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1.
The first time Seth and Kevin brawled, it was over before it’d really began. A heated insult turned into a shove turned into a retaliatory punch, then Wymack was suddenly there to yank Seth back by the collar of his shirt and put himself between them. Wymack, who never intervened, who always let his players’ fights fizzle out on their own, stuck a finger in Seth’s face and growled, “Try that again and you’re benched the rest of the season.”
It didn’t matter that the threat was empty. It didn’t matter that he’d only stepped in to prevent any more damage to the fragile wrist Kevin still had wrapped in a cast. The fact that Wymack had interfered at all was enough to show Seth exactly where he stood in the hierarchy. Even three years younger, even injured, even though he’d been with the Foxes a few measly weeks while Seth had given them four whole years, Kevin was still deemed more important. More valuable. Higher priority.
It wasn’t the kind of lesson Seth would soon forget. If no one else was going to knock the golden boy down a few pegs, Seth would just have to do so himself.
2.
The second time Seth and Kevin brawled, Kevin was cast-free, Seth was riding an edge of maybe-still-drunk-maybe-hungover irritability, and Wymack stayed out of it. Kevin, still masquerading as assistant coach rather than player, wasn’t wearing a helmet, but that didn’t matter when it was Seth’s head slamming against the court wall so hard his ears rang.
Growing up with six brothers, Seth had learned from an early age that aggression was a necessary means to an end; he needed to fight for every meal, for space, for attention, for the respect or fear or apathy of brothers who were just as ravenous as he was. Seth was too loud and too rough and too much because he had to be. Give someone an inch and they’d walk right over him, so Seth never let an opportunity to pummel pass him by.
When their father walked out, the already lawless battleground of home devolved into outright chaos. Seth had learned to thrash and scream, and then he’d learned to stop screaming and hit back instead. Three broken bones later, he’d learned to put his thumb on the outside of any fists he formed. Biting worked too, if he ran out of other options. Head butts were useless, but a well-timed tackle could be crucial. He learned to aim for the nose or the throat or anywhere else soft. He fought every day and started to lose less and less. Break or be broken first, that was the rule. Take or be taken from. It’d felt good to finally be good at something.
Losing himself in a fight became the only time the otherwise ever-present cacophony ringing through his skull finally went quiet. Seth liked that. Everyone understood the rules when it came to a fight, and Seth liked that too. Two opponents started on equal ground and one or both of them forcibly unequalized it. It wasn’t neat or tidy, but it at least followed the kind of logic even someone like Seth couldn’t possibly fuck up. He was always hungry for a fight and Kevin was no less starved, but the difference was this: Kevin’s hunger was the kind he’d been neglecting so long it’d grown teeth. Not quiet, not controlled. He was reckless, unpredictable, explosive, and for the first time in a very long time, Seth felt his interest piqued. Fighting Kevin was a fight Seth had to actually pay attention to win.
Kevin fought like he was finally turning the pressure release valve on a lifetime of pent up anger. Like he’d never done it before and had a lot of catching up to do.
Take it out on me, Seth thought, almost giddy with the idea. He wanted to be the kerosene on Kevin’s fire; he wanted to be the knife that cut the leash. This was a side of the golden boy very few ever got to see and Seth had claimed a front row seat. Kevin was an irritating asshole, a know-it-all, a nepo baby who’d convinced the rest of the world to swallow the lie about just how deserving he was of their praise. But beneath all that, if you stood close enough to glimpse through the cracks in the facade, you’d find a man so packed full of rage it was a miracle he didn’t die choking on it.
The fight ended with Seth backed into a corner, Kevin’s hands fisted in the front of his jersey, and Dan being the one to wedge a racquet between them to pry them apart. An elbow in Kevin’s stomach and a palm on Seth’s chest gave her enough leverage to add a couple inches of distance between them.
“Cool it,” she hissed. “We’re on the same team here. Start acting like it.”
Seth bared his teeth. He felt so alive his skin was buzzing. “This fucker can wear all the orange he likes. Doesn’t make him a Fox.”
“Don’t you think he gets enough of that bullshit from pissed off Raven fans? We don’t need you adding to it. Wymack approved him, I approved him, that makes him a Fox whether you think so or not.”
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise even Dan was defending him. Perfect, untouchable, darling Kevin Day, who’d so graciously deigned to grant his attention to the worst team in the league. The rest of the world had pinned their hopes on the idea Kevin Day could single-handedly pull the Foxes back from the brink, and apparently Dan had done the same. So Seth ignored her, looked over her shoulder at Kevin, who was using the hem of his shirt to mop blood from his bottom lip.
“You gonna keep letting Dan speak for you,” Seth asked, “or do you have something to add?”
Kevin dropped his shirt, took a step back. His sneer was cruel and he looked at Seth like he might a piece of litter on the side of the road. “Me? I don’t have a thing to say to you. You’re not worth my time.”
It was, perhaps, the first time Seth had been aware of Kevin telling a lie. Seth knew what he’d seen simmering beneath the surface of Kevin’s eyes during the fight and it had been anything but dismissal. Now that the dust had settled, though, Kevin wanted to pretend brawling was beneath him. He was taking all his rage, his ferocity, his belligerence, and carefully locking it up out of sight. Seth knew that trick because he’d tried it for a stint too, which meant he also knew how liable it was to end in disaster.
He just hoped he could be there to witness the inevitable fallout.
3.
The third time Seth and Kevin brawled, it started almost on accident. They were at practice: Wymack was attempting to turn a hothead, a cripple, and a rookie into some semblance of a functioning offensive line. He had them run drill after drill together, searching for whatever sense of cohesion they could manage. Of which there was none to be found.
After yet another failed pass, Kevin whirled on Seth. “You’re exerting your effort in the wrong place. Keep this closer to your body”—he pushed Seth’s racquet further inwards so it was nearly touching his chest—“until you’re actually ready to pass the ball.”
“Touch my racquet again,” Seth said slowly, “and you won’t like where I put it.”
Kevin ignored the warning in Seth’s voice. “If this was a real game, you would’ve just cost us a point.”
“Good thing this isn’t a real game.”
“It doesn’t matter if it is or is not. Your bad habits are too broken in. There’s no saving you.”
Seth laughed, though it was dark, entirely humorless. “I definitely do not need you to fucking save me. I know your head’s too far up your own ass to realize this, but no one asked for your advice.”
There was that infamous sneer again. Kevin’s eyes flicked up and down, once, enough to make an assessment and find Seth entirely lacking. Almost under his breath, he said, “Like I care about the opinion of a deadbeat loser.”
Deadbeat echoed like a struck bell through Seth’s skull. If Kevin had used any other word, Seth might have been able to control himself. Any other word but the one Seth had spent his whole life running from. From his mother, when he was eight years old: Your father was a deadbeat. You look exactly like him. From the neighbors and teachers growing up who thought they were gossiping quietly enough Seth wouldn’t overhear: Dad’s a deadbeat. How long till the rest of those boys follow in his footsteps? For all of middle school, Seth had tried to outrun it. He’d stayed out of trouble at school, avoided picking fights with his brothers, made himself so small and so quiet he barely felt real anymore. None of it mattered. He could carve away bits of himself until a scraped raw husk was all that remained, but all it took was one single misstep for Seth to hear the way the rest of the world still viewed him: He’s a deadbeat, it’s in his blood. What else were you expecting? So he’d decided that if they were going to call him a deadbeat anyway, Seth might as well act like one.
He didn’t even realize he’d thrown a punch until he looked down and saw blood across his knuckles. Kevin had a hand cupped protectively over his nose. Red seeped between his fingers. It colored the spaces between his teeth when he flashed a mocking smile. “What? Did I strike a nerve?”
Hitting Kevin again would only be confirmation. Seth knew it’d be smart to shrug this off, pretend he wasn’t bothered, and hope that was enough to convince Kevin to drop it. But impulse control wasn’t exactly his strong suit, and let’s face it: it was obvious in his posture that Kevin was gearing up for a fight. The pressure of all that shoved-down rage had to be building and building beneath his skin, eager to emerge. He needed this fight, and when Seth thought about it that way, he was practically doing Kevin a favor. So he wound back and punched Kevin again.
