PALMETTO STATE FOXES

Mateo isn't at all threatened by the hypothetical old man. TK had plenty of opportunities to replace him and he hasn't yet. He doesn't count the time he disappeared on him, because that was to take care of his mom. It's not like he found a new best friend then.

Just like TK won't abandon him for Frank, Mateo knows that he doesn't really care where they go either. It's not even like his brother to suggest a vacation at all. If TK were anyone else, Mateo would take it as a sign that he's yet another person who wants him for his money. That's never been him, though. Actually, Mateo wishes he'd ask for more, because he's family and this family has too much money just sitting around.

Maybe Mateo's dad becoming TK's guardian was just to keep him from getting sent away, but he's considered him as his brother even before it was legally true. Mate would've paid off his tuition for a much better school than Palmetto and bought them a house near campus, but this is what his brother wanted, so here they are.

So if TK wants to go to the beach and just lay around, Mateo will still find a way to do it as luxuriously as possible. "Okay then, here's the plan. I'll find an all inclusive resort in Thailand, book a swim-up suite, and we'll order so many cocktails on the beach that we'll empty out their bar. And fuck your early morning run. Get Frank to do that with you."

And for all that he seems like the old man out of the two of them, the one that's serious, responsible, it's not like he'd ever really want to trade Mateo for someone like the hypothetical Frank—or anyone else. They might seem to be opposites, but that's why they work so well: he wants a best friend like Mateo that can draw him out of his shell, that can balance him. He can sit around being serious and responsible and worrying about things on his own, he doesn't need help with that.

But what does he have to worry about now? He spent so many years with the weight of responsibility on his shoulders, trying to pick up all the things his mother could no longer carry as she got sicker and sicker. Trying to be the man that his father should have been, even if he was still just a kid. But he's not responsible for much of anything now—not much beyond his grades and his performance on the court.

That feeling of responsibility, of have the weight of the world on his shoulders, is hard to shake. So too are the feelings of betrayal, of resentment, that he brings to every summer and holiday he has to spend with his father and his family, no matter how many years it's been.

But, with Christmas in the rearview and the prospect of the Championships on the horizon, Mateo and the Foxes at his side, those feelings are easier to keep at bay, to leave somewhere across the country where they belong.

"You drive a hard bargain," he says, like he actually put up much of a fight. "But deal—and speaking of emptying out bars, I know one we could get started on right now."

But sometimes it feels like her sister only exists in her memories. They write each other, of course. Sometimes they even talk on the phone. Alondra's never seen her room, though. She's never been to any of her games. None of Nico's current friends have ever met her, and her aunt and uncle don't like talking about her. Alondra's locked away, easy to compartmentalize, and the world's moved on without her.

Nico's moved on without her, leaving Alondra to occupy the edges of her life. Since they last saw each other in person, Nico's learned an entirely new sport, and cut her hair, and kissed a girl. Sometimes, she even daydreams about her aunt and uncle asking her to become Nicolina Fisher, even if she doesn't think she'd actually change her last name. She just wants them to want her enough to suggest it.

In the face of all that, the least she can do is talk about Alondra openly. And if anyone's going to hear the truth without writing her sister off, it's going to the the Foxes.

"My sister's at the Camille Griffin Graham Correctional Institution," Nico says, blunt around that mouthful of a name, her shoulders squared, altogether stubborn in a way she isn't usually. "She would help if she could." And that Nico knows to be true, has known it her entire life. Looking back, she can see Alondra's help wasn't always the right kind, wasn't always enough—but her sister was always there for her.

Depending on who you ask, that might've been the whole problem. That Alondra did something terrible, but she did it for the two of them.

Maybe he should know what to say now. He's been on the other side of it often enough, having to tell teachers or coaches or anyone who bothered to ask that his dad was in prison—but he didn't usually them them that he loved him first, or at all. He usually told them his dad was a piece of shit, actually, even if they didn't ask.

But Nico loves her locked-up sister, so he doesn't bother with the right thing, whatever that might be, and just presses: "What's she in for?"

Maybe, in a few months or a year from now, there will be two Foxes making the long trek to the bus station in Columbia, saying: Hey, you remember that old Fox Captain? He's locked up now. Maybe his mother will be in Pensacola telling people that her son is in prison just like his father, saying something like the apple doesn't fall far from the tree even though Bryce went to that fucking gas station because he thought the money would help his family while his father just smacked his around.

Maybe, if he gets lucky, she'll say it, but it'll be about Beckett instead.

That part still doesn't sit right with him. He doesn't know when he and Beckett stopped being a team, when his brother first looked at him and saw him as a scapegoat rather than his best friend, but he thinks it had to have happened before Beckett was tripping him in front of the cops. He was just too fucking stupid to see it.

But it's pretty fucking clear to him now: his best way out of this mess is to hope that Beckett goes down for it alone. Like they've both got the fucking gun now, and they're pointing it at each other. Or their lawyers are, at least. And that's good, probably, even if it doesn't quite feel like it, because Bryce knows he has the better one.

"Makes sense, I guess," he continues, though he knows he's still just running his mouth some more. It's a way to pass the time, isn't it? "That's why you're a little gun shy? Don't want to end up like her? I don't think getting a little rowdy after a win is the kind of thing you do hard time for."

Technically, the Championships begin tonight. For Kent, it won't feel real until next week, when they actually play their first game. The TV's on in the lobby anyway, playing some random pre-game footage. Comparing all the teams in the odds bracket, making predictions about tonight.

Kent's sprawled out on the couch, halfway watching. Some of the games are obvious, no matter how hard the commentators work to make it sound exciting. The Ravens are going to destroy the Rebels, the Lions are going to destroy the Aggies, and the Trojans are going to nicely destroy the Jackrabbits. Boring.

And next week, the Bruins are probably going to wreck the Foxes. Kent's never been to Los Angeles. Hell, he's never been to California. He knows what he's seen on TV—beaches, celebrities, traffic. He also knows it's where Bianca's from, even if Palo Alto is hours away from Los Angeles. He knows; he Googled it.

As if that matters. She actually seems to be keeping her distance this year, just like she'd promised. Not so distant that he doesn't still see her in the periphery of his life, her orange pom-poms in hand, that sad expression on her face. Distant enough that he doesn't need to put in quite as much effort to ignore her, though.

The father he never met lived in California too, at least before he died. Which doesn't matter either—obviously, Bianca Shay's father never gave a shit about Kent. Alive or dead, he's nothing to Kent.

So Kent has no attachment to California. No special interest. They could be traveling anywhere—it's just exciting to travel somewhere new.

