium but snagged Neil before he could catch a ride with his teammates back to the dorm. He hadn’t said anything last night, maybe too tired to demand an explanation for last night’s fiasco, but had relegated Neil to the living room and gone to sleep himself.

Neil untangled the borrowed sheet from his legs and sat up. The clock on the mantel was buried behind crumpled cigarette packs, but the light seeping into the room through the blinds was bright enough to be late morning. He wasn’t surprised he’d slept so late, considering what time they’d gotten back to campus, but he still wasn’t ready to face the day. Neil knew denial was childish, but he wanted to avoid Kevin as long as possible.

He slid off the couch and yawned as he crumpled the sheet into a messy ball. The soft click of dishes said Wymack was up and likely mainlining coffee. Neil hesitated in the hallway with the sheet hugged to his chest, tempted to sneak out and avoid this conversation altogether. With a sigh he gave in to the inevitable and turned away from the front door. He dropped the sheet off in the hamper right inside Wymack’s bedroom door, detoured to the bathroom to freshen up, and joined Wymack in the kitchen.

Wymack didn’t look up from his newspaper but pointed at the stove. A lid was keeping a skillet of potatoes and eggs warm. Neil put together a breakfast burrito and sat across from Wymack. He was almost through with his breakfast before Wymack finished reading the paper and set it aside. Neil didn’t look up from his plate to return Wymack’s stare.

‘You want to tell me why you have a hard-on for antagonizing Riko?’ Wymack asked.

‘He started it,’ Neil muttered into his tortilla.

‘That doesn’t mean you have to sink to his level. Were you listening when I told you what kind of person he is, what kind of family he’s from?’

‘Yes, Coach.’

‘You said that last night when I told you to behave,’ Wymack said. ‘Your lip-service ‘yes Coach’ isn’t going to be enough anymore. Don’t lie to me about the important shit.’

‘I can’t help it,’ Neil said. He tried to chew slower, but he was fast running out of burrito to hide behind. He opted for deflection instead. ‘How can you stand having a team like ours, Coach? Isn’t it exhausting dealing with us and our problems day after day?’

Wymack emptied his coffee with one big gulp. ‘Nope.’
Neil just looked at him, and Wymack stared back. Neil got tired of the staredown first and finished off his breakfast. He started to get up to clear away his plate, but Wymack took it from him. Wymack dumped it in the dishwasher and poured himself a second cup of coffee. Instead of returning to the table he turned and leaned against the counter as he considered Neil.

‘I’m starting to think I misjudged you,’ Wymack said. ‘I just don’t know how or where. I know I’m not completely wrong, but you’re still not adding up right.’

‘Now you sound like Andrew.’

‘That’s because they’re his words,’ Wymack said. When Neil frowned at him, Wymack shrugged and knocked back some of his coffee. ‘First day of practice I told everyone Edgar Allan had transferred districts, you remember? Andrew spent that night here with me. At first I figured he was mad at Kevin for lying to him, but he was more worked up about you. I mostly tuned him out then, but I probably should have listened.’

‘Andrew and I are working on our trust issues. Sort of.’

‘He says you’re a pathological liar,’ Wymack said. ‘I’m starting to believe him.’

‘It’s what I was raised to be,’ Neil said.

‘Attempt to tell the truth at least once,’ Wymack said. ‘Tell me why someone who came here early to get away from his parents and who flinched away from me the first time he thought I was going to strike him goes so far out of his way to offend someone like Riko Moriyama. I would have thought you’d have better survival instincts.’

Neil slouched a little in his chair and fidgeted with the edge of the table. Wymack deserved some sort of explanation, but the only one Neil had to offer was one he’d hoped to avoid sharing.

‘Riko’s my age,’ Neil said, trying not to choke on his words. ‘If you knew what my parents were capable of you’d understand why I don’t trust men who are old enough to be my father. I know here,’ Neil gestured at his temple, ‘that you’re not going to hurt me, but it’s instinctive to react. I’m sorry.’

‘I didn’t ask for an apology, wiseass.’

‘Yes, Coach,’ Neil said automatically, then winced.

‘You’re a real piece of work, you know that?’ Wymack asked, coming to rejoin him at the table. ‘Your parents must be something else.’

‘So must yours be if you spend so much time on us,’ Neil said.

‘They were,’ Wymack agreed.

‘Oh,’ Neil said. ‘Are they both dead?’

Wymack looked amused by his tactlessness. ‘My mother OD’d almost ten years ago and my father lost a prison fight the first year I started here at Palmetto State. I hadn’t spoken to either of them since I left D.C..’

Neil’s heart skipped a beat. ‘You grew up in D.C.?’

‘Interesting that that’s the part you got hung up on.’

Lying was easy, but Neil had never felt this guilty about it. ‘I was born in Alexandria. My mother worked in D.C. for a while. I just think it’s funny we both started there and now we’re here. Sometimes the world feels so big, but then I’m reminded how small it is.’

‘Big or small, just remember you’re not alone in it,’ Wymack said. ‘You have your team, but that’s a double-edged sword. They’re there for you any time you need them, and they’ll hold you up if you want them to, but your actions have consequences for all of them as well. The more you antagonize Riko, the harder you make things on them.’

‘Like with Seth,’ Neil said. ‘I know.’

Wymack stared at him for an endless minute, then said too quietly, ‘The fuck did you just say to me?’

Neil realized too late Andrew hadn’t shared his theory with Wymack. ‘It’s convenient timing, isn’t it? I insulted Riko on TV and applauded the Foxes’ small size, and that same night Seth overdosed and made me starting line. Even Kevin thinks Riko orchestrated that.’