The challenge didn’t go unanswered. Kevin tackled Seth to the ground, landed a savage hook straight to the ear, and grabbed a handful of hair to smash Seth’s head against the court floor. Seth blinked away stars and kept fighting. They swapped places and swapped again. Claws and teeth and grit. The breath heaved out of him as Kevin landed a blow to his gut, but it didn’t slow him down. They were close enough Seth could feel the scrape of Kevin’s stubble and Seth clung to that sensation, let it ground him. Behind the wild tangle of hair swinging in his face, Kevin’s expression was cold fury, but behind that there was something else. Contempt. Revulsion. He still thought all this was beneath him. He thought Seth was beneath him.
“I’m gonna fuck you up,” Seth promised. His eyes felt wet: blood, sweat, involuntary tears. He pressed his mouth in closer, till his sharp teeth were just grazing the shell of Kevin’s ear. “Fuck you. I hate you. I hate you.”
Kevin thrashed and snarled, “Get off me, deadbeat.”
That word again. Seth’s hatred roiled and grew, until it’d morphed into something else entirely. Next time he managed to roll on top, he didn’t bother with punches; he took Kevin’s neck in his hands and squeezed. Kevin wasn’t stupid enough to try to pry Seth’s hands free. Instead, he scratched at Seth’s face, left four deep cuts across Seth’s cheek. Someone shrilly yelled at them to quit it, but Seth didn’t let it distract him. He snapped his teeth at Kevin’s clawing fingers still too near his face and squeezed tighter.
Time stretched; Seth wasn’t sure if seconds or minutes had passed before firm hands hooked under his armpits to haul him up off of Kevin. His back met the solid breadth of a chest and he bucked, broke free. Kevin had made it only as far as hands and knees when Seth kicked him back down to the floor. He landed in a sprawl with a choked cough. Seth wanted to put a foot on his throat, dig a knee against his lungs; he wanted to watch the moment Kevin realized he wouldn’t be getting air again. He wanted to watch the moment Kevin broke down and begged.
Arms locked around Seth’s chest again, more firmly this time. It was Matt, and he didn’t let up until he’d dragged Seth halfway across the court. Even with the distance, he kept hold of the scruff of Seth’s neck as he turned Seth around to face him. Matt winced at whatever he saw. “Jesus, he did a number to your face.”
What felt like hot liquid metal filled Seth’s mouth, so he spit on the floor. He brushed out of Matt’s grasp and headed for the court doors. His left knee groaned in agony as soon as he put weight on it, but he forced himself to keep going. He didn’t so much as spare a glance for the still-prone Kevin, but did have to bite back a smile at the sound of the man’s rattling breaths. Cold satisfaction licked up his spine; it was almost enough to make him forget about all the parts of him that ached.
Just outside the court door, Wymack had his cell phone pressed to his ear and was shouting into it. “—don’t know anymore with these kids. Just get here as soon as you can. Okay, yes, thanks. I gotta go.” He shoved the phone in his pocket and snapped a finger at Seth. “You. Over here. Now.”
Seth, grudgingly, went. Wymack pushed him down on the bench, not roughly, but not not roughly.
“Do you have a concussion?” Wymack asked.
That hadn’t been the question Seth was expecting. He kept his gaze resolutely straight ahead even though he could feel Wymack’s stare burning a hole through him “No, Coach. He didn’t hit me that hard.”
“Not from the fight, smart ass. From something before it.” Seth hesitated, shook his head. Wymack crossed his arms. “Then do you want to explain to me just how fucking dumb you are? Because as far as I can tell, only someone with brain damage would attempt cold blooded murder in front of a dozen witnesses.”
Seth felt his hand curl to a fist in his lap. “He wants to run his mouth like that, someone’s gotta teach him a lesson.”
“And that lesson was what exactly?”
“I would’ve stopped,” Seth said, though he really didn’t know if that was true. The flushed red skin, the gaping mouth, the dagger-sharp loathing in Kevin’s eyes…holding Kevin Day’s life in his hands, however brief, had been a heady feeling. All he’d really wanted to do was open the cracks a little wider, make it so Kevin couldn’t keep avoiding the obvious: no matter how high he kept his nose stuck up in the air, when it came down to it he was exactly as rough around the edges as Seth.
Wymack grunted his disbelief. “Look, kid, I know you don’t want to hear this—”
“Then don’t say it,” Seth interrupted, pushing up past Wymack.
Fuck, his knee hurt worse now, but Seth ignored it as he trudged for the locker room. His cheek throbbed with each step. He was determined to ignore that too.
Wymack followed him into the hallway. “You could’ve killed him and landed yourself behind bars for life. Do you care about that at all?”
“No,” Seth snarled. His knee had given up the fight; he put his back to the wall and slid down it. “I knew what I was doing. Don’t pretend like I’m an idiot.”
“Trust me, I’m not pretending.” Wymack came to a stop right in front of Seth and knelt. “I’m trying to talk to you, dammit. Look at me.”
Seth hissed through the pain as he pressed his thumbs against the soft spot of muscle right above his knee. Sweat dripped along his temples and down the back of his neck. He had to ease up after a few seconds, and finally looked up at Wymack. “Alright, you wanna talk? You’ve got a captive fucking audience.”
Wymack’s jaw clenched and unclenched. “I’m not dealing with you when you’re like this, but this conversation isn’t over. Abby’s on her way. She’ll get to you after she deals with Kevin.” He stomped back toward the court and lingered at the end of the hallway like he might say something else. Whatever it was passed, and he turned the corner out of sight.
Seth thumped his head against the wall and pressed his eyes shut tight. There was very little in life that he wasted time regretting. But the throb in his jaw had traveled as far up as his ear, which was ringing with the intensity of a migraine, and if the bum leg prevented him from playing, he was beyond fucked. All because Kevin Day had crawled underneath Seth’s skin and made a home there.
Knowing Kevin, he wouldn’t let the leverage go to waste.
4.
It took two weeks for Seth’s torn ligament to heal and those same two weeks for the fingerprint bruises ringing Kevin’s neck to finally fade. Two weeks in which they did not speak a single word to one another. The Foxes had learned better than to leave them alone in a room together, but even in a crowd Seth felt every time Kevin’s searing gaze landed on him. Every time, he’d stare right back and offer Kevin his slowest, laziest, loosest smile. And with each smile, he watched the hatred brimming in Kevin’s eyes build and build, until it might have been enough to match Seth’s own.
When Seth was released to start practicing again, they knocked shoulders, spit venom, but kept their hands remarkably to themselves. Seth made mistakes on purpose, watched Kevin open his mouth to bitch about it, then snap his mouth closed again before any words could actually spill out. It wasn’t that Kevin was afraid of Seth, and it wasn’t that Seth wasn’t worth the effort: it was that whatever knot of tension was growing between them wasn’t quite ready to snap. At least, not yet.
---
Seth and Kevin made it through about ten minutes of the first game of the season without incident. Kevin was wound so tight Seth was surprised he didn’t spontaneously combust, but Seth had been willing to let that slide if it meant a win against the Jackals. It was ironic, Seth thought, that he’d been the one labeled volatile when it was so obvious that Kevin was the one on the verge of boiling over. Apparently, that much was obvious to the Jackals as well. After a score the Foxes were too slow to prevent, Kevin’s mark shouldered him on the way back to their starting positions. Kevin shoved the man back hard enough to almost make him fall over. The backliner caught himself and came back for more, but Seth stepped directly into his path to stop him. He liked to see Kevin knocked around, sure, but he preferred when it was his hands doing the knocking.
“You certain you wanna do that?” Seth gestured to the sea of orange that filled the stadium seats. “Lay a hand on America’s Sweetheart and you’ll do nothing but make yourself a whole lot of new enemies.”