Although, he does hope the beaches are as good as they look on TV.

Kent's never played a Championship game either, but in that he isn't unique. With the exception of their higher ranked transplants, none of them have made it this far before.

Someone else enters the lobby, and Kent angles his head, trying to figure out who it is without giving up his comfortable spot on the couch. "Last chance to get your bets in before the Championships start," Kent says, waving his cell phone. He's put more effort into his betting spreadsheet than any school assignment. "Any interest?"

A week from today they'll be suiting up against the Bruins in Los Angeles, a far cry from the same revolving door of Southeastern District teams that Indigo has been playing for the last three years. A curious side effect of a life spent mostly overseas at her father's posts and then in boarding school means that, while Indigo lived for several years of her young life in Pretoria, there are still many places in the United States she's never set foot in.

If the Foxes don't fuck it up early, maybe she'll get to see a few of them.

Though, if they're betting on it—and the Foxes are always betting on it—Indigo wouldn't put her money on them getting very far. While it's not like she gives a shit about making losing bets and throwing away her parents' money, she is a realist.

And it's not like she needs the Foxes to win the way it feels like some of her teammates do. She likes playing Exy, even more when she's playing as a striker, but it doesn't define her. Win or lose, she's still going to be Indigo. And, when she finishes her time on the Foxes two years from now, she won't be trying to go pro.

What will she be doing? She doesn't know, and she's not about to start worrying about it now—if ever. When the time comes, she's sure she'll figure something out.

For now, though, she doesn't have to think about much, especially not on a Friday afternoon when she's done with class and very much not thinking about homework. "You know I'm in," she says, throwing herself into one of the worn chairs and leaning over the armrest like that will give her a glimpse of Kent's spreadsheet. "What're you putting your money on? You're alright, but I still want to steal your money and make you cry."

It wasn't their choice to join the Foxes. They'd quite literally tried every other team they could think of first, desperate to avoid David Wymack and the reputation his team carried. Rock bottom would always be collapsing on the court, their worst habits becoming public knowledge, but accepting Wymack's contact felt like a close second at the time.

Most likely, everyone following their career—if anyone still was—could tell that too: that Casey popped up on the Foxes' roster last year because they had no other choice, rather than because they were genuinely interested in trading scarlett and grey for orange.

But so many of Casey's own choices have been mistakes—pushing themself to injury, taking the pills—so clearly it's better this way. Things evidently work out better when Casey isn't behind the reins.

"It'd be pretty hard not to be humble at this point," Casey says, which means everyone saw what I did. There's no point in trying to be proud of their past. It didn't matter that the steroids and the opioids only started their sophomore year. The revelation cast a shadow over everything, all those accomplishments that led to their tenure on the Buckeyes in the first place. Like maybe Casey was cheating that whole time, and nothing they said or did before could be trusted.

All they can do is rebuild now: do their best on the Foxes, even if this might be the furthest their career ever goes. Casey wants to believe they can do enough to find a pro contract still waiting for them after they graduate, but it seems unlikely. There are plenty of backliners out there without the stain of a doping scandal on their backs.

"But Olivia's not a diva, either," they say, feeling the urge to defend their resident actual former Big Three player. "You going again?" Casey adds, because Bryce is sitting up now, evidently resting. If Casey's still spotting him, they need to be ready. "Or are you all set?"

It feels like a minuscule silver lining that he doesn't have to worry about captaining them, that that's Claudia's problem now. He had to captain Zia fucking Mendez, when she was a fifth year who'd been to the Championships four times and he was a senior who hadn't been once. Worrying about how to handle her had quickly been drowned out by all of the other shit that came his way that year, at least. In the end, he'd mostly just left her alone.

Like he should have left Casey alone, probably. Bryce isn't their Captain, so they don't owe it to them to try and make nice. Not that he'd been trying to make nice. He'd been doing the opposite, hoping that he could use Casey's fall from grace to the Foxes to make himself feel better about his own fall from the Foxes to—wherever the fuck it is he is now.

But that had failed pretty fucking miserably. If anyone feels like shit here, it's still Bryce. At least that's nothing new.

He could struggle through another set, keep feeling out of shape and out of sorts while Casey is apparently so fucking zen about everything their life has handed them, but he'd probably rather pull out his own fingernails. There's a whole gym full of other Foxes: known and unknown, some who might hate his guts and some who might not give a single flying fuck about him—he can spin the wheel and take his chances.

Or he could just fucking leave. It's not like he's really a Fox; it's not like Wymack can bench him. Somehow, though, he knows he isn't going to. Wymack can't bench him, but he can look disappointed, and it turns out that still works as well on Bryce as it did when he was actually Wymack's player and not some has-been crashing on his couch.

"I'm good," he says, pushing himself off the bench and not bothering to wipe it down. Why stick around longer than he has to when he's already struck out? "See you around, I guess."

Except TK is an old wound. And if TK's reasonable, then Kai's the crazy one. Kai's the asshole, because he can't accept whatever olive branch TK might offer—even if it isn't even a real one, because at the end of the day, it's always going to be TK-and-Mateo. Kai's outside of that. Everyone is, but especially Kai, because Mateo, at least, hates him. And the feeling's mutual—it's not like Kai wants into their dynamic. They can be brothers all they want; he just wishes they would've done it somewhere far away from him.

Technically speaking, Kai's never been a brother. He could claim it, he knows. That's the neat and tidy way to look at it: he's alwasy been a boy, even when no one knew, so he doesn't need to have any complicated feelings on gender.

But he only ever told Katie at the end. As much as he wants to believe she heard it, he doesn't have any proof. It's all wishful thinking, conjured up by some nurse telling him hearing was the last sense to go. For all he knows, they were lying to make him feel better. And if Katie died thinking of him as her twin sister, it doesn't feel right to erase that history.

He thinks—knows—that Katie would've accepted him. But even if she heard him, even if she thought of him as Kai before she went, he didn't get to actually be her brother. It's pointless, worrying over whether he can call himself a brother, whether he should still use sister. To the casual observer, he's an only child now.

Kai shoves the broken headphones back into his bag, a problem to deal with later. He thinks about saying it—can you just be a dick, please—but doesn't, obviously, because that's an insane thing to say to your teammate, especially the night before they play in their first Championship game. There's a chance Wymack sends them out there together tomorrow; Kai really should be playing nice, instead of leaning into high school feuds.

He doesn't manage it. "Or just keep walking," Kai says. "We're already coming from the same place and going to the same place. You aren't sick of me yet?"

