"Let them stare."
"Easy for you to say. You're six-three and built like a refrigerator. Nobody stares at you with pity. They're staring at me like I've been kidnapped." He takes a sip and scowls at the cup. "This has sugar in it."
"It does not have sugar in it."
"It's sweet."
"That's the caramel drizzle."
"I said black. No sugar. I did not say caramel drizzle. Caramel drizzle is a deviation from the agreed-upon terms of your penance." He stops walking to glare up at me and the glare is so perfectly Kit, undercut by the fact that he's already drunk half the coffee, that something in my chest loosens for the first time in weeks.
I have to bite back a smile, unsure if that’ll piss him off or make him melt. He did a lot of melting through Sunday when I wasn’t actively running line drills under coach’s watch to make up for my sorry excuse of a game. There wasn’t even practice, just coach, me, and the goddamn court. "I'll get it right tomorrow," I tell him.
"You'll get it right every day for the rest of the semester. We discussed this." He starts walking again and I fall into step beside him as his shoulder brushes mine. A girl from Kit's literature class passes us and does a visible double-take, her eyes bouncing between Kit and me.
Kit notices and his jaw tightens but he doesn't move away from me. He takes another sip of his sugared coffee and keeps walking.
Practice that afternoon is the first since the locker room confession and the energy when I walk in is different, charged with something I can't identify until Devon jogs over during warmups and bumps his shoulder against mine.
"So," Devon says, spinning a ball on his finger. "You and the angry Omega. That's a thing now."
"His name is Kit."
"You and Kit. That's a thing now." He catches the ball and tucks it under his arm. "Cool. Does this mean you're going to actually play basketball again or should I keep carrying this team by myself?"
I snort, shaking my head as I head for my locker. "You scored twelve points last game."
"Twelveheroicpoints while you were busy having an emotional crisis on the court." He grins obviously having had dealt with what happened last week. "Marcus owes me twenty bucks, by the way. I told him you were in love months ago. He thought you were just being territorial."
"You bet on my love life?" I had no idea I was being so obvious but then again, why else would I single out an omega like that?
"We bet on everything, East. Last week Terrell bet Marcus that Coach's car wouldn't start on the first try. Keep up."
Marcus is more measured about it, finding me at the water fountain between drills and standing beside me without immediately speaking, the way Marcus does when he's choosing his words. "I'm not going to make it weird," he says finally. "But I need to know your head is back. Because I can handle the team adjusting to this, I can handle Devon's mouth, but I can't handle another game like Saturday."
"My head is back."
"You sure? Because Kit was at that game and you played like you'd never held a basketball before."
"It had nothing to do with him and everything to do with the fact that I had my head up my ass. I’m good now. Me and Kit are good now.” I grab my water bottle and take a long drink. "We're good, Marcus."
He studies me for a moment. “This new… version of you is kind of strange and is going to take some getting used to you. You’re usually more of…”
“An asshole?” I laugh, lightly shoving Marcus’ shoulder. “That’s what got me into this mess. Things had to change.”
He just nods before jogging back to the court. Not everyone is as easy as Devon and Marcus though. Terrell pulls me aside after practice and tells me straight that a couple of the younger guyshave been talking, not about Kit specifically but about whether my head is in the game, whether the team can rely on me when it matters. I tell Terrell what I told the locker room. It's not up for debate. He shrugs and says fair enough and that's the end of it.
I’ll have to prove to everyone all over again, I’m worth the effort. Especially Kit. Especially when he starts showing up to my games. The past three games, he’s shown up on time, his gaze clocking my every movement.
He doesn’t hide in the back of the bleachers, though. The Omega sits in the fourth row, dead center, with Milo on one side and Avery on the other, visible enough that I can find him the moment I step onto the court. The first time he does it I almost trip over the baseline because the sight of Kit Peralta sitting in my gym without pretending he doesn't want to be there short-circuits something in my brain.
He catches me looking and raises his coffee cup in a mock toast, his expression flat and unimpressed in a way that somehow communicates both I'm here for you and don't make it weird simultaneously. Devon elbows me in the ribs during warmups. "Your boyfriend is watching. Try not to suck."
"He's not my boyfriend."
"He's sitting in the fourth row wearing your practice hoodie, East. He's your boyfriend."
I look back at Kit and realize Devon is right. The oversized hoodie Kit is wearing, the one he's been living in for the last week, is mine. The one I left on my desk chair the night he first came to my room. He stole it and I never asked for it back and now he's wearing it in my gym where everyone can see and the possessive satisfaction that burns through my chest is so intense I have to look away before my scent gives me away to the entire court.