“Stay out of it, Seth,” Kevin snapped. “I didn’t ask you to defend me.”
That easily, Seth forgot the Jackal player in favor of turning his full attention to Kevin. Out of habit more than anything, he couldn’t help the way his mouth curled up in a derisive smile. He tapped the end of his racquet against Kevin’s hip and said, “Free of charge, sweetheart.”
Kevin violently swatted Seth’s stick away. “Fuck you. You don’t take anything seriously. This is your problem, you know that right?” He, too, had evidently forgotten the Jackal that’d started this argument. It might as well’ve been just Seth and Kevin in the whole stadium. “Don’t like being called a deadbeat? Well this right here, this moment, this is exactly what makes you one.”
Once again, Seth’s fist was faster than his brain. It didn’t occur to him that Kevin was wearing a helmet until he heard the crack of his knuckles hitting plastic. Kevin shook his head like a dog, spit on the court floor, and caught Seth’s eye. Seth felt the intensity of that stare like an electric shock. The game didn’t matter, the roaring crowd didn’t matter, all that mattered was keeping Kevin’s predatory attention on him. In unspoken, synchronous agreement, they unbuckled and discarded their helmets, and then Kevin was on him.
Even though he was capable of dodging in time, Seth let Kevin land the first blow. He wanted to bleed, that was part of the thrill. Just when he stepped up to return the favor, Dan appeared between them. She threw Seth back and barred Kevin from following with her racquet across his gut.
“Hey morons, the refs are right there watching you fight.”
“He started it,” Seth said, swooping to collect his helmet. He felt Kevin’s eyes track every movement.
“And your dumb ass decided to make it ten times worse,” Dan said. “Unless you both want to spend the rest of the game on the bench, back the fuck off.”
Seth wiped the stream of blood dripping from his temple on the back of his glove and said, “Fine.”
“Good. Kevin?” At his utter lack of acknowledgement, Dan grabbed the front of Kevin’s jersey to shake him. It barely disrupted the steely gaze he still had locked on Seth. “Hey, you wanna claw someone’s eyes out, make it the other team. Are you listening to me?”
“Yes, Captain,” Kevin said, but it sounded remote. Dan accepted it as good enough and dragged Kevin with her back to the half-court line. Seth was left to collect his discarded racquet on his own and jog to catch up with them.
He took his spot on the starting line. Kevin may have been looking at the Jackal getting ready to serve the ball, but Seth still felt a prickle of awareness straighten the hairs on the back of his neck. He knew they were both thinking the same thing: The fight might have been over, but it wasn’t near finished.
---
The Foxes lost. It was a familiar enough feeling Seth was already over it by the time he made it back to the dorm. His fingers kept drifting to the fresh gash across his temple. Abby had slapped a bandage over it at halftime to prevent Seth from being blinded by the waterfall of blood, but Seth had already peeled that off again. He wanted to touch the sore skin, feel the mark Kevin had left on him.
Watching Kevin play had been a sight to behold. After their brawl, he’d played with a kind of self-contained relentlessness that Seth was glad was directed at the other team. Every time he’d looked to Seth for a pass or assist, Seth had gotten the sense Kevin was actually looking through him. It’d gotten under Seth’s skin in a way Kevin’s typical cutting glares never could.
Seth barely slept and woke up itching for a drink. He managed to hold out all morning and most of the afternoon, until the Foxes that’d attend Kathy Ferdinand’s show returned. He grabbed a beer to drink while watching a rerun of the show: Neil antagonizing Riko Moriyama, Kevin so pale and tense Seth wished he’d been there to witness it in person. His own name entered the conversation only once: Kevin said, “Seth graduates in May, so there is less a chance or need to rehabilitate his style to mine.”
Just as quickly, the conversation moved on. Being written off so quickly came as no surprise, but the fact that Kevin had done so on national television felt like a knife between the ribs. However undeserved, people tended to listen when Kevin spoke, and now he’d used that power to brand Seth with a reputation that was sure to damn him.
When his friends came to collect him that night, Seth ran into Kevin on the way out of the dorm. Surrounded by his usual gaggle of monsters, the most they could do was stare at one another, but Seth read everything he needed to know in Kevin’s expression. There was still unfinished business between them. Seth intended to sort it out.
Later.
He and his buddies took a cab to the bar district in Columbia and stopped in a shot bar to take what was meant to be one drink but quickly turned into two, three, four, and five. Sufficiently plastered, Seth ditched his friends and wandered the streets until he found the kind of neon sign he was on the hunt for: Tattoos: Walk-ins welcome! He stumbled inside and threw a handful of cash down on the counter. More cash than it was probably wise to spend in one place while drunk, but Seth had already long-since made up his mind. He told the tattoo artist what he wanted, pulled out an extra twenty dollar bill when his words alone weren’t convincing enough. "Yes, I’m sure." "Yes, I know this is permanent." "Yes, I’ve thought it through."
Seth watched the tattoo needle press black ink into his skin with a hazy sense of awe. It hurt. Of course it fucking hurt. Seth thought of the number 2 and wondered how much worse it’d be to have the needle pressing in against his cheekbone.
The tattooist drew a straight line, then a curving swoop. Bold, impossible to ignore, exactly what Seth wanted. Another mark, another. It took about an hour all told. When it was over, Seth touched the pink, stinging skin and smiled so wide it strained his jaw.
From there, it was only a few blocks’ walk to reach Eden’s Twilight. The world tipped and spun as he walked, but he made it in one piece. He didn’t bother with waiting in line, just sent a single word text message to Kevin: Outside. Seth picked an empty stretch of brick wall to lean himself against, lit a cigarette to pass the time, and waited. Each puff of smoke sobered him incrementally. It took less than five minutes before he felt the heat of Kevin’s stare on him, a pin prick of focus in Seth’s blurred vision.
Kevin came to stand close enough the toe of his boots brushed the tips of Seth’s chucks. His sense of fashion started and ended with athletic gear, so it was obvious either Nicky or Andrew had dressed him. Dark ripped jeans and a charcoal grey tee shirt cropped only enough to show off a centimeter of midriff, but so translucent it did nothing to hide the rest of Kevin’s toned chest. He looked like a fuckboy. He looked dangerous. Seth couldn’t wait to feel that shirt crumple like tissue paper beneath his fingers.
“What do you want?” Kevin asked.
Seth flicked his spent cigarette onto the pavement, already forgotten, and smiled slow. “‘Want’ doesn’t even enter the equation. You left such a pretty mark on me. Thought I owed it to you to return the favor, and I’m gonna do it with these.” He formed two fists and held them up to the light. There, in blocky all caps letters freshly inked across his knuckles, were the words DEAD BEAT.
Kevin glanced down for barely half a second before his mouth pressed into a flat line. “Am I supposed to be impressed? That’s a stupid tattoo.”
“Almost as stupid as yours. If you were gonna go through the trouble of putting a number on your face, why the hell let yourself be second best?”
Kevin’s mouth went even flatter. “You’re drunk.”
“Yeah, so what?”
“So we have an audience.”
“We had a bigger one last night.”
“That was on court,” Kevin scoffed, like the difference should have been obvious.
“You saying you want me to wait till our next game? Because,” Seth said, reaching out to hook his fingers through the belt loops of Kevin’s jeans and spin until the two of them had swapped positions, Kevin’s back flush against the wall and Seth close enough to keep him there. “I wouldn’t say I’m in a patient kind of mood right now. I like your outfit, by the way. Which of your boyfriends picked it out for you?”
“Leave them out of it. It’s me you want to lay hands on.”
Seth stroked his thumbs across that sliver of Kevin’s exposed abdomen, dragged his nose through Kevin’s hair until his mouth reached Kevin’s ear, and said, “That’s exactly right.”
Kevin shifted, once, then went still as stone. Seth released a breath against the side of his neck, waiting to see if he would shiver. This was a fight, but it wasn’t like one they’d ever had before. He could practically feel the vibration of tension under Kevin’s skin as he strained to keep his composure. Seth wanted to see how far he could push it.