The Kai that's his teammate now doesn't quite match up to the Kai that was in his head back then, the one that was part of a matched set, two perfect Exy-playing children to two perfect Exy-playing parents. That Kai was easier to see as a rival, both on the court and just more generally, someone who seemingly had it all and made it look so natural.

Maybe that was never true, but it certainly isn't true now. Kai isn't part of a matched set anymore. Kai is a Fox, here with TK—and here with Mateo, who, despite the ways that other people may look at him and think he has it all, has never been someone that TK was jealous of, only someone that was his friend. First, it was because TK was happy with the life that he had, and then it was because TK knew intimately the scars that Mateo carried, saw firsthand the way the loss of his mother affected him.

TK understands that more now. He didn't lose his mother suddenly, he spent years watching it happen and waiting for the end, but it still didn't prepare him. Sometimes he wants to rage, too—mostly when he's with his father, someone who should care like TK does, but doesn't. Who stopped caring a long time ago.

But he's still himself, in the end. He's still more likely to shut down than lash out. What would be the point? He could have laughed at Kai's broken headphones, or kicked them, but it wouldn't have made him feel any better. He could have kept walking, but he didn't.

Though, honestly, at this point, maybe that would have been better. But it's not like he's about to say that to Kai. He isn't always nice, even if he looks like it in comparison to Mateo.

"You know," he says. "Instead of waiting for me to be a dick to you, you could just go ahead and be a dick first. It seems like you want to."

This talk already did a good job at sobering Jasper up, but then the walk and fresh air clears his head even more. It doesn't make him change his mind, though—especially when they grab him by the hips and back him against the side of the house. His breath hitches in his throat as he looks into River's eyes, wanting this just as bad now as he did on the dance floor.

Jasper forgets how to breathe entirely when there's barely an inch left between them. All he'd have to do is lean just a little closer and they'd be kissing. It's overwhelming, but he isn't going to chicken out no matter how nervous he is.

"Much better," Jasper whispers. Other than the muffled music come from inside, it's a lot quieter out here, and it furthers the illusion that it's just the two of them. Anyone could walk out and see, but for now it's private.

Since River did the work bringing them out here, Jasper figures this next part should be on him. He just...needs to take the leap. Letting out a shaky breath, he wraps his arms around River's shoulders and zeros in on their lips before closing the rest of the distance between them and clumsily pressing their lips together.

But they don't really like waiting. They don't really like worrying about saying the right thing, or if they're cool or hot or charming enough, or if they're about to be rejected. They try to live their life—now, at least—without asking for approval or acceptance, and in some ways asking for it in a romantic context feels like taking a step backwards, making themself small in ways they said they'd never do again.

They're not sure that there's any way around it, though. It's not like they want to be an asshole, someone who makes assumptions that might be wrong and makes other people uncomfortable. They just want to be confident, the way other people seem to be in this, the way they've taught themself to be when it comes to most everything else in their life.

But, confident or not, they didn't fuck this up with Jasper. Maybe it took them a little too long to get with the program and figure out what Jasper was hinting at, maybe they weren't as smooth as they could have been—but none of that really matters when they're here anyway, pressing Jasper back into the side of the Vixen Den as Jasper closes the last little bit of distance between them.

This is the part that they like: the way their stomach swoops at the first contact before their body takes over—the way it does when they're in the goal staring down a shot that they know they're going to block—and knows what it wants and what to do.

Jasper's hands are wrapped around their shoulders, and theirs tighten on his hips as they let more of their weight push Jasper into the wall, bringing their bodies even more flush. They take control of the meeting of their mouths after the first few clumsy moments, trying to guide Jasper into a rhythm that won't be too fast or too much, that will give them space to explore—Jasper hasn't done any of this, and they want to make it good.

Sterling can't imagine a reality where he's friends with Indigo. They've always clashed. Like Kent, Indigo doesn't give a fuck enough for Sterling's liking, but they don't solve that by kissing and making up. The thought alone makes Sterling wrinkle his nose down at his red cup.

With only a few months left until graduation, he has no interest in changing things, but he also doesn't want to argue on his birthday. Instead of biting back, he raises his brows at her retort and takes a sip of his own drink.

Then, as if Sterling forgets his own desire not to argue on his birthday, he snorts. "I should?" he asks in a very similar tone as her can I, though? "I must've missed that memo. Besides, do you even have room left in your cup?"

She worked harder at Exy than she meant to when she first signed her contract, going from a continuation of her aimless teenage rebellion to secret after-hour practices on the court to make the switch from dealer back to striker. She may not like Sterling, but she likes enough of her teammates: she made a drunken cupcake DoorDash order for her and Jen; she listens to Charlie complain an actually gives him advice; she lets Marley make her dinner and offers to do the dishes, even if she never actually does them.

Those moments—where she feels quiet, calm, domesticated—often want to make her go too far in the other direction: throw a punch on the court, stay up all night and then be late to practice, antagonize Sterling on his birthday.

She's not sure why. Maybe part of it is that she doesn't want all of this—her unapologetic loudness, her bright colors, her bite—to just be a reaction, something that she put on in order to survive. She may have been a lot of other people in the past, tried new hobbies and new personalities on like changing clothes, but who she is now is something she likes and wants to keep. She doesn't want to be softened. At least not permanently.

"You should. What kind of birthday boy are you? Do you even want other people to have fun?" And, because she came in here for more alcohol even before this turned into a toe-to-toe with Sterling, she raises her topped-up cup and takes a gulp, leaving it noticeably emptier than it was before. "Look at that. I can make room."

Dayton lives with Charlie, so they'll have plenty of time to potentially bond, but he isn't so sure that Sterling will give him the time of day, which will suck since he's one of his favorite players on the team. With the way Colin talks about him, Sterling's reputation isn't an exaggeration, but Dayton probably won't be smiling like that when he sees it for himself.

Dayton had a feeling that the fifth year kept his inner circle to Kent and Colin based on his interviews and social media posts, but it would be nice to worm his way into it—even if it's just for a few months. Kent will need a friend after the other two graduate right?

He's getting ahead of himself, though. It's literally his first day here. He hasn't even met the full team yet. There's still plenty of time to worry about his social life at Palmetto. Dayton is here to play Exy, but it would, like, also be cool if he got invited to parties and shit.

"Oh yeah, I'm sure," Dayton replies like he understands the trials and tribulations of a fifth year when he's only a twenty-year-old freshman. "I, uh, I mean...I'll try not to get in the way of that."

Wow, very confident, Dayton.