‘Even Kevin,’ Wymack echoed. ‘Do I even have to ask whose idea that was? Look at me, Neil. Are you listening? Seth had a lot of problems and no good solutions. We always knew he’d make it to graduation on a wing and a prayer. In his first four years he overdosed three times. It was past time for him to try again.

‘I don’t care what Andrew said to you. I don’t care what Kevin thinks. If—and that’s a big if, Neil—if Riko really was behind it somehow, the blame is all on him. He chose to take out his petty rage on Seth. He chose to cross a line. You didn’t. You hear me? You didn’t. Don’t ever blame yourself for Seth’s death. That is too dangerous a road to walk down. You keep your eyes on your own path and keep moving forward.’

‘Yes, Coach.’

Wymack didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t push it. ‘So do we need to talk about last night?’
‘No, Coach.’

‘Then come on. Andrew said you’re meeting them at the stadium this morning. I’ll give you a lift.’ Wymack emptied the rest of his coffee in one swallow and led the way out of the apartment.

Neil sat silent in the passenger seat on the short drive to the stadium. Andrew’s car and the usual squad car were the only ones in the parking lot. Wymack dropped Neil off near the curb. Wymack motioned to Neil before he could shut the door and leaned across the front seat to look out at Neil.

‘Tell Andrew to keep his bullshit theories to himself.’
‘Yes, Coach.’ Neil pushed the door closed and didn’t watch Wymack drive away. He punched in this week’s security code at the Foxes’ entrance and went down the hall to the locker room. The lights were on, but all the rooms were empty, so he continued through the back door into the stadium itself. Kevin was sitting in the middle of the court on the fox paw logo. He wasn’t dressed for practice. Neil wondered how long he’d been sitting here waiting for Neil to wake up.

It didn’t take long to find Andrew; he was running the steps further up in the stands. Neil dropped his travel bag near the Foxes’ benches and went onto the court to confront Kevin.

Kevin was facing him, but he didn’t look up or say anything as Neil approached. Neil sat down just out of his reach and searched Kevin’s face for a truth he still didn’t want to know. Kevin didn’t look any happier about this inevitable conversation, judging by the pained twist of his mouth, and that only made Neil feel worse.

‘Why did Riko say he bought me?’ Neil asked.

Kevin was silent for so long Neil almost hoped this was all a sick dream, but finally Kevin spoke. ‘You’re not really him,’ Kevin said, so low Neil barely understood his words. ‘Tell me you aren’t really Nathaniel.’

Neil tried not to flinch at the sound of his real name and didn’t quite succeed. ‘Don’t call me that. It doesn’t matter who I used to be. I’m Neil now.’

‘It is not that simple,’ Kevin said, louder and dismayed. ‘Why are you here?’

‘I had nowhere else to go,’ Neil said. ‘When you showed up in Arizona I thought you’d come because you recognized me, but then you gave no sign you remembered me. I thought maybe I could stay until you figured things out.’

‘You thought,’ Kevin said, voice sharp with something too hysterical to be scorn. ‘You are a fucking idiot.’

‘I was desperate,’ Neil shot back.

‘I can’t believe your mother agreed to this.’

‘My mother is dead,’ Neil said. Kevin opened his mouth, but Neil didn’t want to hear it. ‘She died last year and I buried her on the west coast. I have nothing and no one else, Kevin. That’s why I signed with you. I figured the chances of you remembering me were slim and I gambled on you not knowing the truth about my family.’

‘How could we not remember you?’ Kevin asked.

Neil shook his head. ‘I didn’t know when I came here that the Moriyamas and my father were business partners.’

‘They were not partners.’ Kevin sounded almost as offended as Riko had.

‘I didn’t know,’ Neil repeated. ‘Until Coach told me about the Moriyamas this May I knew nothing about Riko’s family. After that I thought maybe that’s why we met so long ago. I thought Riko’s father and mine were discussing territories and borders. But last night Riko said my father belongs to the Moriyamas. What did he mean by that? Why did he say he bought me?’

‘Don’t lie to me,’ Kevin said. ‘We are in enough trouble as it is.’

‘My mother didn’t tell me why we were running,’ Neil said. ‘I never asked her why she finally had enough. I was just glad to get away. We never talked about anything real after that. It was always about the weather or our current language or the local culture—the next time she had anything meaningful to say to me was when she was dying. Even then she didn’t talk about my father. Not once did she mention the Moriyamas. If she had, I wouldn’t be here right now, would I? So tell me the truth.’

Kevin stared at him for an endless minute, then scrubbed fiercely at his face and muttered something in hoarse Japanese. Neil considered reaching out and shaking him, but Kevin dropped his hands to his lap and explained.

‘Your father was Lord Kengo’s right-hand man, the most trusted weapon in Lord Kengo’s arsenal. The territory he held, he held for the Moriyamas. He was the force that kept the empire in line and the name that would take the fall if the government ever caught on.

‘His power made you a loose end. You could never inherit his syndicate,’ Kevin said. ‘Lord Kengo handpicks his people very carefully to bolster his throne. Nepotism fractures that upward loyalty and leads families to think of their own successes first. He could have had you killed to keep things simple, but he gave you a chance to earn your keep. Your mother enrolled you in little leagues so you could learn Exy. The day you met us was your audition.’

‘Wait,’ Neil said. ‘Wait. What?’

‘You were supposed to be like me,’ Kevin said. ‘You were a gift, another player for the master to train. You had two days to win him over: an initial scrimmage with us to show off your potential and a second scrimmage to prove you could adapt to and implement his instructions and criticisms. If afterward he decided you weren’t worth his time you would be executed by your own father.’
Neil swallowed hard. ‘How did I do?’