There was a low whistle and then a snort of disgust from somewhere behind Seth’s back. He turned in time to see three guys stumble by on the sidewalk, headed for the bar next door. Two of them were smoking lazily and the third had a goatee that looked desperately in need of a shave. That was the one whose lips curled up with distaste as he said, “Hey fuckheads, keep that gay shit inside your house of horrors. Nobody else wants to see it.”
In a blink, Seth had separated himself from Kevin to go stand in front of Goatee. “The fuck did you just say to me?”
The three of them looked older, late twenties, and it was obvious Goatee was the ringleader. He squared up against Seth, still a few inches shorter but with enough ugly attitude to make up the difference. “I said, if you’re going to suck cock, get the hell out of my sight to do it.”
“Right, that’s what I thought,” Seth said, and punched him. He didn’t bother with courtesy, aimed for the throat and made contact. Goatee sank to the ground and gasped for air, and Seth kneed him directly in the nose for good measure.
Unfortunately, the lackeys proved more loyal than Seth had been expecting. They both dropped their cigarettes and were on him. Seth tripped the bigger one, caught a blow to the side of the head from the other, tried to get his bearings before he ended up in a tight corner. The fresh tattoos across his knuckles stung, but Seth had already tuned out the pain. He aimed for ribs, kneecaps, collarbones: anything he could break. He could feel Kevin observing him and wanted to put on a good show. These weren’t the worst odds of Seth’s life, even if he was staggeringly drunk. It was almost, almost fun. When Goatee managed to recover enough to put his feet back under himself, Seth thought three on one. Now we’re really getting started. But the man didn’t join his buddies against Seth and lunged instead for Kevin.
“Don’t!” Seth yelled. “Don’t fucking touch him!”
Goatee didn’t listen. Of course not. Kevin threw up his hands to defend himself, but Goatee was quicker to react this time. He snatched Kevin’s hand out of midair and wrenched the wrist at a wrong angle. Seth watched Kevin’s face fall utterly blank and bloodless in the span of a blink, and by the next blink Seth had Goatee’s head split open against the pavement. He didn’t remember how he’d gotten there, he didn’t remember the fall, but that didn’t matter.
“What did I fucking say?” Seth snarled. “What did I tell you?”
Goatee’s throat worked, trying to find air, then he called Seth a name Seth would have readily bloodied his knuckles over even on a normal night. This was not a normal night. Seth picked Goatee up by the skull just to slam it back down again, then hit him, over and over again, until spit and blood and broken teeth were spilling from the man’s lips.
Kevin’s hand touched his shoulder and he said, “Seth, stop.” But Seth had barely gotten started. The lackeys must’ve fled, but they’d gathered a crowd. Seth was distantly aware of shouts egging him on and the bright blink of phone cameras turning their way.
“Seth,” Kevin said again, sharper this time, the tone of an owner calling a dog to heel. Seth’s hands itched but obediently held still. “He’s already down. Get off him.”
It was then that Seth heard a shout of “Hey!” The crowd dispersed instantly and Seth landed in the crosshairs of two blindingly bright flashlights. Cops, a pair of them. One already had a hand on his belt and was headed for Kevin. Seth reacted before he had time to think—he’d been doing a lot of that tonight—he simply moved. His fingers hurt so bad he didn’t think he’d be able to straighten them out again, liquor roiled in his stomach, and he was exhausted from the past few minutes of fighting, but Seth could still throw a punch with some weight behind it.
This wasn’t going to end well, said the tiny part of his brain that acknowledged how bad an idea it was to punch a cop. Seth pushed that thought aside to deal with later.
This wasn’t going to end well, and it didn’t.
---
Seth Gordon was well acquainted with the backseat of a cop car.
He’d been five years old, the first time. There had been a lot of screaming that day, his mother and father, and a gunshot, maybe more than one, then Seth covered his ears with his hands and buried his head beneath a pillow. Hours later, when the cop that half-carried him out to the car tried speaking to him in a gentle voice, Seth’s ears had been ringing too much to hear the words. Ringing and ringing. The sound never really went away, even nearly two decades later, just waxed and waned with time, always hovering at the edge of his awareness.
It was there now. Layered over the low buzz of fluorescent lights in the holding room he’d been escorted into late last night. He had his hands crushed against the sides of his head, cartilage creased beneath his fingers, but the ringing wouldn’t go away. He was exhausted. He wanted to brush his teeth. His wrists were raw from the handcuffs and his mind was still spiraling over the simple question of what the hell he’d been thinking last night.
He hadn’t been thinking at all, that was the answer.
“Gordon.” Seth ignored the voice. It sounded like another buzz in his ear. “Gordon, wake up.” A loud crack ricocheted off the cinderblock walls, so he opened his eyes a sliver. The officer propping the door open with her hip readjusted the clipboard in her hand and crooked two fingers at him. “Your bail’s been posted. Come sign the paperwork.”
Seth peeled himself off the metal bench and slid his fists into his pockets to keep from doing anything regrettable with them. The station wasn’t too busy for late Sunday afternoon. The few companions that’d spent the night with him in the hold had already been released or processed hours ago. Wymack must’ve wanted to let him sit and stew. When Seth had called to beg for bail money last night, Wymack hadn’t even sounded tired or pissed off about it. He’d just asked, “Where?” and then exhaled long and slow into the phone.
At the officer’s desk, there were about a dozen places Seth needed to sign. He did so as quickly as he could, turning the pages one over another before passing the whole stack back. She handed him a business card with the date of his scheduled court appearance scrawled on the back of it, returned his meager possessions—phone, lighter, wallet—and let him go.
Outside, the sun was high and the breeze was balmy. Seth pulled the sleeves of his sweatshirt down to make sure his scuffed up wrists were covered. He scanned the lot, looking for Wymack’s truck. Who he didn’t expect to find was Kevin Day. He was reclined against the hood of Andrew’s sleek black coupe. Back to wearing athletic gear, it was no longer his clothes making him look dangerous. It was the blue-purple bruise blooming bright on his cheekbone and the steely set to his mouth that hadn’t been there yesterday. He looked at Seth and raised one brow expectantly.
Seth went.
The pavement was warm from the sun up through the soles of his shoes. He treaded just close enough to get a better look inside the car, which was, thankfully, empty.
“Pet monster’s got you driving his car around now?” Seth asked. “I thought he’d sooner set that thing on fire than let you behind the wheel.”
“He made an exception.”
“For me? I’m flattered.”
“Don’t be. I came here to make you a deal.”
Seth gave him a look. He was dead serious. “Oh, in that case, fuck off forever. I’m not making any deals with you.”
Kevin didn’t look amused. “You are if you don’t want me walking back inside and telling those cops I changed my mind about pressing charges against you.”
“You wouldn’t. You need me to fill out the roster.”
Kevin’s expression didn’t change. He uncrossed his ankles, then re-crossed them the opposite way. Calm, unbothered. “Not really. Neil’s ready. He could handle a full game.” He meant it, too. He thought Seth was dead weight, and he’d been in Wymack’s ear enough all season to make good on the threat of replacing Seth permanently.
“What do you want?” Seth asked, not careful to hide the scorn in his voice.
“One week of night practices. One week of you doing whatever I tell you without a fight. You learn to play my way and actually put some effort into it, and we’ll see where we get before next game.”
Seth smiled with a bit too much in the way of teeth. “Haven’t you collected enough shelter strays to kneel at your heel?”
“What’s one more?” Kevin said with a shrug. He lifted the hand holding the car key in offering. “Agree and I’ll let you drive us home.”
Goddamn, he knew exactly what he was doing. This isn’t supposed to be fun, Seth reminded himself. Kevin was an asshole. An asshole who still had dry flecks of blood stuck to the edge of his hairline from when he’d been dragged into the fight last night. Yesterday he’d been twitchy and annoyed, and today he was still closed off, but without the nervy edge to it. Taking the key from his outstretched palm would be a dangerous gamble and a dumb fuck idea, but Seth had never been one to let that kind of thing stop him.