"Sorry, I won't get in the way of that. I'm gonna pay attention so hard on that bench that I'll be able to rank you all on who sweats the most to least."

So he held onto the ball when he could have passed, he went for the flashy play when a safer one would have worked. He cared less if the team won than how much time he spent on the court, whether it was more or less than the other backliners. He just wanted as much Exy as he could get; he just wanted the feeling he got when he was on the court, like he was in control.

He learned how to be a teammate at Palmetto, with the team he knew he could keep. Now, if anything gets him on a professional team, he thinks it'll be that: that he lose and lose and still love Exy, still show up at the court every day with a smile and try to lift up his teammates.

If he felt like being generous, he'd say that Sterling has a different motivational style. It doesn't bother him, though. They've always been in-tune on the court, even before they were sleeping together. They've both always known how much the other one wants it.

Dayton, though—he's young. Untested. And he's a backliner, one of the players that will have to carry on Sterling and Colin's legacy after they graduate. And, while there's a part of Colin that would love to feel irreplaceable, that the Fox defense would collapse without him, he doesn't actually want the Foxes to suck—especially not while Kent's still on the team, even if he'd care less about it than Colin would.

"Maybe pay attention to the ball instead of watching me sweat," he says, already giving up his whatever gravitas his warning might have had to make the easy joke. How is he supposed to help himself, when Dayton keeps setting him up so well? "No matter how good I look doing it."

She knows their relationship is different now. It would be no matter how she felt. There's no way they can exist as easily when every word they say to one another is monitored, scrutinized, filed away in some record somewhere. But it's also true that the version of Nico that Alondra knew best is gone—she doesn't idolize her sister the same way anymore, doesn't dream of the two of them living together forever. If Alondra walked free tomorrow, Nico thinks she would still choose to stay with her aunt and uncle, even if it might break her heart—and worse, Alondra's— to admit it.

But she still loves Alondra. That's still her big sister; her only tie to her childhood. She wants Alondra in her life in some way, even if that doesn't mean she wants things to be the same way they were before. That much has never been a question in her mind, despite everything.

She's lost in her thoughts enough that she almost misses Bryce's laugh, startling back to the present to learn that her question was clearly a stupid one. "Okay," she says, taking it at face value. She could tell him the truth here—tell him, you know, I used to help my sister rob houses. Admit that she was used to this, once upon a time, but she's forgotten how. That she doesn't particularly feel like remembering, honestly, even for the Foxes. Was she braver at fifteen, or just dumber?

That feels a little too much like false bravado though, bragging about something that she only regrets. She's pretty sure that isn't the secret to fitting in on the Foxes, either. "I'll try to get used to it," she says, instead. "Hopefully we'll just be like, too busy with the Championships to do this again for a while."

Though, really, that makes sense in a way that Bryce can understand. He loves his family, sure, but not in the loudly declarative way that Nico seems to. He loves his family, but he's thought more than once about how much easier things would be for him if he didn't.

And, when he got into trouble, it's not like they were any fucking help. If he was in trouble, then Beckett was usually right there with him—usually next to him, because he hadn't fucking set Bryce up to take the fall any time but the last time. And it's not like he could ever rely on his dad for anything, whether he was in prison or out of it, unless it was to make things worse. And his mother—he thinks there's a part of her that would like to be able help, but it's not like she's ever known how to do it. She has no money, she has no time, and the time she does have she usually spends drunk. She kept a roof over his head when he was a kid, and will let him come back home unless his father is out of prison and says she can't, and that's all he can expect from her.

When he was in trouble, he called Wymack. Because Wymack was the kind of person who could make shit happen, who knew what to do and had enough resources and connections—even as a coach on a bottom-rung college sports team—to make it happen. Bryce called Wymack, and now he has a lawyer and a couch to crash on and a schedule full of college classes that will help him finish the degree he abandoned.

He gets to half-pretend at being a Fox, too: working out alongside them in the gym in the mornings, running drills with them on the court in the afternoon, partying with them in Columbia to celebrate wins he had nothing to do with. That part fucking hurts, but it's better than being in a jail cell in Pensacola because he couldn't pay bail, so who the fuck is he to complain?

"If you win an actual Championship game, you'd better fucking party," he says, with a hint his old Captain voice with no actual authority behind it. There have always been meek Foxes, but he's never really understood them, when his answer to a world that seemed stacked against him was to be loud, be angry, and take up space. It's just his luck to get stuck with one of them for the long trek home tonight. "If I won a Championship game, I'd flip a fucking car."

As much as Casey believes in the Foxes now, they didn't before. They didn't pay the Foxes any attention as a Buckeye. It felt impossible that the Foxes could reach the Championships at all, let alone put up enough of a fight to be a threat. Their time was better spent studying the Lions, the Trojans—any of the teams they expected to fight for a win.

If they're honest, that's likely how the Buckeyes view Casey and the Foxes now. If they're thinking of them at all. Even more likely, the Buckeyes are too busy worrying about defending their title to spare a thought for the Foxes. Tonight is groundbreaking for the Foxes—and for the Gamecocks, in the opposite way—but for the top teams in the league, Casey imagines it hardly scratches the surface of what feels important to this season. No doubt, many are assuming the Foxes will be knocked out too quick to matter in the grand scheme of this season.

Olivia's right: it's good to be wrong, sometimes. Casey never would've joined the Foxes, not until the Foxes were their only option—now, it feels strange to envision the world where they still play on the Buckeyes, where they stand on the opposite end of the court from Olivia.

But what Casey really wants, now that they're letting themself imagine it, is proving everyone else wrong. They want to see the Foxes go even further than this. Qualifying for the Championships is one thing—one beautiful, thrilling thing—but how much more satisfying would it be to go far this season?

Saying it out loud should feel like inviting bad luck, but it's easy to be hopeful tonight. "I'd love to see some other people be wrong about the Foxes," they add, after taking a drink from their beer. "It feels like we could do it this year, doesn't it?"

In some ways, it hadn't been about Exy at all. She'd been at the end of her rope, then, beaten down by the Lions and the year she'd spent being her mouthpiece and their figurehead, playing the role they'd shoved her into once Zia was gone and Olivia wasn't and they needed someone to do damage control. She'd never really thought about leaving when Zia did, or about the Foxes—she was still determined to walk the path her father had set out for her, then, and determined to not think about anything else that might get in the way of that.

But, in other ways, it was still about Exy, because one of the worst things the Lion took from her was her love of the game. Two years on Pride Court, and she dreaded every practice, every game, hated anything that put her in close proximity with her teammates or in front of another reporter looking for another quote. Her play slipped, but she kept getting put on the court anyway, because it wasn't about that. And when all she'd ever been was an Exy player, one of the best Exy players, losing that felt like losing everything.

