He looks over, really looks, and I have to fight the urge to squirm. “You’ve…?”
He doesn’t finish, but I know what he means.
“Nothing past ninth grade,” I say. “Jake Halpern. JV locker room. He kissed me and I nearly dislocated his jaw.”
Darius snorts, then bites it back. “You always know how to defuse a situation.”
“Yeah,” I say. “My superpower is making everything less sexy, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
He lets that hang. He’s waiting for me to get serious. I almost never do, but for him, I’ll try.
“I’ve known since forever,” I say, finally. “But I always figured… I don’t know. That it wasn’t real. That if I ignored it long enough, it’d just go away.”
He nods. I can tell from his face that this is hitting closer to home than he’s letting on.
“You?” I ask. “Was it always Nia, or…?”
For a second, I think he’s going to lie. His eyes cut away, back to the water, and he tenses his jaw like he’s chewing glass.
“I never thought about it,” he says. “I mean, I knew other guys did. I just… assumed I was normal. That the feelings were just respect, or competition, or whatever.”
I laugh, but softly. “Yeah, the old ‘it’s not a crush, it’s just deep, abiding rage and a desire to die on the same ice as him.’ Classic.”
He cracks a smile, small but real. “It’s not funny.”
“No,” I agree. “But it kind of is.”
Another silence, longer this time. We watch a ferry crawl across the bay, the white hull stained with old salt and theshadow of city grime. Darius taps his fingers, once, twice, then speaks.
“So what do we do?”
The question is simple, but it’s huge. It’s the only question that matters, and I have no idea how to answer it.
“Do you want to keep it quiet?” I ask.
He doesn’t hesitate. “We have to.”
He’s right. We have to. The team is a zoo right now, everyone’s nerves shot, and if even one person found out we were… whatever this is, it’d go nuclear in a week.
I try to picture O’Doul’s reaction, or Raz’s, or any of the other guys who still think being alive means never showing a single crack in your armor. It’s not a good look.
“Okay,” I say. “So we keep it between us.”
He nods, but I can see he’s not happy about it. There’s a stubborn set to his mouth, like he’s used to getting his way, and this is the first time in years he’s been forced to compromise.
I want to make a joke, something to cut the tension, but I can’t think of one that doesn’t make us both sound pathetic. Instead, I ask, “You want to set ground rules, or just wing it?”
He thinks about it. Then, “We take it slow. I don’t… I don’t want to wreck this before it even starts.”
The words hit me in a weird way. Nobody’s ever said “this” about me before.
Not even girls, not even my therapist, not even Maya, and she’s been rooting for me to date someone with a pulse since I was in braces.
I nod. “No physical stuff. At least, not until we’re sure.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “You don’t trust yourself?”
I snort. “I don’t trust either of us. We’re one bad day away from setting the city on fire.”