‘Your mother wouldn’t risk failure,’ Kevin said. ‘You never made it to the second practice. She disappeared with you overnight.’

The heat in Neil’s stomach could have been nausea or rage, but he didn’t know who he was angry at. His mother had hated his fascination with Exy his entire life. She’d told him over and over he’d never touch a racquet again but she never told him why. He couldn’t understand why she had never explained the totality of what they were running from.

‘I’m going to be sick,’ Neil said, getting to his feet.

He was halfway up before Kevin grabbed his wrist to stop him. ‘Nathaniel, wait.’

Neil wrenched free so hard he almost sent Kevin sprawling. ‘Don’t call me that!’

He backed out of Kevin’s reach, but Kevin got to his feet as if to follow him. Neil put out a hand to warn him off. His thoughts spun in a thousand directions as he stared at Kevin, at a number and a reputation that could have been his in another life. If he’d impressed Coach Moriyama he would have grown up at Castle Evermore with Riko and Kevin. He’d be wearing the ‘3’ tattoo that adorned Jean Moreau’s face.

Neil wanted to hate the way things turned out. For a moment he did. He’d grown up a frightened nothing and no-one when he could have been raised to be a Raven and future Court. Neil loved Exy so much he had to resent being cheated of that chance. But all Neil had to do was look at Kevin to know he would have hated that life too. He’d have learned from the best and played for the best, but he would have been a caged and abused wreck. Maybe he’d spent eight years running for his life, but at least he’d been free.

Now he’d finally hit the end of that leash. Last night Jean said Neil would never be a Fox. He warned Kevin to teach Neil his place in the Moriyama hierarchy and to discipline him for speaking out so strongly against Riko. Riko still considered Neil to be misplaced property. Now that Neil knew the truth, Riko expected Neil to bow his head and fall in line.

‘I won’t,’ Neil wanted to say, but what came out was, ‘I can’t be this.’

‘You should run.’

‘I can’t,’ Neil said again. Neil realized his fingers were shaking and raked his hands through his hair. It didn’t calm the nerves shuddering over every inch of his skin. ‘I ran for eight years, Kevin. It was horrible even when my mother was alive. Where would I go now that I’m alone? Andrew thinks I’m safest if I stay.’
‘You said Andrew doesn’t know.’

‘Andrew thinks my father was a gopher who skimmed money off his boss’s payment to the Moriyamas. I told him my parents were executed for their treachery and that I ran with the money. Andrew wants me to use the Foxes’ infamy to stay safe. If we’re in the news every week it’s hard for someone to get rid of me, or so he says.’

‘Notoriety can’t save a security risk like you,’ Kevin said. ‘You know too much. You could destroy your father’s territory by speaking to the wrong people. They knew your mother would never betray her family to the Feds, but you are an unpredictable and frightened child.’

Kevin shook his head and bulled on when Neil started to argue. ‘The master wants to salvage you. He’s going to sign you to the Raven lineup in spring. So long as you keep quiet and keep your head down he won’t tell the main family he’s found you.’

‘I’m not a Raven,’ Neil said. ‘I never will be.’

‘Then run,’ Kevin insisted, low and frantic. ‘It’s the only way you’ll survive.’

Neil closed his eyes and tried to breathe. His heartbeat was loud as gunfire in his ears, drumming holes into his brain. He dug his hands into his shirt, trying to feel his scars through the cotton. When he breathed he smelled saltwater and blood. For a moment he was three thousand miles away, stumbling alone and broken down the highway toward San Francisco. Neil’s fingers ached with the need for a cigarette. His legs burned with the desire to run.

But Neil’s feet stayed planted, and he opened his eyes again. ‘No.’

‘Don’t be stupid.’

‘Running won’t save me this time,’ Neil said. ‘If the Moriyamas really do think I’m a threat they’ll send people after me. My mother and I could barely outrun my father. How am I supposed to escape his boss?’

‘At least you’d have a chance,’ Kevin said quietly.

‘A chance to die somewhere else all by myself,’ Neil said, and Kevin looked away. Neil put his hands in his pockets, feeling his keys in one and his phone in the other. He twisted his fingers through the key ring, tracing ridges with his fingertips until he found the key to Nicky’s house in Columbia. Andrew gave it to him in August when he first promised to protect Neil.

Neil looked down at the fox paw they were standing on. As he spoke his fear seeped away and was replaced by an unhappy calm. ‘If I was going to run, I should have done it in August. Andrew told me it was my last chance to get out. I decided to stay. I wasn’t sure he was enough to stand between me and my father but I wanted this too much to care about the risks. Maybe I didn’t fully understand the stakes then, but this hasn’t changed.’

Neil crouched and pressed his hands to the orange paint. ‘I don’t want to run. I don’t want to be a Raven. I don’t want to be Nathaniel. I want to be Neil Josten. I want to be a Fox. I want to play with you this year and I want us to make it to championships. And in spring when the Moriyamas come for me I’ll do what they’re so afraid I will. I’ll go to the FBI and tell them everything. Let them kill me. It’ll be too late by then.’

Kevin was silent for an endless minute, then said, ‘You should be Court.’

It was barely a whisper, but it cut Neil to the bone. It was a resentful goodbye to the bright future Kevin had wanted for Neil. Kevin recruited Neil because he believed in Neil’s potential. He brought him to the Foxes intending to make a star athlete out of him. Despite his condescending attitude and his dismissals of Neil’s best efforts Kevin honestly expected Neil to make the national team after graduation. Now Kevin knew it was all for naught; Neil would be dead by May.