But once she signed the contract, once her father and the rest of the Exy world found out, then she had to think about everything else. Not just about survival, about getting away from Penn State and everything that felt like it was killing her there, but the reality of being a Fox, of playing for a team with one of the longest losing records in the league. About proving everyone wrong—and proving her father wrong, too, because for the first time in her life he didn't feel like he was on her side.

"I like us better as teammates, too," she says, smiling. She knows, now, that she isn't doing things alone, the way that she thought she was when she showed up at Palmetto determined to put the team on her back and drag them to the Championships. There are other people on the team who want this just as badly, who play as hard as she does: people like Claudia—and like Casey.

But does she believe that the Foxes can win? She wants to. And if she wants them to get anywhere in the Championships, she knows she has to play like she believes it. Do what she was always known for, what every high school scouting report said about her: Olivia Finch is a player that makes the players around her better.

"I don't want to make it back into the Championships just to get knocked out in the first round," she says, trying to make it sound like a promise, to sound as sure as Casey does. "I want to take it as far as we can, no matter who we have to take down. It's not like you and I will get many more shots at it."

So now he's standing around, no headphones to hide behind, and no idea what to say next. Maybe he does prefer Mateo to TK, all things considered. He never has to make small talk when it's just Mateo. He never has to pretend that he's anything but upset Mateo's there.

There's another universe where it might've been fun to be teammates with them. Obviously, Katie's still around in this universe, because that's the main fantasy Kai indulges in. TK and Mateo are good strikers—their last game proved that much. In a world where just looking at them didn't remind Kai of everything he's lost, it could've been interesting to play alongside them instead of against them. Kai knew their playstyle even before they were all Foxes—he's seen Mateo slip past his backliners, and he's seen TK barrel through them. In theory, he should be able to pair up easily with either of them. He should be able to take all that history and make something useful of it.

It always would've been a little weird. Mateo would've been a dick no matter what, but Kai used to think it was funny. Kai didn't take it so personally back then, because he didn't feel so raw all the time. And he still would've kissed TK back home, still would've had to wonder if TK feels like, betrayed or grossed out that Kai didn't tell him the truth before doing that—but they probably would've talked about it by now, in this alternate universe.

In this world, that hardly makes Kai's list of concerns. He doesn't love being on a team with people who used to think of him as a girl, with someone who apparently liked what he saw when Kai was cramming himself into skirts and eyeliner—but if TK's upset, then it's his problem. They're not friends, now or back then. Kai doesn't owe him any explanations.

"Whatever," Kai says now, as he picks up his broken headphones. They were expensive, too. He knows his parents would replace them in a heartbeat—they've been texting all week dropping hints that they'd like to buy him a birthday gift. Kai's been ignoring them. He shouldn't have to explain that he doesn't want to celebrate turning nineteen, not when Katie's going to be seventeen forever. It should be obvious.

If he talks about it with his parents, he's going to end up saying something he regrets—maybe telling them to use their fucking heads—which is why he hasn't said anything at all, letting them assume he's just busy preparing for Championships. He doesn't need to feel guilty for being a shitty son—their only child left—on top of everything else. "It's fine, dude. I promise you don't have to pretend to care about my busted headphones."

And even when it wasn't about his mother, he tended to be quieter, more deferential. He wanted his teachers to like him, or his coaches—especially when he was younger, and playing on teams that waived his little league fees and gave him hand-me-down gear, it felt like being humble, being appreciative.

At some point, it became stifling. He was so serious, so proud, and it left him alone with no one to rely on and nothing in his life to really enjoy—no Exy, no Mateo, and not much of anything else, either. And when he wanted to stop being deferential, when he wanted to dig his heels in and not go along with his father's plans to take him out of California and away from his mother, he'd needed Mateo to teach him how to do it. He'd needed him to stand up to his own father, too, to make it so TK could stay.

Because Mateo didn't care about what other people wanted; he cared about what he wanted, and he made it happen. Sure, he could be reckless, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. TK wants to be reckless sometimes, too, wants to not be so serious all the time and not spend so much time worrying about what other people think.

It's easiest to do when he's next to Mateo, following his lead. When it's just TK and Kai alone in the Foxhole Court lounge, though, he still defaults to being blandly polite. Mateo wouldn't, he knows, but he's not trying to be Mateo, who can start fights with their roommates on his own without TK's help, even if TK will step in when he has to to make sure Mateo's not fighting alone.

Kai seems to expect him to, though, or maybe he just wants to start a fight of his own. And while TK might not be as bold without Mateo's lead to follow, he can follow Kai's lead easily enough instead. And if Kai wants to pick a fight with him, even if it's just with him, he probably still won't like the outcome.

"Right," he says, shrugging his shoulders and huffing out a laugh that doesn't make it all the way to amused. "My bad. What was I supposed to do instead, kick them?"

Parker knows she should talk to Glory about it. Sooner, rather than later, even if she can't come up with a way to ask that isn't pathetic. Glory's been the brave one before, opening up about her past, about why she needed that extra time after they started this thing. Maybe they're in a stalemate because it's Parker's turn to take that leap. Maybe Glory's wondering just as much as Parker is. It's not like Parker's got years of serious dating experience to pull from, some way to make a blueprint out of what happens when you keep missing the timing so often it starts to feel deliberate.

This could be the right moment, though. Not here, obviously, but soon. It's the beginning of a semester, without breaks to interrupt them. They're fresh off a victory, and they'll be playing in the Championships next. Bar fight aside, the Foxes are finally coming out on top. Glory's probably thrilled about that, even if she's stuck in an uncomfortable police chair while they wait for Wymack.

But Parker can't exactly say what are we? in the middle of a police station, surrounded by other Foxes. If Glory knew sign, maybe Parker could ask right now, signing with her free hand while her other stayed wrapped up in Glory's. That would feel easier. Private, too, because outside of herself and Charlie no one else knows ASL. Parker's spent most of her time teaching people the wrong signs, just to make herself laugh, and even the honest ones are basic—thank you, the finger spelling for someone's name, rude signs to flash at Charlie when he's trying to focus in practice. Nothing that would allow anyone else on the team to truly understand what she's saying when she signs.

Unfortunately, it's only wishful thinking. If she wants to talk to Glory, she's going to have to find the right timing to use her voice.

