Fence--Striking Distance

by Sarah Rees Brennan

  “Do you wish for me to tell you something, or do you wish for me to shut up? Your requests strike me as contradictory.”

  “Shut up!” Eugene hissed. “Some truly momentous gossip is unfolding right before our eyes!”

  Nicholas knew Eugene enjoyed gossip. He looked around with interest to see what had caught his attention but saw only boys rioting excitedly over the fair to come.

  Then he noticed the captain was here. Nicholas brightened. Harvard and Aiden were walking down the hall together, as they often did, but today they were holding hands.

  One of Aiden’s fans stopped beside Eugene and clutched his arm. “Is it happening, do you think?” the Bon whispered. “Is it finally happening?”

  “I don’t know, bro, but I think so, bro!”

  Eugene over-bro’ed when he was excited.

  Nicholas liked to see the Bons’ enthusiasm for fencing but found the specific target of their enthusiasm mysterious.

  Aiden wasn’t that good a fencer. Why not support Seiji or the captain instead?

  Someone gave a piercing whistle as Aiden and Harvard passed by. “Hello, gorgeous! What are you doing later?”

  Aiden glanced around without much interest, accepting whistles as his due. Harvard was the one who actually responded to the whistle. His face clouded and he stepped back immediately, moving as though by instinct. His hand fell away from Aiden’s grasp.

  Then a new idea seemed to strike their captain.

  He stepped forward with a purposeful air, linked his fingers with Aiden’s, and tugged Aiden to his side. Aiden went easily, leaning close.

  Eugene and the Bon made sounds like steaming kettles. Nicholas exchanged a questioning look with Seiji to see if he understood what was happening. Seiji gave him a tiny shake of the head.

  Aiden was ignoring the crowd in the way Aiden did, taking for granted that he was being watched. All his attention seemed focused on Harvard.

  Enlightenment descended upon Nicholas. “Oh, are Aiden and Harvard dating now?”

  Harvard glanced again at Aiden, who nodded. Then Harvard nodded, too.

  While light had only just dawned for Nicholas, Eugene’s eyes were glowing with unholy joy. “I must tell everyone!”

  “Wait,” said Nicholas. “What about that Neil guy?”

  Aiden’s green eyes narrowed. “Neil’s out,” he reported.

  “Like, taken out?” Nicholas muttered.

  Aiden proceeded: “Harvard made the excellent decision to upgrade blah, blah, blee, bloo…”

  Aiden’s mouth kept moving, but Nicholas had not bought tickets to the Aiden Kane Is So Great Show. He refused to hear.

  Harvard was nodding along indulgently. This kind of heroic patience was why Harvard was the captain, Nicholas supposed.

  They wandered off toward the open doors, hand in hand, still smiling. The Bon was texting frantically. Nicholas caught a glimpse of many exclamation points and capital letters on the Bon’s screen.

  “That’s good that Aiden and Harvard are dating,” Seiji decided.

  Everyone exchanged surprised glances that Seiji had an opinion on this matter.

  “If the captain is determined to date, and it seems he is, then he should choose someone who has at least some interest in fencing. My parents are a very devoted couple,” Seiji explained.

  “Are they?” Nicholas felt unexpectedly touched. Seiji’s parents were together, and they loved each other.

  That must have been nice for Seiji to grow up with.

  “I understand that must be a surprise for you all, since you’ve met me, but my parents aren’t much like me,” Seiji continued. “They have very dedicated hearts. They say—how did they put it in that magazine feature?—that their personal partnership leads to more effective teamwork between them.”

  Nicholas frowned. “Wait, and you think they’re not like you?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “You and your lack of dedication to anything. That makes sense.”

  Seiji nodded absently.

  “I was being sarcastic, Seiji!”

  “Were you?” Seiji made a face. “Why?” Before Nicholas could answer, Seiji gestured dismissively. “Never mind that. I can’t hang around making small talk all day. I have many things to do. Eugene, please remove Nicholas to the fair, thank you, goodbye.”

  He walked off, a stern, remote presence among the joyful crowd. A guy hopping on one foot almost crashed into him. On reception of a chilling glance from Seiji, he decided to throw himself upon the floor instead.