He took the key.
He got in the car.
Kevin slid in the passenger seat without comment. He had to know what he was getting himself into with this, but he seemed at ease. Something had changed between them and Seth was too afraid of ruining it to ask what. It had started last night, with Seth’s nose in Kevin’s hair, and Kevin’s appearance like this in the parking lot had only upped the ante. The tight thread of animosity between them was still there, but it hummed at a different resonance now.
“Back to campus?” Seth asked, not letting himself start the engine quite yet. He needed to get a feel for the pedals, the thick stitching on the steering wheel. He needed to check how many police officers were loitering in the lot.
“I’m not in a rush. Maybe we can just drive around for a bit.”
“If you’re trying to get me arrested again, this is a damn good way to do it,” Seth said, but he could hear the lack of heat in his own words. He turned the key and like magic the purr of the engine drowned out the ringing in his ears. “Ready?” he asked.
“Careful,” Kevin said, though there was nothing but challenge in that silky tone. “Fuck up Andrew’s car and I won’t be stepping in to save you again.”
Seth felt something loose and hungry unspool itself, starting from the center of his chest. “If you wanted careful, you shouldn’t have let me drive.”
He didn’t give Kevin any time to respond.
5.
Night practice began at 11PM. Seth arrived to find Kevin already on court, sweating and focused, knocking over cones with well-aimed passes.
“Am I late?” Seth called out, overly loud just to see if he could distract Kevin right at the arc of his pass. The ball shot out of Kevin’s racquet, sent the cone flying a second later. So, not distracted then.
“You’re not late. I just finished up with Neil. Come over here.”
Seth grabbed his own racquet and met Kevin at center court. “Neil?” he asked.
“Yes. He needs the extra practice almost as much as you do. I’ll work with him 9 to 11, and you 11 to 1 every night till Friday.”
“Meaning you plan to do an extra four hours of practice every day this week? That’s unhinged, even for you.”
“Hardly counts as practice when I’ll be spending every second correcting your mistakes. Hold out your arm.”
“What for?” Seth asked, because they’d barely started and he already felt off balance. He’d known Kevin was dedicated to the point of obsession, but he’d never really thought further into the logistics of what that obsession meant. Four hours, in the middle of the night, on top of the relentless workouts Wymack was already putting them through during the daytime, and Kevin was brushing it off as no big deal. Seth didn’t think he deserved to be thought of as less than just because he was a worse player than Kevin, but staring in the face of Kevin’s dedication like this, he did feel an inkling of inadequacy. It burned like turpentine in his gut.
“Let me make this easy on you,” Kevin said. “Starting now, I don’t want to hear anything out of your mouth except the words ‘yes’, ‘no’, or ‘understood’ for the rest of our time together. I tell you to do something, you do it because I have a reason to ask and we don’t have time to waste with me explaining myself. One week, that’s all I’m asking for. You can give me your trust for that long.”
The sour feeling in Seth’s stomach intensified. His fingernails dug into the grip tape on his racquet hard enough to leave half-moon indentations. “Trust has nothing to do with it. You blackmailed me into coming here, don’t expect me to act happy about it.”
“I didn’t ask for happy. I asked you to hold out your arm.” Kevin’s face was that of a man coming to the end of his patience.
Two hours, Seth thought, two hours he’s already been at this and two hours left to go. He held out his arm.
Kevin grabbed his hand and examined, briefly, the tattooed letters on Seth’s knuckles. They were swollen and pink both from the freshness of the ink and from the hell Seth had inflicted with them last night. Something unreadable crossed Kevin’s face, then he was strapping a weighted band around one of Seth’s wrists. He did the same to the other arm. They were heavy, at least five pounds each. Then Kevin knelt and added one to each ankle, even heavier.
“Take off your shirt.”
“Why?”
“What did I say about useless questions?”
Seth resigned himself to a night of Kevin’s endless bitching and took off his shirt. Kevin jogged off court and came back carrying a weighted vest. He settled it over Seth’s shoulders and slid his fingers between the side straps and Seth’s bare skin to make sure it fit snug. It was the first time Kevin had touched him without the intention to maim. Seth tried not to feel any type of way about that.
Satisfied, Kevin took a step back and surveyed Seth like he was a puzzle waiting to be solved. “A few laps. Get used to the weight, then meet me back here.”
The added weight made Seth’s limbs move differently; new muscles stretched and burned. Even his breathing was different, lungs fighting to compete with the vest determined to keep them from fully expanding. Kevin hadn’t given him a number, so Seth veered back to center court after five and a half laps. He was already out of breath, enough sweat on his brow to match Kevin’s slicked back hair. The cones had been picked up and cleared away and Kevin had dragged a crate of balls up to the line with him.
“What now?” Seth asked.
“Pick a corner of the goal.”
“Top left.”
“Good. That’s what I want you to aim for. Let me put this on you first, though,” Kevin said. He pulled a blind fold from his pocket, placed it carefully over Seth’s eyes, and pulled the knot tight. His fingers barely brushed Seth’s hair in the process, but with his vision stolen away, Seth could hardly focus on anything else. He felt, too, the heat rising off Kevin’s body behind him, felt Kevin’s warm breath rouse goose bumps on the back of his neck.
“You realize I can’t see the goal at all now, right? Let alone a specific corner of it to aim for.”
Kevin must not have stepped away yet. His voice came from just behind Seth’s ear. “This is your court. You should know where the goal is even with your eyes closed and both hands tied behind your back.”
“I think that’s just supposed to be an expression.”
“Not anymore. Aim and shoot.”
Seth swung. The extra weights at his wrist meant the motion gained more momentum than he was used to and sent him into a half-spin after the ball had left his racquet. He caught himself and listened for the ball to bounce. It struck what sounded like wood floor, not plexiglass wall. Seth swore and tried to lift the blindfold to see where it had landed.
Kevin caught him by the forearm before he could get that far. “I didn’t say you could take that off yet.”
“This is stupid. How am I supposed to see when I fuck up?”
“You don’t need to see. Assume you’re always fucking up unless I tell you otherwise.” He released Seth’s arm, but touched again a second later to hand Seth a new ball. “Reset. Go again.”
Seth positioned himself facing what he guessed was the correct direction and tried again. The extra weights made swinging, stepping, moving feel like an entirely new process. He was reminded of the growth spurt he’d hit between freshman and sophomore years of high school. He’d grown six inches in half as many months, and it took weeks before he stopped knocking his hips or shoulders or lanky limbs on every inanimate object in the vicinity. Trying to learn to swing with a new, taller racquet had tested what little patience his fifteen year old self had had.
This was worse than that. By now, he’d been living with this body a lot longer. He knew its limits, its weaknesses, exactly how much it was capable of. With a few extra pounds, Kevin had managed to strip all the familiarity away. The way he kept so casually touching Seth wasn’t helping either. Seth couldn’t brace himself for it when he couldn’t see it coming. Every time Kevin poked or prodded to make some infinitesimal adjustment to Seth’s stance, Seth flinched. Every time Kevin grabbed his hand to pass over a new ball, Seth clenched it a bit too tight.
Kevin’s commentary was endless:
“Still short. About ten feet shy.”
Another ball handed over.
“Short again. Are you even trying?”
Seth imagined Kevin caught in the path of the next ball he sent flying and swung with enough strength accordingly. It didn’t hit Kevin, but it at least ricocheted off plexiglass this time. Not that he got any praise for the improvement. Kevin just handed over another ball, and another and another, each with an admonishment.
“Wide right and too high.”
“Nope. Still too high.”
“Jesus, how tall do you think the goal is? Again.”
“Again.”
“Again.”
“Again.”
“Far left and practically on the floor. Now you’re just guessing.”
When Kevin tried to hand him another ball, Seth smacked it away and ripped the blindfold off. “Of course I’m fucking guessing. I can’t see a damn thing. What the fuck am I supposed to be learning here?”