She leans back against the plastic chair, huffing, more frustrated by her own thoughts than the idea that Wymack might be making them wait. "Dick move, Wymack," she says, as if that wouldn't match his particular brand of tough love perfectly. "You can't pull rank and get him to hurry up somehow? Vice captain rights?" Emboldened by their joined hands, she keeps going. "And then maybe we could get some alone time. I'm not gonna be tired any time soon," she adds. "Tonight's been one big adrenaline rush."

Put like that, she doesn't think she should feel so lost. There's a lot in her life that's going right: she got out of Owl's Bend and found Exy, found the Foxes and a place she could thrive in Palmetto, she's leading the Foxes into the Championships in her first season as Vice Captain, and she has Parker somehow still next to her, not going anywhere yet.

She's just not sure how to feel like she deserves any of it. Why she was the one to get out of Owl's Bend when some people never will, why Wymack picked her to be a Fox when she'd barely been playing Exy for a handful of years, why he and Claudia think she's the right person to lead this team once Claudia graduates, why Parker has stayed so patient when Glory doesn't think she's given her very much, not even everything that she wants to give her.

In some ways, her life was a lot easier when she didn't have to think about it so goddamn much. In Owl's Bend, she was a creature of feeling: she got angry, and she reacted; she found things that felt good, and she let herself get swept up in them. Now she stops and she starts, she thinks herself in circles. She's not sure if she feels less now, or if she's just gotten out of practice at listening to those feelings. She's not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

For a moment, though, when they're not actually getting arrested and Parker is hitting on her in a police station, she can try to let go and just let things be simple. Try to ignore the fact that, somehow, stringing together the moments where things feel simple doesn't seem to add up to as much as she thinks it should.

"I don't think I can. And I don't think I can keep him from murderin' us at practice on Monday, either," she says. "So you're probably right. If we're gonna die, might as well make the most of it before then and not sleep."

He wasn't surprised that Wymack wanted to recruit him. Grant's not stupid; he knew from the very beginning that Wymack wouldn't be able to resist Grant's all too public history. He's just pissed that Wymack's the only one who wanted him in the goal. That now he has to care about the Foxes' rivalry with the stupid fucking Gamecocks on a personal level, not simply another fact about Class I Exy he can memorize and learn from.

If he has to care about this rivalry, though, then of course he wants to win. And Colin's right about one thing—it's intensely satisfying to think about the Gamecocks watching them in the Championships, knowing exactly who stole the Gamecocks' own chance to move forward this year.

That only works if the Foxes play well though. If they don't implode the second they set foot on the court against any of those higher ranked teams. Grant knows how to compartmentalize: he'll defend the goal, even if he'd give anything to wear a different color while he does it. He knows his priorities, and it'll always be Exy. He can't say that about all his teammates.

And it's not like he can ask the upperclassmen for advice, even if he wanted to. This is going to be Grant's first Class I Championships—but it'll be Colin's too, all the way in his fifth year.

Grant doesn't know how he's been able to stand it. From what he's seen, Colin's always got a smile on, but he cares about Exy too, about his career. He'd said as much in their first conversation together. If Colin's angry about the hand he's been dealt, if he's scared about his future, he doesn't show it. Grant doesn't know if that means Colin's easy or hard to read—even Grant can see that might just be his own bias, making it impossible to take it at face value that Colin is actually happy on this team.

"Fuck 'em," Grant says now, because gloating aside, the Gamecocks don't matter now. "They're out of the running, and we aren't. They can waste their time if they want." He rolls his shoulders back, trying to work out some of the aches from tonight—although whether they're from the game, the fight, or a sleepless night is anyone's guess. They don't have all the information tonight, but he wants to talk Exy anyway. He always does. "Any guesses on who we'll play next?"

Colin has his collection of kitsch, shot glasses and license plate keychains picked up on his travels—a tradition that he kept up from those years on the road, even if more often than not he actually pays for them now—but it's been a little while since he's had cause to add to it. Even the addition of the Southern Eagles wasn't that exciting, because he'd already added Georgia to his collection from the drive from Palmetto to Florida.

The Championships are a different story. Out of the eighteen teams that made it, Colin and the Foxes have only played against three of them. The rest of them—from the powerhouses of the Big Three to the scrappier teams that aren't stalwarts in the Championships like the Foxes—have only lived on his laptop screen, in stats and highlight reel plays. He's never gone toe-to-toe with them, he doesn't know how he'll measure up against them.

It's exciting, but it's also terrifying: match up with the wrong teams, and his one appearance in the Championships could be over just as soon as it begins.

And, when the Championships are over, his time as a Fox will be, too. He won't have any more games in orange, and he won't have any more opportunities to try and convince a professional team to take a chance on him. He'll just have to hope that he's done enough to keep playing, to be able to make a career out of the thing he loves most in the world.

For someone who's always wanted to control everything he can, it's terrifying how much of his future is out of his hands. He can play as hard as he can, but in the end it won't be up to him, it'll be up to suits and scouts that he's never met.

And, before he even gets to the draft, he has to hope that their random first round matchups at least give them a chance to win enough to make it through to the first set of death matches. They had to fight their way into the Championships, but that was the easy part. It'll only get harder from here.

"I know who I don't want to play," he says, relaxing into the shop talk—as much as he can, at least, when it's the middle of the fucking night and so many of their teammates are still unaccounted for. "At least we'll be in the evens and safe from the Big Three—though I really don't want to get in between the Buckeyes and a repeat title, even if we've got a ringer in Casey."

As the weeks went on, though, they'd stagnated. Stalled out. They'd laid on the couch and watched TV shows they didn't care about. They'd read and reread self help books about addiction, and none of them helped at all. Casey won't pretend they didn't like the drugs—who wouldn't want to feel stronger? to avoid feeling the aches and pain after a hard game?—but if they were addicted to anything, it was the Exy. They weren't giving that up.

Maybe it would've been different if they'd known for sure there would be a contract waiting for them at the end of their suspension. After all, once they stopped feeling sorry for themself, once they started calling every single Exy coach to beg for a spot on their team, they'd starting working out again too.

"I don't know," Casey says, which is the truth. They'd spent that entire year thinking—hoping—that there would be another year on the Buckeyes, a chance to redeem themself. Even still, they'd collapsed in on themself. They still cringe to think of their family witnessing it. No wonder no one had known how to talk to them. "It wasn't a good year," Casey adds, going for going for lightly self-deprecating.

The further this conversation gets, the more Casey's floundering in it. Maybe Casey's not far enough removed from that year to talk easily about it, but they'd like to be. It certainly felt easier a few minutes ago, when they had all these grand intentions of honesty. The reality's just falling a little short.