  Nicholas grinned watching it happen, then turned to Eugene.

  “We’re going to the fair, then!”

  Eugene seemed to be absorbed in a private, horrific vision, but he answered, “Looks like.”

  “We can go into Kingstone and pick up Seiji’s watch, too.”

  Nicholas thought it would be a fun evening. Before he went to get his blazer, he glanced back at Harvard and Aiden heading out the door.

  “I honestly think the captain can do better,” Nicholas remarked.

  The Bon tried to kick him. Nicholas dodged out of the way and ran laughing down the hall, the doors to Kings Row wide open and the sunlight of late afternoon spilling onto the stone floor.

  20: HARVARD

  It wasn’t a real date, so Harvard shouldn’t be nervous.

  Somehow, he still was.

  Probably, he told himself, he was nervous because this was his last chance at getting this dating thing right. He’d messed up with a girl, then messed up with a boy. From years of mapping out team strategy, Harvard knew how to pinpoint the recurring issue when a situation kept going wrong. Clearly when it came to dating, the problem was Harvard himself. Thank God Aiden had agreed to help him out.

  He’d put on a button-down shirt, and then—in a panic—added cuff links. Dad said cuff links made an outfit look sharp, but old people made strange fashion choices. Harvard got worried looking at the cuff links, so he put on his leather jacket, but maybe the shirt and the jacket didn’t look right together.

  Harvard made intense eye contact with the mirror, willing himself to be more reasonable. This was Aiden, who had seen Harvard wearing dinosaur footie pj’s. There was no possible way to impress him.

  Aiden had called him cute yesterday. Obviously, Aiden had only said that to be a supportive friend, but it wouldn’t leave Harvard’s brain.

  The door opened. Harvard started and knocked over the cuff link case.

  Aiden was wearing a desperately clinging green cashmere sweater Harvard had never seen before. Harvard felt slightly uncomfortable about Aiden wearing a gift from one of his many pursuers on their date, but it would be outrageous to complain when Aiden was already doing him a huge favor.

  “New sweater?” he asked in as neutral a voice as he could.

  “Yeah, I just bought it,” said Aiden. “For our date?”

  Harvard smiled. “You look—” began Harvard. “Um.”

  Aiden knew how he looked.

  “Amazing?” offered Aiden.

  See, Aiden knew how good he looked. There was no need for Harvard to mention it.

  “That’s good, paying attention to what your date wears. Next time you have a date with… Neil, comment on whatever it is he wears,” Aiden instructed.

  Aiden always paused when he said Neil. Harvard guessed that Aiden had to take a minute to remember Neil’s name. He appreciated Aiden making the effort. Harvard tried to visualize what Neil generally wore.

  “Shirts?”

  “You could stand to be a little more specific than that.”

  Harvard tried to remember the color of Neil’s shirts. “Flannel shirts?”

  Aiden made a face. “Maybe you shouldn’t encourage that behavior.”

  He shouldn’t encourage Aiden when Aiden was being mean and hilarious, so he only raised an eyebrow and repressed a smile. Aiden grinned as though he could tell about the smile Harvard hadn’t permitted himself.

  “You look great,” Aiden added.


  “Oh. Thanks,” said Harvard.

  He knew Aiden didn’t really mean it, but it felt good to hear anyway. He felt a little less nervous.

  Aiden held out his hand, and Harvard grasped it gratefully, linking their fingers together. He’d thought he would get used to holding hands, but every time it felt new and a little scary. At the same time, he didn’t want to let go.

  Dating had gone wrong for him, but maybe fake dating could go right. He could trust Aiden. He could believe this plan would work out.

  Maybe it was because of Aiden’s fair outings that fair-going had always seemed to Harvard like mostly a date activity. He’d always stayed home and practiced in the salle instead or hung out with Coach and made plans for the team’s improvement.

  The fair was held on the outskirts of the town, so on one side were the fieldstone walls encircling Kingstone, and on the other the encroaching woods. In the trees, lanterns hung from the boughs, and twinkly lights peeped from behind the golden leaves, creating luminous pools and sweet little gleams of light in the dark. Even the evening sky still had a broad sweep of gold painted over the dark line of the trees, and the fair made one of the brightest nights Harvard had ever seen.