‘Will you still teach me?’ Neil asked.

Kevin was quiet again, but not for long this time. ‘Every night.’

Neil swallowed against the hollow ache in his chest. ‘Matt and Dan want us to make it to finals. Do you think we stand any chance?’

‘We have a chance to make it to semifinals if Nicky starts pulling his weight and Andrew cooperates,’ Kevin said. ‘We can’t get past the Big Three.’

USC, Penn State, and Edgar Allan were considered the ‘Big Three’ of NCAA Exy. Edgar Allan always placed first. USC and Penn State usually stole second and third, though they were constantly upsetting each other in the rankings. The only way to finals was by beating one of those teams in semifinals.

‘Guess that will have to be good enough,’ Neil said.

He got to his feet again and looked around, first at the orange lines and paw prints on the court, then through the walls to the stands. Andrew had apparently finished the stairs because he was now jogging laps around the inner court. Neil envied the stamina Andrew’s medicine gave him.

‘Kevin, what does he want?’ Neil asked.

Realizing Kevin had no way of following his train of thought, he gestured in Andrew’s direction. ‘Andrew doesn’t know who I am, but he knows I have a price on my head. Despite that, he said he’d protect me for a year. Not for my sake, but because he thought training me would distract you from the Ravens’ threats.’

Neil looked back at Kevin and said, ‘What does he want that he’ll risk so much to keep you here?’

‘I made him a promise.’ Kevin dragged his stare away from Neil’s face to follow Andrew’s progress. ‘He’s waiting to see if I can keep it.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Kevin said nothing for so long Neil almost gave up waiting for an answer. Finally he explained, ‘Andrew on his drugs is useless, but Andrew off his drugs is worse. His high school counselor saw the difference between his junior and senior years and swore this medicine saved his life. A sober Andrew is…’ Kevin thought for a moment, trying to remember her exact words, and crooked his fingers at Neil as he quoted, ‘destructive and joyless.

‘Andrew has neither purpose nor ambition,’ Kevin said. ‘I was the first person who ever looked at Andrew and told him he was worth something. When he comes off these drugs and has nothing else to hold him up I will give him something to build his life around.’

‘He agreed to this?’ Neil asked. ‘But he’s fighting you every step of the way. Why?’

‘When I first said you would be Court, why were you upset with me?’

‘Because I knew it’d never happen,’ Neil said, ‘but I wanted it anyway.’

Kevin said nothing. Neil waited, then realized he’d answered his own question. It startled Neil into silence for a minute. Disbelief warred with discomfort, but Neil didn’t know where that unease came from. He shifted on his feet and folded his arms as tight across his chest as he could.

‘So, what?’ he asked in a low voice. ‘You think he’ll sober up next summer and suddenly realize he likes Exy after all? I thought you didn’t believe in miracles.’

‘Andrew is crazy, not stupid,’ Kevin said. ‘Even he will grow bored of being a failure eventually. When his medicine is out of his system and he can actually think for himself again I will have an easier time getting through to him.’

Neil doubted it, but he said, ‘Good luck.’

It surprised him that he meant it. Andrew was hell to deal with most of the time but he really was doing his damnedest to keep both Neil and Kevin at Palmetto State. The least they could give him in return was something of his own. Neil couldn’t deny a little bit of bitterness that Andrew would have the future Neil couldn’t, but he’d come to terms with that eventually.

‘We should go,’ Neil said, because he didn’t want to think about this anymore. ‘Don’t tell Andrew about any of this, Kevin.’

‘I can’t,’ Kevin said. ‘He won’t respect your choice.’

Neil started for the door, but Kevin put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. ‘Neil.’

There was a world of regret in that name, but it was a promise, too. Neil pulled himself back together piece by broken piece and followed Kevin off the Foxhole Court.

–

For the first time in Neil’s life, he wasn’t thinking about the future. He stopped counting days until the Ravens’ match and scaled back on how much news he watched and read. He threw all of his energy into practices, stayed awake through most of his classes, and juggled his teammates as best as he could. He saw Andrew’s lot on the way to and from practices and he was out with Kevin and Andrew most nights, so he gave his evenings to the upperclassmen.

He knew things about them he’d never bothered to learn about anyone else in his entire life. Renee’s birth name was Natalie; her adoptive mother renamed her when she pulled Renee out of the foster system. Her mother was the reason she and Dan were at Palmetto State. Stephanie Walker was a reporter who’d interviewed Wymack with the ulterior motive of marketing Renee to him. Wymack flew to North Dakota during spring championships to watch Renee’s team take on their biggest rivals. Dan happened to be captain of the rival team, and Wymack was impressed by her fierce performance. He signed them both that same weekend.

‘It was pretty bad,’ Dan admitted when Renee told Neil the story. ‘I couldn’t believe Coach actually expected us to get along, especially after her team kicked mine out of championships in my senior year.’

‘She took it very personally,’ Renee said with a fond smile on her face.

Neil tried imaging a time when they weren’t friends and found it difficult. ‘You got over it eventually.’

‘I didn’t have a choice,’ Dan said. ‘The Foxes didn’t want girls on the line-up, and they especially didn’t want one as captain.’

‘We had to face our teammates as a united force,’ Renee said, motioning from herself to Dan and Allison. ‘It was the only way to survive. Our friendship was a show that started and stopped at our bedroom door. It took most of the year for us to realize it wasn’t an act anymore.’

‘I didn’t figure it out until summer break,’ Dan said, ‘when I was talking to the girls about the season.’