"But, I mean. It all worked out," Casey says, which is true—even if it sounds saccharine. In Ohio, Casey had thought they had everything they wanted. And, sure, the Foxes aren't perfect: but they're trying. Casey would rather step out there and defend these teammates now than their old ones. They rely on Casey, but it's not only on Casey's shoulders. Despite the way they'd clawed their way into the spotlight the first time around, Casey's learned they'd much rather put their head down and just play.

It's about Wymack, too. A year and a half playing for him, and it's impossible not to compare. At best, Casey's willing to share the blame with their old coaches—because it's true, what they'd said, no one forced Casey to take those drugs. But it's also true that Wymack would never, ever ask one of his players to do that. That if Casey were to somehow slip, Wymack would certainly send their ass to rehab rather than out on the court.

Even so, he liked the idea of taking Casey down a peg. Hitting them where it hurt. But he can't even fucking do that, because Bryce throws out his barbs and Casey says it all worked out and I'm happy as a Fox. The words sound both completely saccharine and yet still so fucking honest, and they make Bryce grit his teeth grit his teeth against his failure to get under Casey's skin, tighten his grip on the bar until his knuckles go white.

Casey had a bad year, but it's over now. They got to pick up where they left off on another team, and now they might be going to the Championships. A heartwarming comeback story, if Bryce could feel something other than a kind of seething fucking jealousy about it. Bryce doesn't know at what point a bad year turns into just being a bad fucking life, but there's a good chance he's about to find out.

He forces himself to relax, rolls his shoulders and goes for another rep, then another. It buys him time: with this much weight on the bar, it's not like he can really chitchat. Mostly he just has to hope that whatever noises of effort are coming out of his mouth aren't too fucking pathetic, giving away how off his game he really is.

When he was a Fox, all he had to do was train and then play, do the bare minimum to try and not fail his classes. His days were structured, scheduled: gym in the morning, court in the evening, classes in between, homework and parties—but probably more parties—after all that was done. It was good. He did better when he was busy. But when he was back in Pensacola, no matter how much he tried to fill his days and find some fucking purpose, it never felt the same. It always felt like he was doing the wrong things. And now back in Palmetto again, in the same gym but feeling so much less than he was the last time he was here, he's pretty sure he must have been. At the very least, he could have found some more time to fucking lift.

He's glad he never said how many reps he was planning on doing: when he sets the bar back in its hooks and sits up on the bench to catch his breath, he knows he's pussied out and done fewer than he planned to—fewer than he would have done when he was still a Fox—but maybe Casey doesn't. And he still doesn't know what to do with Casey's whole—whatever. How fucking earnest they seem to be when Bryce is just trying to be a dick, so he just says: "So humble. And here I thought all you Big Three-types were supposed to be divas."

She can never, ever tell Alondra about this. Even if their conversations weren't monitored, Nico knows the score. She sat in that courtroom, listening to her big sister telling everyone it was all my fault, not Nicolina's. Alondra took the stand, but she didn't defend herself, she defended Nico. It would be the greatest betrayal for Nico to turn around and waste that second chance.

Maybe joining the Foxes flies in the face of all that. Nico doesn't think tonight is typical for them, but it wouldn't have surprised her to read it in the news, either. Isn't that the whole point of this team, though? Second chances? Redemption?

And it isn't like she wants nights like this one. She hasn't missed being scared, on watch for prying eyes, terrified that the other shoe was going to drop any second. Tonight is lower stakes than what she and Alondra did, she can see that even through the haze of adrenaline, but even still. There were consequences, back then. It was just that she hadn't paid them. That honor went to Alondra—and to Jared Callahan, at the other end of her sister's gun.

"Yeah. From the Eagles," Nico says. Bryce just called her a Fox, to say nothing of the fact that she's running from the cops after getting in a bar fight defending her new teammates—and yet, she still somehow feels the need to prove that she's happy to be here. Not here as in this dark street with the echo of police lights behind her, but here on the Foxes. "I don't think I ever really fit in on my old team," she adds. "Plus, uhm, I've got family near Palmetto. In Columbia, actually." She clears her throat. "This isn't like, normally how team nights out end, right?"

Bryce quit the Foxes to go back and try and take care of shit for his family when it seemed like they couldn't fucking do it on their own, but sometimes he's not sure if he'd say that he liked them. He loved them, sure, but he still joined the Foxes in the first place to get the fuck out of Florida, to try and make something of himself separate from them. Maybe he's just not sure if he can love anyone at all without also hating them a little bit.

But he'd never minded the Foxes' notoriety. He got dealt a shit hand in life: from the father that couldn't keep himself out of prison, and who was better off there than terrorizing his family; to his mother who never quite learned how to cope without him and kept taking him back; to him and Beckett, who never learned how to keep themselves out of trouble, who knew how to take a good thing and ruin it—but none of that was a secret.

Maybe he's got secrets now: why he left, and why he came back. Though now that fucking College Exy Online was sniffing around during the tiebreaker game, he's not sure how secret all that will stay for long—at least the parts that are contained inside a police report. Some of those secrets are just shit that's locked up in his head, and he doesn't know how he'd explain that to anyone—not that he think anyone really fucking cares.

The Foxes were supposed to be his ticket out of Pensacola. He didn't mind their shitty reputation, not up until the moment he became responsible for somehow turning it around and found that he—couldn't. He was the same person he'd always been: a fuck-up, a Fox, someone who loved Exy but lost at it all the fucking time, but all of a sudden that wasn't enough, that meant that he was failing.

He's not the Captain of the Foxes anymore, so even though he's helping a wayward transfer find her way home after the night went south, he doesn't have to hold her hand and reassure her. So he just laughs—and, with all his relief at not getting caught by the cops, it might come out a little manic, but it feels good. "Maybe not normally, but definitely not never. If you want to fit in better here than you did on your old team, maybe you should get used to it."

Who hung up first the last time they talked? Who didn't text? Which of them was the first to really know?

He knows that he feels dumped. Even though it's over a year later, he feels even more dumped now that he's back in Palmetto, a place that he's never really known without her in it—either as a teammate, or a voice or a text on the other side of his phone. He didn't think about her as much in Pensacola, just like he tried not to think about the Foxes. It was easier that way.

And though it feels like once upon a time he would have known, now he can't even begin to guess what she thinks about it. If she still thinks about him at all from her new life in Nashville. But, whatever the truth is, it was a long time ago. In the grand scheme of things that hurt—of which Bryce has plenty—it's not that high on the list anymore, not the way it was when he was a senior and a Captain and everyone had a front row seat to his bad moods whenever they were off again.