  They walked through a line of vendors. At a maple stall, Aiden and Harvard bought fudge. The woman there was obviously charmed by Aiden and gave them many free syrup samples until Harvard’s brain felt like it was buzzing mildly inside his skull. At another, they had cider and cider donuts, which didn’t help with the skull-buzzing. And at another, they bought freshly made lavender lemonade.

  Harvard downed his wild-blueberry pie with a cup of lemonade and thought the fair was really fun so far. He’d been missing out.

  They strolled around hand in hand, and it was strange how not strange that was, the easy physicality that had always been between them translating effortlessly. It wasn’t slightly awkward like with Neil. Harvard supposed that was because they knew each other so well and it wasn’t real, so there was no pressure.

  To celebrate Kings Row’s latest victory, there was a butter sculpture of a man fencing. The butter sword was melting slightly, but Harvard still pointed it out with pride.

  “You should come to our next match,” he urged Aiden.

  “Don’t nag, honey,” Aiden teased, then said: “Fine, I will. Happy?”

  “Yeah,” said Harvard. “Very.”

  A guy working at the fair whistled at Aiden, but then shrugged and said, “Can’t blame a guy for trying!” when Harvard raised an eyebrow at him. Aiden truly didn’t seem bothered by it, only shaking back his hair, mouth curving.

  One of the best things about this arrangement was that now Harvard got to stop guys from admiring Aiden and whisking him away. He was allowed to. For a little while.

  They paused by the ring-toss.

  “Hey,” said Harvard. “Didn’t you say you wanted to win a friend for Harvard Paw?”

  Aiden hesitated. “I might have.”

  “Let’s try it out,” Harvard suggested. “My aunt told me these games are set up so you think you should be throwing a couple inches to the right of where you should really throw. It’s an optical illusion our own eyes create for themselves.”

  The guy working the ring-toss didn’t look impressed by this information, but Aiden did a little. In any case, he was smiling at Harvard, and that seemed encouraging.

  Harvard threw a green ring, and what his aunt said must have been true, because he won.

  He turned around and gave the stuffed giraffe he’d won to a passing child with pigtails. She stared up at Harvard uncertainly. Her mother regarded him with a doubtful gaze. Harvard gave the mother a reassuring smile.

  Being reassuring didn’t always work—ever since Harvard was eight years old, certain people hadn’t found him reassuring, as he was both Black and tall—but in this case it did. The mother might also have noticed her child was now clinging to her giraffe, and it was clear she would scream if parted from her new toy.

  “Thank you,” the little girl’s mother said stiffly.

  Harvard said, “No problem.”

  The mother swept on, the kid waving shyly as they went. Harvard gave her a little wave back. She gave him a big gap-toothed smile and his own grin was pure reflex.

  “What?” Harvard asked Aiden, who was watching him with an expression Harvard couldn’t read.

  Aiden gave a little smile, not meant to charm and thus entirely charming, and shrugged the matter off. “I’m horribly offended and insulted you gave away the first stuffed animal you won on our date. You shouldn’t… do anything like that with Neil. You should make it up to me. Win me a bear.”

  Harvard concentrated, since this time it was important, carefully measuring the difference between actual depth and the perception of depth. Harvard threw, and the yellow plastic ring flew and spun and settled onto the peg.

  Harvard looked around for Aiden to ask which stuffed animal he wanted, and was quietly pleased when he turned and Aiden was right there, taking his hand.

  “Well done, baby,” Aiden whispered—oh, a dating thing to call somebody. After a surprised moment, Harvard smiled, the taste of lemonade bright in the back of his mouth. That was sweet.

  “Wanna pick a bear?”

  Aiden’s small smile was like the sparkle behind the leaves, hinting and promising at light. “First, show me how to win my own.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  He put a hand on the small of Aiden’s back and positioned him in the correct stance. Aiden promptly dropped the plastic ring he was holding. Harvard picked up the ring for Aiden, shaking his head. He guided Aiden’s arm for the practice throw, leaning in to ask if he could see where it should land. When Aiden glanced back, Harvard smiled at him encouragingly, closing an arm around Aiden’s bicep and squeezing in a reassuring fashion.