By ‘the girls’ she meant her stage sisters. Dan, aka Hennessey, had gotten a fake ID back in high school so she could work as a stripper in a nearby city. The hours worked well around her classes and Exy schedule, and it made the money she needed. Her aunt was unemployed and stuck at home with a newborn. Dan somehow had to support all three of them. Dan said she stopped talking to her aunt the second she moved out, but she kept in touch with her former coworkers. Supposedly they were all waiting for her to become a hotshot star.

That was how Neil found out Dan didn’t want to go professional after college. She wanted to be a coach, and she planned on seizing the Foxhole Court when Wymack retired down the road. She would maintain Wymack’s recruiting standards in his absence. Matt was wholeheartedly in favor of the idea.

Matt was an interesting countermeasure to Dan’s scrappy background: the wealthy and well-educated son of a professional boxer and a high-profile plastic surgeon. His parents separated years ago, in large part due to his father’s unending infidelity, but weren’t officially divorced. Matt grew up with his father, since his mother’s career meant a lot of time on the road. Matt minced his words when talking about his father but could go on about his mother at length. She was his idol, and Neil found listening to his stories as interesting as it was painful. When Matt talked about summer breaks spent drag racing in the mountains Neil remembered the sound his mother’s corpse made when he tried peeling it off a vinyl seat.

Two weeks after the banquet, Allison started talking to Neil again. Neil still hadn’t figured out how to apologize to her, or if he had to apologize at all, when she finally broke the silence. Neil was eating dinner downtown with the upperclassmen when Allison told him to pass the ketchup. It almost startled him into dropping his burger and he handed the bottle over as quickly as he could. It was days before she had anything else to say to him, but her chilly silence slowly started to thaw. Neil even saw her smile at one of Matt’s off-color jokes. She was nowhere near done grieving, but she was learning to be okay.

Neil wished he had something to give them in return for their easy friendship and trust, but nothing about him was safe enough to share. They never pried, but it took him weeks to realize they didn’t have to. They didn’t ask for secrets; they settled for the breadcrumb truths of day to day life. They knew he hated vegetables but loved fruit, that his favorite color was gray, and that he didn’t like movies or loud music. They were things Neil understood only in terms of survival, but his teammates hoarded these insights like gold.

They were piecing Neil together and building a real person around all of his lies. They found the parts of him no disguise could change. Nothing they were learning would change this year’s outcome or tell them who he really was, but it was frightening nonetheless. Luckily midterms were coming up, so Neil could use studying as an excuse to slowly pull back out of their reach.

The library seemed a safe refuge, since it was four stories tall and had two hundred rows to hide in, but Neil wasn’t the only one with exams. He was leaving the library café with a much-needed cup of caffeine when he bumped into Aaron and Katelyn. Aaron ground to a halt at the sight of Neil, looking almost offended, but Katelyn smiled in happy greeting.

‘Neil, hello,’ she said, offering her hand. ‘I don’t think we’ve been introduced.’

Neil shifted his coffee to his left hand so he could give her hand a quick squeeze. ‘No, but I’ve seen you at games. You’re Katelyn, right? You’re on the Vixen squad.’

She seemed pleased to be recognized, but Aaron still looked annoyed. Neil didn’t blame him. Aaron and Katelyn always looked for each other at games, but Aaron never approached the cheerleaders. This was the first time Neil saw them so close to each other. Maybe Aaron was finally making the move his teammates were waiting for. They were already holding hands, so it had to be going well.

Aaron noticed Neil’s downward glance, judging by the cool edge in his, ‘Goodbye.’
Katelyn leaned against him in silent admonishment, but Neil slipped past them without argument. He didn’t make it far before curiosity made him look back. Katelyn and Aaron were oblivious as they stood in the café line. Katelyn stood tucked against Aaron’s side, a few inches taller than he was but somehow fitting perfectly against him. They looked surprisingly comfortable together for how carefully they avoided each other at games. Neil expected their first steps to be a bit more awkward.

‘The coffee that interesting?’

Neil wondered if the Foxes secretly installed him with a tracking chip and turned towards Nicky’s voice. Nicky was almost to the top of the stairs, his backpack dangling off one elbow and his arms loaded down with magazines.

‘Not really,’ Neil said, but Nicky stopped beside him and looked into the café. Neil braced for an excited reaction or some triumphant spiel about all the bets he’d just won. He wasn’t expecting Nicky’s approving nod.

‘Smart of them to pick the library as necking grounds,’ Nicky said. He turned Neil away from the café with a hand on his shoulder. ‘Andrew claims he’s allergic to books, so he doesn’t come here unless Kevin makes him. They’re safe for another week at least. Do us all a favor and don’t mention it?’

‘I thought they weren’t together,’ Neil said, setting off in search of a place to study.

‘Not officially, no.’ Nicky followed along behind him uninvited. ‘Aaron’s too smart to ask her out and for now Katelyn’s okay with waiting. I don’t know if she’ll last until graduation, and I know it’s not fair to ask her to, but I kind of hope she does. They’re good together, right?’

‘I wouldn’t know.’

Neil found an empty table and set his things down. Nicky promptly scattered his magazines across three-quarters of the table. Neil scooted a couple out of his way and sat. He was half-afraid he wouldn’t get anything done with someone as chatty as Nicky around, but Nicky was surprisingly focused on his own project. What Neil had assumed was leisure reading turned out to be source material for one of Nicky’s marketing classes. They worked in silence for almost twenty minutes before Nicky finally spoke.

‘Andrew hates her, you know?’

It took Neil a moment to figure out what Nicky was talking about. His head was full of numbers; he was working through a six-page pamphlet of mathematical equations. But Nicky said it like he’d been thinking about Aaron and Katelyn this entire time. Neil almost said nothing, because his review was more important than something as trivial as Aaron’s maybe-relationship, but it was hard to ignore an opening line like that.