He's not surprised to hear that Claudia doesn't have a love life. That she's his opposite in seemingly every way. What is surprising, even if it shouldn't be, is that way that Kent's words seem to draw a really fucking neat line: Kent and his boring, sexless Captain on one side; Bryce on the other, irrelevant.

"What, your Captain can't chew gum and play Exy at the same time?" He fires back, standing around uselessly as Kent moves through his set without any real assistance needed from Bryce. Fitting, for the topic at hand.

"I'll be there," he says, trying to keep it neutral despite the way he thinks he might rather cut his own arms off than have to sit in the stands and watch the Foxes play on the court that used to be his. He's not sure if he could really root for them to lose, not against the Gamecocks of all teams, but if they did he might feel a little relieved, a little vindicated. "Cheering, though, I think I'll leave to the Vixens."

So Kent just laughs instead, resetting the bar with a dull clang. "Good one." He exhales, letting his body reset before he goes in search of the next exercise. It won't take long; he's always been good at keeping moving. Surfboards, footballs, Exy racquets, weights: it's never really mattered, as long as there's something.

Claudia wouldn't waste time defending him either, but as far as Kent's concerned it makes him a good striker. He's strong, he's fast, and it's much more fun to score a goal than sit around on his ass for an entire game—and he does feel that way, despite what his collection of red cards over the years might indicate. It's just that fighting burns nearly as much energy as a great workout. More, sometimes, if your mark really pissed you off. If he didn't like that aspect of the sport, he'd play fucking volleyball or something.

"I'll score a goal for you," Kent says with a wink, tone easy now that Bryce is back to talking shit on things Kent doesn't care about. It feels a little like winning, even if Kent's only thinking of it as a fight—or maybe just a good old fashioned pissing contest—because Bryce landed at least one good hit earlier.

He checks his watch, satisfied his heart's calmed down enough to move on to his next exercise. Legs, next. "The bench is all yours if you want it."

Even on the Foxes, Kai hates the locker room. There's more privacy here than any others he's seen, and shower doors that lock behind him—no doubt Wymack's doing, trying to make at least the home games bearable for anyone who needs their space—but that doesn't fix everything. And while Kai might slip away to change, there are other Foxes who don't bother—Kent, for one, never seems to give a shit who sees him shirtless.

When he was in the girl's locker room back home, he always felt like he'd infiltrated somewhere secret. Like he was just waiting for someone to catch him and throw him out. Whether it was because he thought girls were beautiful in a way that he knew wasn't the same as everyone else, or later, when he realized he wasn't actually one of them—it was a problem either way.

He should feel better now, especially on a team like the Foxes. He might be the only trans freshmen, but he's far from the only trans person on the team. Instead, though, he gets to play the fun game with himself of keep your eyes down, because if he sees Kent's stupid six pack again he's going to spend the rest of the night wildly jealous and uncomfortable in his own skin.

And it's uncomfortable enough there most days, even without any outside encouragement. His skin is damp and itchy, because he's on day five of this particular application of chest tape, and what he really needs is to change it out entirely. He can't deal with it here, so instead he'll have to wait until he gets back to his dorm and make another excuse to shower. If he's fast enough, he might even beat his roommates back home.

It'll be nice to have fresh tape for tomorrow's game, too. A confidence boost he sorely needs before his first Championship game—which is the thing he's focusing on, mostly, because if he doesn't he'll get that sinking feeling in his stomach whenever he thinks about his birthday waiting right on the heels of that game. Katie's birthday. He didn't celebrate it last year, and he doesn't plan to start it up again now.

He resists the urge to run a hand down his chest before he leaves the shower for the rest of the locker room, because it's not going to reassure him. He's well aware the tape is there under his clothes, doing everything it can—and by now, that mostly means drying painfully slowly, and starting to peel against his skin. Forget fresh tape. What he really, really needs is locked up behind insurance approval that apparently takes forever, and paperwork, and needing more time to heal than he can afford in the middle of the season.

Kai packs his locker haphazardly, and keeps his eyes away from any of his teammates as he makes a break for it into the lobby. He's digging his headphones out of his bag—unwieldy, over the ear, wired for the best sound quality—when disaster strikes. The cord catches, snags, and his headphones hit the ground hard enough that the plastic cracks. It's loud, too, successfully foiling his plans to sneak away quick and quiet. "You've got to be fucking kidding me."

It was easy to be rivals, back in California. TK stepped back onto the Exy court with Mateo and there Kai and Katie were, a formidable pair of strikers for him to measure himself against, to try and get the better of. But outside of games—or a few parties where they crossed paths, or the even fewer where they did more than just cross paths—TK didn't really think about Kai all that much. Or Katie. He didn't really know them, either.

But all that shared history seems to mean something more now that they're in Palmetto, far away from home and anyone else that knows them, even if it's just a little bit. TK doesn't really know Kai, but he watched their entire school district mourn the death of Kai's twin sister. TK doesn't really know Kai, but he played against him when he was one half of Kai-and-Katie and when he had to carry his racquet on the court alone. TK doesn't really know Kai, but he knew Kai before he was Kai.

And TK knows what it's like to lose someone now, too. Knows what it's like to miss his mother with everything he has, to mourn every day that she didn't live long enough to help him move into college, to visit for Parents Weekend, to watch him play as a Fox, to see him in the Championships. And now he has to feel all that, and look across the court or his dorm room at Kai, and wonder if he's feeling the same thing.

It all feels like a lot. A level of intimacy he hasn't asked for and doesn't know what to do with.

TK usually takes offense at the idea that he hides behind Mateo, lets him do the talking and make decision for him—but that's kind of what he's been doing when it comes to Kai. It just feels easier this way. Mateo doesn't overcomplicate things. He doesn't tie himself in knots wondering what he should do, what the right thing to do is, he just does what he wants—and he usually knows what that is. And he treats Kai like he's the rival he's always been, just another person for him to bait and piss off.

And it's not like he lets Mateo do jack shit, but he does let himself go along with it. It just feels easier. There's no Kai-and-Katie, but there's still Mateo-and-TK, the two of them against the world. Kai's on the outside of that, just like everyone else.

He doesn't quite mean to exit the locker room right behind Kai after practice, is halfway trying to loiter a little longer so they don't end up leaving at the same time and stuck, like, making small talk all the way back to Fox Tower. Unfortunately, that means that when Kai's headphones hit the ground in a messy clatter, he's the one standing right there, unable to just not say anything.

And what he says is: "Sucks. Those look expensive."