“I didn’t think you were this dense. This isn’t about learning, it’s about unlearning four years of muscle memory and bad habits. I want you starting from scratch.”
“You want to make me worse?”
“No, you still aren’t getting it.” Kevin shook his head and bluntly said, “You aren’t good enough. You have never been good enough. You’ve been mediocre so long you’ve accepted it as the best you can do. It’s not, and I need to show that to you. I want your game broken to pieces so jagged you don’t know how to pick them up without cutting yourself, then I’ll take whatever’s leftover and burn it down to ash. Then and only then, when you’re hollowed out empty, can we build you into something brand new.”
Kevin was too close, and there was too much heat already radiating between them. Seth felt the familiar itch of his hands closing into fists. He felt the slow drip of adrenaline into his bloodstream, gearing him up for a fight. “You’re real fucking full of yourself. You think you’re gonna do all that in a week? Sounds like you’ll do enough damage to humiliate me at the game on Friday when I can’t remember my swing. If you want to break me, you can at least have the balls to not hide it behind a fantasy.”
“Fine. This is what you want to do?” Kevin ripped the racquet out of Seth’s hands to toss aside and replaced the space it’d been occupying, which put him about half an inch away from Seth’s chest. Kevin held his hands out, palms up. His jaw was set. “Hit me. Get it over with. I know you want to.”
God, Seth did want that. He’d wanted that since last night. Since the first moment Kevin had showed his face at the Foxhole Court. It was a projection and it also wasn’t; he wanted to break Kevin and he wanted Kevin to break him back. So he shoved Kevin’s chest.
Kevin fell back a few steps before retaking his position. Arms out, face relaxed, he waited. “That all you got? No one’s around to stop you this time. Aim for the ribs. Make it hurt.”
Seth ignored that suggestion and shoved Kevin again. Watched him work to catch his balance. “What do you need me to do? Call you a deadbeat again?”
“That doesn’t work on me anymore.”
“Think that’s the only thing you deserve to be called? Seth, you never should have qualified for this team in the first place and wouldn’t be here at all if Wymack didn’t have a bleeding heart for basket cases. The fact that you’ve managed to squander every chance you didn’t deserve comes as a surprise to no one, including yourself. You’re a self destructive piece of shit who starts more fights than you could possibly win. You want to start a fight right now because that’s easier than admitting I’m right.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think I do. You want to blame everyone but yourself. You think the rest of the world doesn’t give a shit about you and, news flash, they don’t. How could they when you don’t give a shit about yourself either?”
“Shut up. Stop talking.”
“What are you waiting for? Sock me in the mouth. Pin me to the floor. Fuck me up because that’s the only thing you know how to do.”
Seth shoved Kevin a third time, then reached down to scoop up his discarded racquet. Kevin fell back on his ass and when he looked up again, his eyes went wide, his face carefully still. He didn’t say anything else and he wasn’t looking at Seth, he was looking at the racquet held like a weapon in Seth’s hands. Seth waited. After a minute, he lifted the racquet a fraction and watched Kevin’s lips go tight and colorless.
“Finally something Kevin Day is afraid of. Still want me to hit you?”
Kevin’s throat clicked with a swallow. “Would you?” he asked.
“I haven’t made up my mind yet,” Seth said, and he was going to take his time deciding. He wanted to keep Kevin on his knees a little longer. “What, nothing to say? That’ll be a first.”
“I’ll kill you,” Kevin said. The threat was solemn, unrepentant, but the pulse visible along the side of his neck was beating hard. “Swing that racquet at me and I’ll make sure it’s the last thing you do.”
“Promise?”
“Seth.” Just that. Just Seth’s name, like that was all he was capable of.
Seth adjusted his grip, deliberate about it. “You want to explain to me why the Son of Exy is afraid of an exy racquet?”
“I’m not afraid,” Kevin said. Another lie; Seth was getting better at spotting them. “You aren’t the only one who learned how to throw a punch out of necessity.”
At that, Seth almost laughed. “You’re trying to say Mr. Perfect has some secret, tragic backstory? I know you’re an orphan, but you grew up with the richest fucking family on the East Coast. The whole world bends over backwards to keep you happy, so don’t try to pretend we have anything in common.”
“You know nothing.”
“I know everything you’ve ever wanted has been given right to you. Tell me that’s not true with a straight face. I’ll wait.”
Kevin stared a minute longer, then pushed himself to his feet when it became clear Seth really was waiting. He dusted himself off, closed the distance between them, and jerked the racquet out of Seth’s fingers. It dropped with a clatter. Seth only remembered he was still wearing the weighted vest when Kevin reached to unbuckle the straps. It joined the racquet on the floor with a reverberating thud. The wrist weights fell next, two distinct thunks that were impossibly loud in the brittle silence.
The court lights felt suddenly very bright and Seth’s skin flushed hot. Kevin still had his hands wrapped like cuffs around Seth’s forearms. He used the hold to guide Seth backwards, all the way to the court wall. Seth didn’t know why, but he let himself be led.
That wasn’t true. He did know why. He knew.
Kevin’s eyes were dark and unfocused. He put a hand against the wall beside Seth’s head, like he needed a physical way to stop himself from moving any closer. His mouth was no more than an inch away, chest closer than that. Seth felt drunk on that nearness, and not in a good way. Drunk in the woozy way, like he was going to make bad choices without consideration for the consequences he’d have to deal with when he came back to his senses.
“I want something,” Kevin said. “You either have to give it to me or take back what you said.”
Seth couldn’t move. He felt like he’d been laid out flat on the dissection table and Kevin had already made the first incision. Kevin was always intense about exy, but was that all this way? “What do you want?” he asked.
Kevin took a breath, released it against the side of Seth’s neck. They were standing so damn close. “I want you to let yourself give a shit about something. I’ve never seen you give your all. I think I’ve barely seen you scratch the surface of ‘try.’”
“Then why did you bargain for me?” He heard how the words sounded as soon as they were out of his mouth, but didn’t rush to correct himself. Now wasn’t the time to second guess.
“Because,” Kevin said, “last night, when you were outnumbered and outmanned, for a split second I saw what you looked like when you actually gave something your full attention.”
It was barely praise, but heat rose in Seth’s cheeks anyway. What the hell was happening right now? What the fuck was Kevin doing to him? Seth felt hypersensitive, aware of every bead of sweat dripping down his chest, of the press of plastic against his spine, the prickle of nerves. When he tried to retrace the steps of how they’d gotten here, Seth couldn’t figure out which of them had made the first move.
“I hate you,” Seth said, a last ditch effort at some kind of defense.
“I know,” was all Kevin said. His knee slid between Seth’s legs and his hand settled on Seth’s sternum, fingers splayed across the breadth of Seth’s ribs. Seth found the touch equally as difficult to breathe around as the weighted vest had been. The breath shuddered out of him and his eyes pressed shut, but that was no good because he could still feel Kevin’s stare. “You’ve wanted me to look at you since the day I got here. Now I’m looking. What are you going to do about it?”
“You let me drive your boyfriend’s car,” Seth said.
“Quit calling him that,” Kevin hissed, not deterred by the abrupt change of topic. “But yes. What’s your point?”
“That was a bribe to get me here. Is this supposed to be another…?”
“No, this isn’t a bribe. It’s cards on the table. No more bullshit or easy outs. I’m not going to hold you hostage or force you into anything. Either give me your game and your full attention, or walk out the door and don’t look back. You do that and we’re really finished. I won’t waste a second more of my time on you. Hey, deadbeat, look at me when I’m talking to you.” A finger set to the underside of Seth’s chin made his eyes fly open. Kevin tilted Seth’s head so they were aligned and flicked his gaze between Seth’s eyes and his mouth. “You branded that word on your skin because you want to let it define you. If the world knows that’s what you are, then there’s nothing you can do that’ll disappoint them. I can see right through you.”