‘Why?’ Neil asked.

‘Because Aaron likes her,’ Nicky said, as if that was obvious.

‘Last I checked Andrew doesn’t like Aaron, either.’

‘Precisely.’ Nicky flipped his magazine shut, looked very obviously over his shoulder to check for either of his cousins, then leaned across the table toward Neil. ‘Andrew’s not really big on the idea of Aaron’s happiness, see? So if Aaron likes Katelyn, Andrew doesn’t want him to have her. Andrew might smile awful bright but he is a master of childish spite.’

‘That doesn’t make sense,’ Neil said.

‘It’s complicated,’ Nicky said, rubbing the back of his neck as he leaned back in his chair. ‘I didn’t really get into the gritty details last time because those aren’t really Dan and Matt’s business, but you’re family, so I can tell you.’ He looked over his shoulder again. ‘I told you Aunt Tilda gave Andrew up, right? That’s only half of it. Truth is she put both of them in the system at first. One week later she changed her mind.’

‘She could do that?’
‘The system allows for panic and regret.’ Nicky grimaced. ‘She didn’t have to give the clerk her name but she had to take the gray ID bands that marked which kids were hers just in case. So long as she came back fast enough, yeah, she could have her babies back.

‘Aunt Tilda felt guilty about giving up her sons, but she didn’t feel bad enough to take them both. She could only handle one, or so she told Dad when he found out about Andrew. I don’t know how she chose which one she went back for. Did she go alphabetically, Aaron before Andrew, or did she reach into the drawer and take whichever band she touched first?’

Nicky went quiet for a moment as he thought about it. He scrubbed a hand across his forehead and continued. ‘They each had a fifty-fifty chance of getting screwed. Ha!’ Nicky’s smile was humorless. ‘Guess they both got the short end of the stick. Andrew went off to foster care and Aaron became the living reminder of Aunt Tilda’s guilt and failure. Aunt Tilda tried as hard as she could to not deal with Aaron at all, at least until Andrew came back into the picture. That’s when Aaron says she started getting angry instead of just neglectful.’

‘They know she gave them both up?’ Neil asked.

‘When Andrew’s foster mother called to set up that meet-and-greet, she asked Aunt Tilda how only one of them ended up in the system. Aunt Tilda told her, and Aaron heard it on the upstairs line.’ Nicky gestured up as if indicating Tilda’s bedroom. ‘I don’t know why the hell Andrew’s foster family told him, but yeah, he knows. I’m thinking that’s why he wouldn’t talk to Aaron when Aaron wrote to him. He was—justifiably, I think—pissed off.’

‘But it’s not Aaron’s fault,’ Neil said. ‘It was their mother’s decision.’

‘That’s Andrew for you: making sense since never.’ Nicky spread his hands in a helpless gesture. ‘Finding Andrew again was a turning point for Aaron in all the worst ways. Aunt Tilda moved them cross-country, started drinking more than ever, and got heavy-handed with Aaron. Aaron got into all kinds of trouble in some sort of traumatized rebellion. He took her drugs and got into fights at school and in general grew up to be a bit of an asshole. Mom wrote me about it when I was in Germany because she was worried about him. The only good thing Aaron did in South Carolina was play Exy, and he only picked that up so games would get him out of Aunt Tilda’s house.

‘Then Dad found out about Andrew and began this years-long campaign to bring Andrew home. Told you last time, right? He wore Aunt Tilda down until she agreed to take Andrew in, then talked to the courts and Children’s Services and Andrew’s last foster family. He met Andrew, who apparently wasn’t at all interested in a triumphant return with his mother, and introduced Aaron to Andrew. That’s when things started moving. Andrew suddenly got motivated. He started behaving and toeing the line and got released on early parole about a year later.’

‘Andrew decided he wanted a brother after all,’ Neil said. ‘So what went wrong?’

‘Aunt Tilda died, and Aaron blames Andrew.’

‘Did Andrew do it?’

Nicky motioned for him to quiet down, no matter that Nicky was the louder of the two of them. ‘The night Aunt Tilda died, she and Aaron got in a fight. That’s how Mom and Dad finally found out Aunt Tilda was beating on Aaron. He showed up at their place with fresh bruises and cuts. Dad called Aunt Tilda over to sort things out, but she didn’t stick around long. She took Aaron and left. They didn’t make it home. She went over the median into oncoming traffic and wasn’t wearing her seatbelt.’

Nicky shifted in his seat, looking a little uncomfortable, and said, ‘It wasn’t Aaron in the car. Aaron was standing in for Andrew at a study session. That was before Andrew was on his drugs, so it was a pretty easy act for Aaron to pull off. He didn’t know why Andrew asked him to do it until the police called. I still don’t know what happened, if Aunt Tilda panicked when she realized which son was with her or if they were fighting or if it was intentional, but…

‘It’s not like Aaron liked her, but she was his mother, you know? And Aaron never got to fix things with her, never got to understand why she was so messed up or why she messed them up so bad. Aaron can’t accept that she’s gone. He misses her. He can’t forgive Andrew, and Andrew doesn’t understand or care about how much it hurt Aaron. Stalemate.’

Neil thought he understood Aaron’s situation. He and his mother had serious issues, consequence of her background and his terrifying childhood. By the end he wondered if it was survival or love that kept them together so long. Knowing now she’d run to protect him skewed his perspective a little, but he’d violently disliked her for half his life. Despite that, losing her was the worst thing that ever happened to him.