  The ring Aiden threw almost hit the guy behind the stall in the head.

  “Wow, that wasn’t good,” Harvard said. “You’re not good at this!”

  Aiden gave him an outraged look. Harvard supposed he was partly to blame for not being a skilled teacher, but he still couldn’t lie and say the throw had been good. Without honest feedback, how was Aiden supposed to improve?

  He picked out a bear about the same size as Harvard Paw, who had an approachable air… for a bear.

  “You’re bad at this game, but you’re still cute,” he told Aiden, and gave him the bear. “There, a friend for Harvard Paw at last. What do you want to do next?”

  Aiden was hesitating. Harvard was suddenly concerned he’d messed up. Maybe he shouldn’t have said that.

  Harvard had won the bear and so he’d thought he might be allowed to call Aiden cute; Aiden had said Harvard was cute yesterday, so he’d been thinking… that must be an acceptable thing to say. Surely Harvard hadn’t messed up too badly yet. Surely everything was okay.

  Aiden tucked his new bear under his arm. He paused for long enough that Harvard worried everything wasn’t okay after all, but when he spoke his voice was soft. So Aiden must have only been thinking through his fairground options. “I think it would be nice to go on the Ferris wheel with you.”

  Harvard wasn’t actually crazy about heights, but he wanted Aiden to enjoy himself, so they went and Harvard tried not to focus on the ground. He had good feelings about the ground when they were together, but he became deeply uncomfortable when he and the ground were apart.

  It became far easier not to focus on the ground when Aiden said, “You should put your arm around me.”

  “Sure,” said Harvard, thankful for the guidance. He did. “Like this?”

  His arm slid easily around Aiden’s shoulders, and Aiden’s body fell in naturally against his. The lights of the Ferris wheel, gold and blue and crimson, caught and sparkled and spangled in Aiden’s long, curling lashes. Aiden turned in toward him, and Harvard mirrored the movement without thinking, chests pressing together.

  Aiden murmured, “Just like that. Then I distract you from the heights!”


  He was pretty distracting, all right. The fairground beneath them became a background, blurred, like a calm sea of multicolored lights beneath them.

  As they departed the Ferris wheel, they ran into someone who was a spot of darkness among the bright lights. Jay was one of Aiden’s many exes, if you could describe guys who Aiden saw for one wild never-to-be-repeated night as exes. Some of those guys accepted this with the philosophical attitude that good things were not meant to last. Some of them took it hard.

  Harvard had felt bad for Jay at the time. Now that he saw Jay storming toward them with narrowed eyes fixed on Aiden’s and Harvard’s linked hands and a clear intent to spoil their evening, Harvard felt considerably less bad for him.

  “Oh, so that’s how it is?” Jay snapped.

  “That’s how it is,” Harvard responded in a level voice.

  Jay didn’t even glance at him. His eyes were fixed on Aiden, as they usually were, hungry and mad about it.

  “I guess this was always gonna happen.” Jay’s smile was humorless. “But you wanted to, what’s the phrase, sow your oats? Have fun with as many people as you could before you finally put Harvard out of his misery?”

  It was such a bizarre misread of the situation that Harvard didn’t know what to say. What he couldn’t say was that this was a fake date, and Aiden was just doing his romantically inept best friend a favor. He went quiet.

  “Thanks for your input, Z!” said Aiden. “Or whatever letter of the alphabet you are. I don’t know why you imagine you were so much fun, but can you get lost?”

  “Or what?” snapped Jay.

  He took a step forward, as though he figured it would make him feel better to fight.

  Harvard took a step forward, putting himself in the middle.

  “Hey,” said Harvard. “Stop it. Aiden never promised you anything. I’m sorry your feelings are hurt. But that doesn’t give you the right to lash out at him. You can want him to like you, and be upset that he doesn’t. But you don’t get to expect that he’ll like you, and you don’t make yourself look like a good guy by making a scene.”

  Jay’s eyes fell from Harvard’s, head hanging as he muttered, “You don’t understand.”