"You're staring again."
Quentin drops down beside me on the frozen grass, barely winded despite the brutal practice we just finished. My twin brother makes everything look effortless while I'm over here sweating through my practice jersey and pining like a Victorian maiden with consumption. He's not even breathing hard, the bastard. He just ran the same drills I did, and somehow he looks like he could do it all over again without breaking a sweat.
Some people say it’s because my twin brother is a Beta while I somehow came out as an Omega. I just think it’s because he somehow ended up with the perfect genes.
"I'm not staring," I protest, switching to stretch my other leg. "I'm conducting reconnaissance."
He raises one eyebrow. He has this whole silent communication thing mastered, where a single facial expression conveys more than most people's entire vocabularies. It's incredibly annoying and also deeply impressive.
"Fine." I sigh, giving up the pretense entirely. There's no point lying to Quentin anyway; he's known me since we shared a womb, and he can read my face like a book written in large print. "I'm staring. But have you seen her? She's doing math in her head right now, Q.Math. While walking. In sandals. In February."
I gesture toward where Iris disappeared into the athletic building, as if the ghost of her presence might still be lingering there, doing calculations in the frozen air. Quentin follows my gaze, then looks back at me with his face scrunched up in that particular way that means he's trying to follow my logic and failing.
"Why would you mention her sandals?"
"They're relevant." I shift my weight, turning to face him fully now that my hamstrings have been stretched to within an inch of their lives. The cold grass crunches beneath me, and I can feel the damp seeping through my practice shorts, but I'm too invested in this explanation to care. "They speak to her character. She's unbothered by societal expectations. She defies convention. She transcends the limitations of seasonal footwear. She..."
I trail off, searching for the right word, my hands moving in vague circles as if I can pluck it from the air.
"Has cold feet," Quentin supplies flatly.
"She has metaphorically warm feet, Quentin. The warmest." I press a hand to my chest, fully committed to this bit now even asI hear how ridiculous I sound. "The warmest metaphorical feet on this entire campus."
He stares at me. His expression clearly questions my sanity, my grasp on the English language, and possibly my fitness to exist as a functioning member of society.
I replay what I just said in my head. Warm feet. Metaphorical feet. The warmest metaphorical feet.
"That sounded weirder than I meant it," I admit.
Chad struts past us, still flexing, making aggressive eye contact with the general area where Iris was standing thirty seconds ago.
"God, he's still doing that," I mutter, watching Chad curl the weight with exaggerated form. "Does his arm not get tired?"
"His brain would have to send the signal first."
I snort so hard I almost choke on my own spit. The sound comes out embarrassingly loud, and a couple of guys look over at us. I wave them off, still trying to catch my breath. "That was almost a joke. I'm proud of you."
"Don't get used to it."
But there's a tiny smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, barely visible unless you know exactly where to look. I count it as a win. Getting Quentin to show any emotion is an achievement; getting him to almost laugh is basically winning the lottery.
Coach blows the whistle, signaling the end of practice, and guys start gathering their gear and trudging toward the athletic building. Chad and Kevin are among the first to head inside, probably eager to continue their strategy session in the locker room where they can be even louder. I wait until they're out of earshot, watching them disappear through the double doors before grabbing Quentin's arm.
"Okay. So. Hypothetically speaking."
"Nothing good has ever started with those words."
"Hypothetically, if there was an opportunity to spend an entire evening with a certain coach's daughter..." I pause for dramatic effect, watching his face carefully for any reaction.
Quentin goes tense beside me. "Milo."
"In a completely sanctioned, school-approved, charitable context..."
"What did you do?"
I shove my phone in his face so aggressively I nearly break his nose, which would really put a damper on our evening plans. "LOOK."
His eyes lock on the screen, scanning the Fab Feb auction roster I've been refreshing obsessively for weeks. I've checked this thing so many times the website probably thinks I'm a bot. His gaze finds the name I spotted this morning, nestled between two hockey players and the lacrosse captain like it was always meant to be there.