Neil couldn’t say that when his teammates thought both his parents alive and well, so he settled on the more interesting conclusion of Nicky’s story. He spoke slowly, giving himself time to think and to bleach the grief from his voice. ‘Andrew did care. That’s what went wrong.’

Nicky blinked at him. ‘What?’

‘Andrew came home for Aaron, right? It wouldn’t have taken him long to realize Aaron was a wreck. Andrew would have traced Aaron’s problems back to their mother. Maybe he didn’t kill her for giving him up. Maybe he did it to protect Aaron.’

Nicky looked skeptical. ‘That is a seriously big maybe, Neil.’

‘Is it?’ Neil asked. ‘Do you remember how Andrew ended up on his medication?’

‘Yeah,’ Nicky said, then went quiet as he thought about it.

Nicky used to work at Eden’s Twilight down in Columbia. He was on break one night when four men decided they could beat the homosexuality out of him. Andrew stepped in to protect Nicky, but he went too far. It was one thing to join the fight and another thing entirely to keep at it when the men were unconscious and bleeding out on the sidewalk. Andrew would have killed them if the club’s bouncers hadn’t hauled him away. The press had a field day with it; Neil read all about it when he was researching the Foxes.

‘She was hurting Aaron, so Andrew stopped her,’ Neil said. ‘Aaron should have been grateful, but he mourned her like he didn’t care what she’d done to them. He took sides.’

‘You really think so?’

‘It makes sense to me,’ Neil said. It might even explain why Andrew hated Katelyn, though Neil wasn’t sure which interpretation to go with: that Andrew wouldn’t let another girl come between them, or that he was still punishing Aaron for choosing the wrong side three years ago. ‘I’m guessing they’ve never talked about how she died.’

‘Not since I moved in, and I showed up the day of Aunt Tilda’s funeral,’ Nicky said. ‘They won’t even talk about the little things. I don’t see them having a belated heart-to-heart about Andrew’s intentions anytime soon.’

Nicky propped his elbow on the table and cradled his face in his hand. Defeat looked unnatural on his face and made him finally look his age. Neil had almost forgotten that Nicky was several years older than his cousins. He was a sophomore like they were, but he was the second-oldest player on the team after Renee.

‘The only reason I stayed when Coach offered me a spot was so I could fix this,’ Nicky said. ‘I thought if I had more time I could show Aaron and Andrew how to be brothers again. And I’m not giving up, not by a long shot, but I’ve realized by now I can’t fix it on my own. I hate to say it, but I wish Renee would hurry up and make her move.’

Neil had no idea how the conversation had gone from murder to Renee. He ran over the last couple seconds of their conversation in his head, then gave up and asked, ‘What? I thought you didn’t like her.’

Nicky bolted upright like Neil struck him. ‘Who doesn’t like Renee?’

Neil almost volunteered himself as a prime example, but he didn’t want to derail the conversation further. He amended his words to, ‘No one likes how friendly she is with Andrew.’

‘Not to throw my own cousin under the bus, but everyone knows he’s not good enough for her. In a perfect world Renee would settle down with a nice Christian boy who’d invest in her charity projects and love her half to death. In this world she’s got her eyes set on Andrew. I’d intervene for her sake but I’m getting desperate. Andrew needs something to distract him from all of his issues.’

Neil thought about his conversation with Kevin a few weeks ago. ‘What about Exy?’

‘Now you sound like Kevin.’ Nicky rubbed at his temples like he was warding off a headache. ‘Exy isn’t an option here, okay? You can love Exy all you want, but it’s never gonna love you back.’

Neil should let it go, but the challenge was out before he could stop it. ‘So?’

‘Oh my God.’ Nicky looked torn between horror and pity. ‘Seriously? That might be the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.’

Neil should have just kept his mouth shut. ‘I need to study.’

‘Don’t you dare.’ Nicky snatched his math pamphlet off the desk and dropped it on the ground by his chair. ‘Listen up. There’s obsession and there’s dysfunction. You can’t make Exy your end-all be-all. This won’t last forever, okay? You’ll shine bright, then you’ll retire, and then what? You gonna spend the rest of your life at home alone with all your trophies?’
‘Leave it,’ Neil said.

Maybe Nicky heard the quiet warning in Neil’s voice, because he gentled his tone. ‘You can’t be just this, Neil. This isn’t enough to live for. I could take you down to Columbia sometime, just the two of us, and have Roland introduce you around. He’s got a lot of great friends. At this point I won’t even care if it’s a girl so long as you—’

‘Why don’t you like girls?’

Nicky looked startled by the interruption, but he rallied quickly and made a face. ‘They’re so soft.’

Neil thought about Renee’s bruised knuckles, Dan’s fierce spirit, and Allison holding her ground on the court a week after Seth’s death. He thought about his mother standing unflinching in the face of his father’s violent anger and her ruthlessly leaving bodies in their wake. He felt compelled to say, ‘Some of the strongest people I’ve known are women.’

‘What? Oh, no,’ Nicky hurried to say. ‘I mean literally soft. Too many curves, see? I feel like my hands would slide right off. It’s totally not my thing. I like…’ He drew a box with his fingers as he searched for words. ‘Erik. Erik’s perfect. He’s a total outdoors junkie, rock climbing and hiking and mountain biking, all that awful bug-infested fresh-air stuff. But oh my god, you should see what it does to his body. He’s like this, all hard edges.’ He drew another box. ‘He’s stronger than I am, and I like that. I feel like I could lean on him all day and he wouldn’t break a sweat.’