Kevin was looking at Seth’s mouth like he was waiting for something. Seth’s throat felt dry, his head was spinning circles, and words felt so far out of reach even if he did speak the sounds were likely to come out nonsensical. Kevin had asked for his full attention and now that Seth had given it, he didn’t have a speck of intelligence left to focus on anything else. He was running on instinct and what instinct wanted him to do…well. All Seth’s plans tended to ride the edge of self destruction, but trusting his instincts to guide him right now might very well kill him. So he ignored those instincts and instead did what came easy: threw himself at Kevin. They were too close quarters for a full punch, but Seth managed to land an elbow against the side Kevin’s jaw. Kevin staggered back and clutched at the new cut with murder clear in his eyes, but Seth didn’t wait for the counterattack. He held out his hands in a show of deference and said, “That’s the mark I still owed you. Now we’re even.”
Then he brushed past Kevin and went to collect his racquet. He stopped to pick up and strap on the weighted wrist bands, then shrug the weighted vest back on. Next he found the blindfold and brought it with him to center court. When he tugged it on over his eyes, he once again couldn’t see a damn thing, but he felt Kevin’s gaze digging into the side of his head to use as a reference point as he aimed and shot. He heard the thunk of the ball against the wall and waited. The sound of the rebound echoed dully. Seth waited until the ball, eventually, stopped bouncing to ask, “Well?”
At length, Kevin said, “Too high. But at least on line.” Footsteps. The brief brush of fingers as Kevin handed over another ball. “Go again.”
+ 1.
The following night, overexerted muscles still aching enough to be a nuisance, Seth arrived for night practice at 9PM. On his way to the locker room, he exchanged a wordless, dead-eyed stare with Andrew, who was lounging on the bleachers. Inside the locker room, he found Neil and Kevin dressing out.
“You’re too early,” Kevin said as soon as he spotted Seth.
Seth pretended he hadn’t heard and went for his locker. He pulled his sweatshirt off over his head, kicked off his chucks. Kevin came up behind him to jab a finger in Seth’s shoulder.
“Back off,” Seth said mildly, unzipping his jeans and starting to work them down over his hips. He could feel Neil’s wary scrutiny from the end of the row, but that mattered little in the face of Kevin’s blindingly obvious annoyance.
“Do you think this is funny or are you just trying to piss me off?”
“Hm. All of the above?”
“Neil,” Kevin snapped, though he hadn’t taken his eyes off Seth. “I’ll meet you on court in five minutes. Run laps until I get there.”
Neil must’ve had more survival instincts than Seth thought because he scurried out of the locker room without a word. As the door slammed shut behind him, Seth smiled.
“What’s your problem?” Kevin asked. He looked like he was barely restraining the urge to slap the smile right off of Seth’s face. “Can’t you go a single fucking day without picking a fight?”
“Oh, I’m the one with an anger problem, is that right?” Seth stepped out of his jeans and reached for the practice sweats stored in his locker. Kevin made a grab to stop Seth’s hand, which gave Seth all the excuse he needed to hook his foot behind Kevin’s ankle and knock him off balance. A light push was enough to send Kevin down, not to the floor, but with a thud onto the bench behind him. When he tried to stand back up, Seth’s hand against his collarbone kept him pinned.
Kevin stared daggers. His teeth were clenched. “You’re baiting me.”
“Only because you make it so easy.” Seth had made his point. He didn’t need to keep his hand against Kevin’s chest, but some contrary part of his brain told him to hold on a little bit longer. He was stripped down to his underwear, which shouldn’t have mattered, except Kevin’s eyes dipped down and suddenly it did matter. It mattered a whole lot.
Seth stepped away. He grabbed his clothes and ignored the stare at his back. When he was dressed, he straddled the bench beside Kevin so they’d be back on eye level. “You’re a liability to this team.”
“Ha. Funny,” Kevin said, deadpan.
“You’re angry, on edge, pissed off, whatever you wanna call it. Angry enough to be stupid about it. You could’ve gotten red carded last game if you’d followed through on that fight with the Jackal and where would that have left us? Look, I might be willing to admit you’re the expert when it comes to exy”—Kevin rolled his eyes, but didn’t interrupt—“but I’m not entirely useless. So let me change our deal.”
“Change it to what, exactly?”
“I get here at 9 for practice. I’ll spend the first two hours running through whatever drills you gave me the night before while you’re busy with Neil. 11 to 12, we have our one-on-one. After that, we spar.” He nudged Kevin’s knee lightly with his own. “We both already know you like to take your anger out on me.”
“That’s a terrible idea.”
“I’m not hearing a ‘no.’”
“I hate you,” Kevin said, and Seth grinned because he knew that for the concession it was.
---
Kevin argued for 12:30 rather than 12, and even when the time came, he was still reluctant to give up the reins. Seth had to physically remove himself from the court to get Kevin to stop yelling directives. Even when the court door shut behind him, he could still hear Kevin’s griping through the plexiglass.
Seth came back a few minutes later, sans racquet, but carrying a long roll of compression tape. He tossed it over to Kevin as he met him at center court.
“What…?”
“It’s to wrap your hands and wrists, dumbass,” Seth said, holding up his own wrapped hands in demonstration. “If I have to steal one more of Matt’s bags of frozen blueberries or whatever because I came home with bloody knuckles, he’s gonna throw me out on my ass.”
Ever-serious Kevin didn’t so much as crack a grin. He was staring down at the roll of tape in quiet contemplation.
“What, you never boxed before?” Seth asked, but the answer was already obvious in Kevin’s expression. Seth went to snatch the tape back out of his hands and grabbed Kevin’s wrist. Kevin went tight as a spring at the touch. “Relax. Watch how I do it first, then you can do the other hand. Here.”
Seth circled the tape thrice around Kevin’s wrist, looped it over his thumb, then hooked it between each finger. He added some extra layers over the knuckles for support, then followed the same pattern in reverse, tucking the end underneath to hold the whole thing in place. Once complete, he examined his work, folding Kevin’s fingers into a careful fist, then straightening them back out again. There was a freckle on the middle knuckle of Kevin’s pointer finger. Seth let himself trace over it, once, then continued his examination. He ran his thumbs across Kevin’s palm to make sure nothing would come loose and plucked at the tight layers over his wrist.
Kevin was a quick study, which shouldn’t have come as a surprise. He finished wrapping his other hand almost as quickly as Seth had completed the first. Kevin rolled his wrists and said, “Ground rules. Nothing permanent. I don’t want you out for two weeks with another knee injury.”
“While we’re on the topic, why don’t you keep your claws away from my face.”
“Don’t strangle me again and that won’t be a problem.”
“Boo, no fun,” Seth whined. “Not even a little light choking? What if you really deserve it?”
Kevin waved that off, unamused. “That’s all I had. Now how do we start?”
“I think I just gotta make you angry enough to take a swing, right? Shouldn’t be too hard. I’ve been saving up all my best material.”
“Somehow I doubt that. You have the restraint of a toddler. No matter how dumb a thought pops into your head, you immediately make it everyone else’s problem.”
“God, I wish the rest of the world could see you when you’re this bitchy,” Seth said. He felt a malicious smile tugging at the corners of his mouth and let it loose. “Can’t let anyone else see this side of you, though, can you? Too busy being the sole martyr carrying this team on your back. You’ve got to be tough on the court and a sweetheart off it, and I bet that’s real hard for someone like you.”
“It is not a burden to be valued.”
“But it goes deeper than that, doesn’t it? Exy is your birthright. Your legacy. Can’t make a mistake and can’t be less than perfect. All that pressure’s bound to get to anyone. Is that why you ran?”
Kevin didn’t speak, but his eyes had gone cold and his fingers were flexing against the tape.