Nicky’s smile was slow and pleased as he thought about his long-distance boyfriend. It was a more reserved expression than Neil usually saw on his face. It made Neil wonder if Nicky was naturally loud or if he exaggerated his outgoing nature to balance his unfriendly cousins.

‘Funny,’ Nicky said. ‘That didn’t used to be my type. None of the others I crushed on growing up were anything like that. Maybe that’s why none of them could help me.’

Nicky turned his hands palm-up on the table and considered them. ‘My parents are kind of crazy, you know? There’s religious and there’s super psychotic religious. Me and Renee, we’re the decent sort, I think. We go to different churches and have some different ideas, but we respect each other anyway. We understand that religion is just an interpretation of faith. But my parents are the black-and-white crazy kind. It’s only right and wrong with them: hellfire and damnation and judgment from on high.

‘For some reason I tried coming out to them anyway,’ Nicky said. ‘Mom was pretty upset. She locked herself in the bedroom and cried and prayed for days. Dad took a more direct route and shipped me off to Christian gay camp. I spent a year learning that I was infected by a disgusting idea from the devil, that I was a living test for every other good Christian on the planet. They tried using God to shame me into being straight.

‘It didn’t work,’ Nicky said. ‘For a while I wished it did. I went home feeling like an abomination and a failure. I couldn’t face my parents like that, so I lied. I pretended to be straight for the rest of high school. I even dated a couple girls. I kissed a couple of them, but I used my faith as an excuse never to get further than first base. I knew I just had to keep it together until graduation.

‘I hated my life so much,’ Nicky said. ‘I couldn’t do that, you know? I couldn’t live a lie like that day after day. I felt trapped. Some days I thought God abandoned me; sometimes I thought I failed Him. Halfway through my junior year I started thinking about suicide. Then my German teacher took me aside and told me about a study abroad program. She would set it all up for me, she said, if my parents would sign off on it. She’d handle admissions and get a host family and everything. It’d be expensive, but she thought I needed a change in scenery. Guess she knew I was that close to the edge.

‘I didn’t think Mom and Dad would go for it, but they were so proud of me for my so-called recovery they agreed to let me go my senior year. I just had to last another semester and then I could go. I was so desperate to get out of there I didn’t even really pay attention when Aaron and Aunt Tilda moved to Columbia that spring. All I cared about was keeping it together until May. I know now I should have tried harder, but I would’ve been no good to him how I was.

‘When the plane took off from Columbia, I was scared to death,’ Nicky said. ‘I was so relieved to leave my parents and everyone I knew, but I didn’t know if being in Germany would change anything. When I landed, my new host brother was waiting for me in Arrivals. Erik Klose,’ Nicky said, sounding it out like he was saying it for the first time. ‘He taught me to believe in myself. He showed me how to balance my faith and my sexuality, and he made me okay again. I know it sounds dramatic, but he saved my life.’

Nicky flipped his hands over and laced his fingers together. The look he turned on Neil was as reassuring as it was worried and made Neil want to edge away. ‘That’s what love is about, see? That’s why Exy isn’t ever going to be enough, not for you or Andrew or anyone. It can’t hold you up, and it won’t make you a stronger or better person.’

‘Okay.’

Nicky wasn’t impressed with that neutral response. ‘I’m not the brightest crayon in the box, but I’m not the dullest, either. I’ve figured out by now you’ve got all the trust issues of a stray tom cat. But sooner or later you’re going to have to let someone in.’ Sᴇaʀch Thᴇ Findɴovel.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

‘Can I study now?’

Nicky scooped Neil’s math pamphlet off the ground but held it out of reach. ‘It’s your turn. Why don’t you like girls?’

‘I don’t not like them,’ Neil said, but Nicky only snorted in disbelief.

Neil thought of his mother’s heavy fists on his skin and her fingers knotting in his hair. She’d told him time and time again girls were dangerous. They got inside a man’s head, she said. They got under a man’s skin. They could make a man want to change the world starting with himself. They’d turn him inside out and pull out all his secrets. They might mean well but it’d get all of them killed in the end.

‘It’s complicated,’ Neil said at last. ‘Let me work now.’

‘At least promise me you’ll think about it?’

‘Promise,’ Neil said.

‘You are such an unrepentant liar.’ Nicky huffed and handed over Neil’s work.

Neil glanced at his watch, winced when he saw how much time they’d lost, and flipped to the equation he’d left off on. Nicky grumbled a bit under his breath as he reorganized his own notes but quieted down as soon as he got back to work. Neil pushed the entire conversation from mind so he could focus. Within a couple minutes he’d forgotten all about it, and honestly he expected it to stay forgotten.

It came back to him at practice when he spotted Andrew and Renee. They were standing together near the goal, and Andrew was gesturing excitedly as they went on about something or other. Neil watched them longer than he meant to and remembered Nicky’s words.

There was no point dwelling on it when he knew how the year would end, but for a moment Neil wondered. He thought about Nicky’s story and how he’d met Erik in the nick of time. Nicky had been at the end of his rope, but Erik was strong enough to hold him up. There was only one person in the world strong enough for all of Neil’s problems, and she was dead now. Neil wouldn’t wish his mess on anyone else.

Except he’d already started sharing that burden, albeit unwillingly. He’d divided his secrets between Kevin and Andrew. Kevin reacted the way Neil expected everyone would to the truth: with a horrified demand that Neil leave immediately. Andrew, though, nodded in the face of it and told Neil to stay. He stood his ground when Neil asked him for murder and gave him a key to their house.

But that didn’t count, because Andrew was Andrew, and this was definitely the last turn he needed his thoughts to take. He dragged his attention back to the task at hand and vowed never to listen to Nicky again.