“I’m sure you’ve got a good reason for it because you’ve got a good reason for everything, don’t you? But that doesn’t change the fact that you left. The Ravens have how many players, 20? More than that? Most of them are probably assholes—they’d have to be to end up as Ravens—but you’re telling me there wasn’t a single one of them worth a damn to you?” Seth knew that accusation had landed based on the tiny sound of pain that escaped from Kevin’s throat. Seth pressed his advantage. “Without a backwards glance, you walked out on the team that made you everything you are. That’s all I’ve ever needed to know about you, Kevin. It’s only a matter of time before you get bored of the Foxes and do to us exactly what you did to your precious Ravens.”
Kevin’s composure finally snapped. He lashed out with a punch so telegraphed Seth was easily able to duck beneath it and spring back up. An uppercut drew first blood and then they were fighting in earnest. Kevin was a match burnt down to the quick and all Seth wanted to do was stoke those flames as high as they’d go. Forward, that was the only direction Seth knew. Forward, more, bigger, meaner, louder. See how far the limits could stretch. Kevin gave as good as he got. Seth’s skin was going to be a collage of bruises and burst blood vessels for weeks after this, but he didn’t care. The feeling washing through him was the buzzing thrill of adrenaline amplified.
When he managed to hook Kevin around the neck from behind, he used the opportunity to lean in his ear. “Call yourself the future of exy, call yourself a savior, call yourself whatever you like. I see you for what you really are.”
“Stop, goddammit,” Kevin gasped, barely managing to knock Seth off. His punches were getting weaker, his eyes more frantic, but he was still the first of them to jump back into the fight.
All the anger inside of Seth was getting tangled up. He meant what he said about Kevin being a flight risk, but he wasn’t just thinking about Kevin. He was thinking about being eight years old asking his mother when Dad was coming back and getting nothing more than a pinched frown in response. He was thinking about being fourteen and having to find out through a friend of a friend that the rec league exy coach who’d mentored Seth over the last three years had taken a new position in a different state without so much as a goodbye. He was thinking about being eighteen, buying a one-way ticket from Alabama to South Carolina, and the brothers he’d left behind. He hadn’t been back since. Hadn’t called. Hadn’t written. Maybe he’d hated them but sometimes he’d loved them too. That hadn’t mattered. The first opportunity he’d had to run, he took it.
Several minutes of grappling passed before Seth got another chance to hiss in Kevin’s ear. “All that time looking at me and you think I wasn’t looking back? I see what a selfish piece of shit you are. A runaway and a turncoat. That might be the one thing that actually qualifies you as a Fox.”
“Stop. Stop, I—Please.” This time Kevin didn’t try to strike again, his knees buckled and went out from under him. He pulled in air like he’d just emerged from underwater.
Seth was in too deep to slow down. He followed Kevin to the ground just to make sure he was really staying down and pinned him in place. “You’re obsessed with showing everyone else how much sharper your teeth are than theirs and now you’re asking for mercy? No. No, I’m not gonna go easy on you. I told you I wasn’t gonna be another one of your dogs. Fuck you for thinking I only matter if you can keep me docile. I know what this is. I know you wanna use me just like everyone else; as soon as you’re bored”—he snapped his fingers and watched Kevin flinch—“that’s it. You leave me behind to pick up the pieces.”
“Seth,” Kevin gasped, accompanied by such a pathetically wet sound in the back of his throat that all the vitriol left Seth at once. He was straddling Kevin’s waist, holding the other man down by the shoulders, which meant he could feel the light tremors wracking Kevin’s body.
“Don’t,” Seth commanded, only just now realizing what was happening. “Hush. Don’t be a fucking baby and cry.” Kevin took a heaving hiccup of air. The sound was so miserable Seth had to cover Kevin’s mouth with a hand just so he wouldn’t have to hear another. Kevin panted against the restraint and bit wildly at Seth’s palm. Once the tears started, they didn’t stop. “Calm down, I’m not trying to hurt you. Breathe through your nose.”
Seth had always thought of Kevin Day as untouchable. He’d arrived at Palmetto State with an air of domineering arrogance, despite the broken wrist. Time with the Foxes had only reinforced his own ego. He looked down on the world and he especially looked down on Seth, and now…Now Seth was realizing Kevin had made himself into a monster on purpose. Cut him open and you’d find a bundle of nerves wrapped in barbed wire; he was as liable to cut himself as anyone else who tried to touch him.
Kevin had stopped fighting and that was more worrying than the frantic thrashing had been. His lashes looked wet and heavy. The body-wracking sobs had slowed and been replaced with a kind of blank emptiness that made Seth’s stomach clench. This was all wrong. They never went five seconds without provoking one another. He wasn’t sure exactly which part of what he’d said had done it, but Seth had managed to find the line and cross it.
“Kevin,” he said, peeling his hand away from Kevin’s mouth.“Don’t freeze up like this.”
Nothing. No reaction.
He picked Kevin’s head up off the floor, cradled the back of his neck. Tugged at the hair on his nape. “Kevin,” he tried again. “Say something. Look at me.”
More nothing, not even a blink. Seth let out a frustrated noise close to a growl, squeezed his eyes shut, and did the only thing he could think of sure to inspire a reaction: pressed his mouth to Kevin’s. It wasn’t pleasant. It was harsh and wet and impatient and—fuck. Why did Seth’s chest feel like it was going to cave in? He’d wanted to breathe some life into Kevin, not consume him, but this kiss was hungry, searching, starved. It was a confession and a concession passed from one mouth to the other. He worked to gentle it because Kevin was still frighteningly still beneath him. Another ten seconds, then he’d pull away, but he barely got to three before he felt Kevin’s hands skim the tops of his thighs, come to rest on his hips, and grip tight. Seth pulled back anyway because he still didn’t know if that was an invitation or not.
Kevin’s eyes were no longer blank: they stared into Seth’s with such searing intensity Seth scrambled back and away to escape the burn. Had he really just done that? Kissed Kevin like it was a solution to a problem? What was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he ever think before doing something so stupid, senseless, reckless?
Kevin pushed himself to sitting, swiped away his tear streaks on the back of his arm, then touched his mouth like there too he’d find another mark he needed to wipe away.
“Why did you do that?” he asked.
Seth crossed his arms and stuffed his hands in his armpits, working to relax all the agitated urgency out of his posture. His tone at least sounded casual as he said, “You weren’t listening to me.”
Kevin looked like he’d been slapped. His hand dropped from his lips and he was back on his feet in an instant. “Fuck you, Seth.” It was little more than a snarl.
“Christ, Kevin. I’ll forget what just happened. Don’t worry.”
“You’re so fucking predictable.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You don’t know how to commit to anything. I told you no more of that bullshit or our deal’s off.”
“What are you even talking about right now?”
Kevin huffed out a breath and stalked over. Against every alarm bell ringing in Seth’s head, he stood still and let Kevin approach. Kevin’s eyes were still crusted from the tears and there were twin splotches of red on his cheeks. His lips were kiss-bruised and brawl-bruised. He looked raw, not in a fragile way, in a cut-loose way, like he’d finally managed to free himself from the leash that’d been keeping him in check all this time. He seized Seth’s hands and tapped on the tattoos. “You’re still letting this control you.”
“Maybe you need to take a breather. I just watched you bawl your eyes out,” Seth said, but the words felt deadened on his tongue. Kevin was the one having a mental breakdown, so why was Seth the one that felt like his life was spinning out of control?
“You just kissed me,” Kevin said. “And now you want to pretend it was nothing because that’s what you do. That’s what this part of you”—he pressed, hard, against the D and B on Seth’s index fingers—“tells you to do. Is it actually me you hate or just the parts of me that remind you of yourself?”
That was so dangerously close to the truth fight-or-flight kicked in. Seth’s options were limited: he could run or he could step up and accept the challenge. Kevin had accused him of not being able to commit, so to prove him wrong Seth would need to not just commit, but go all in. Everything building between them had led to this moment. Everything that terrified Seth was staring him right in the face. Seth's whole life, it was always a fight, always break or be broken, but that wasn't true anymore. Kevin was giving him a choice. Kevin had made him a deal. Kevin had looked and let himself be looked at.
This time Seth kissed Kevin with his eyes wide open.
This time, Kevin kissed him back.