Page 6

Xander, October 17th

O n Tuesday morning my alarm wakes me up. It’s odd, because usually Nate’s goes off half an hour before mine. Then I listen to him get up, fuss around with his hair, change his outfit at least once, and walk from our room to the bathroom a couple of times. Only when he’s finished would I decide to crawl out of bed.

This morning? None of that.

When I came home from practice last night, there was a peacefully snoring lump under Nate’s blanket, so I didn’t bother him. Best he slept off the rest of his hangover. But now that he’s sleeping in this morning too, I’m worried it might not be just a hangover.

I crack my eyes open and turn off my beeping phone, peeking over at Nate’s silhouette.

“You awake?” I croak across the room, rolling onto my back. As much as I hate Nate’s early morning routine, waking up hard on the dot is not so great either. A soft grumble is all the answer I get.

“Feeling any better?” I ask once I’ve made my way off of my bed, lingering at the edge of the bookshelves splitting our room.

“...yeah, fine,” comes the muffled reply.

I sigh in relief. If he’d been sick another day, it might have gotten tight for the game on Saturday.

When I’m done in the bathroom, I find my best friend leaning against the kitchen counter, nursing the world’s slowest cup of coffee. He looks...off.

Nate’s hair is still falling onto his forehead, and he’s wearing his glasses instead of contacts. There also isn’t any sight of the smart way he usually dresses. Instead, he’s wearing a gray sweater and dark sweatpants. Normally, he wouldn’t be caught dead wearing this outside of the gym, so he must still not be feeling a hundred percent.

“If you’re still sick, I could cover for you again,” I offer, though I don’t like it much. Even if I’m not superstitious, I do believe in not changing a winning team. Especially when said team has pulled three games right out of the gate.

I raise my hand to check Nate’s temperature, but he leans backward, away from my hand.

He stares at me like I’ve swung at him.

I blink back, hand still outstretched.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” I ask again, slowly lowering my arm. He’s acting all sorts of weird, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was still drunk.

“I’m fine,” he bites out, looking even more irritated. He grabs his cup of coffee and squeezes past me, retreating to our room.

I’m left wondering what I did wrong, but in the end just shake my head.

***

Am at Wok’s want anything?

Got you the usual, waiting downstairs

Prof Fiore keeping you again, huh ?

I check my messages again, but Nate still hasn’t answered. I know Nate’s class often finishes late, which is how I can usually catch him on the way to the dining hall. A couple of his classmates pass me, making me worry that I missed him. They throw me short glances. Most continue along their way, but two guys do a double take. I step back against the wall, letting them pass, but they stop in the middle of the hallway.

“If it isn’t the Diversity Hire,” the taller of the two sneers.

My neck strains as I suppress the reflex to look over. They just want to get a reaction out of me.

In the three years since the interview the affronts haven’t softened. Although I have received positive feedback, especially in the LGBTQIA+ Alliance, there have been those that hate my guts—and make sure I know it too. Nicknames like this are just one of their ways of showing it.

“Hey! Does being gay make you deaf?” They snicker when I throw them a glance with a raised brow.

I grit my teeth but manage to keep my voice flat. “Really? Is that the best you can do?”

Some of the more outgoing members of the Alliance would shout something back, would tell them that apparently, they can be idiots without being gay, or something a lot cleverer, but that cannot be me.

Not only is it my job as President of the Bonham College LGBTQIA+ Alliance to lead by example—even if that means meeting insults with politeness—I also cannot risk a quote or video landing on social media and getting back to the Rebels. One bad interview is enough.

With a sigh I refresh the app again. Still no message from Nate.

Will save you a seat at the usual spot!

I pocket my phone and make my way to the outside seating area of the campus dining hall. A bunch of my teammates have already claimed a table. I crane my neck, looking around, but there’s no sign of Nate, so I join them. Sliding into an empty seat, I place the plastic bag with two Styrofoam containers on the table. He’s probably just running late. Not bent over a toilet again or anything like that. He’d have messaged me if he got sick again.

“Hey, is everything alright with Nate?” Baker, our left wing, says my runaway thoughts out loud.

I shrug but have to resist the urge to immediately check my texts again.

“What do you mean?”

“Dunno, just that he didn’t even say hello when I walked past him earlier. Looked kinda shit too,” Baker says, picking at his half-eaten pizza.

“He’s fine,” I insist, trying to calm myself as well as my teammates, some of which have looked up from their food.

Baker raises his hands. There’s a slice in one of them, and a piece of pineapple falls off as he gestures.

“Just checking in. We’re playing the Grizzlies on Saturday after all.”

I sigh and nod. As if we don’t all know that there’s a tough fight waiting for us, and after this morning, I share Baker’s concern.

“Hey, shouldn’t grizzlies be exactly your thing, Hart?” Hill, our Captain, pipes up, making a kissy-face.

“Huh? Why grizzlies?” one of the rookie D-men asks.

Hill just grins and waves him off. “It’s a gay thing.”

I let out a surprised laugh, along with several others, prompting Baker to theatrically clutch some imaginary pearls.

“Hart is gay ?! Oh my God! I would have never guessed. I wish there had been some kind of interview about it!”

I snort and ball up my tissue to throw at him. Yes, that disaster still hangs over my head, but I’m grateful for how easily my team manages to dissolve the tension.

“Uh bears , sure, but grizzlies might be a bit out of his league.” Baker has dodged my tissue and answers Hill’s question, earning himself more laughs and a few teasing comments.

It’s only when they jump up to playfully tackle and trap each other in a headlock that I notice Nate watching the spectacle from a safe distance.

“Hey Nate, what’s your opinion on bears? Think I could take one?” I ask with a grin after waving him over.

“...what?” Nate just mutters and sits down, brows drawn together.

Our good mood seems ineffective against him. He’s still scowling even as I push the Styrofoam container with spicy fried noodles toward him. I don’t let it deter me and offer him the chopsticks.

“Oh, just some philosophical questions that were raised, because of the Grizzlies, you know.”

“Right,” Nate presses out, hesitating over the chopsticks but eventually taking them. “That’s funny.” His tone says otherwise, and as he breaks the two sticks apart, he looks up at Baker who’s hovering, shifting on his feet.

Slowly Nate raises his blond brows. “Yeah?”

“I, uh…nothing, man. Just wanted to see if you’re alright.” Baker draws up his shoulders. “Got an important game on Saturday after all. We need you to be in top form. If you’re puking on the ice we’ll get mauled,” Baker finishes with some quickly assembled cheer, already bidding a retreat.

“We’ll give those teddies a good hiding,” I wink, playing along with the joke. It does the trick, and when the others leave, they’re snickering and laughing again.

Thankfully I have a free period for the next hour. I’m glad about the long break, taking out my phone while Nate still picks at his food. There’s still the sponsorship question to be solved as well as some more messages in the chat room for our Alliance, but first there’s something more important that’s been nagging at the back of my head.

“I don’t know if I’ll get it today,” I sigh, staring at the puzzle I have open on my screen. My mind still draws a blank looking at the five little squares, two of which are yellow. “I only have two guesses left and all I have is M and P.”

I grimace, mulling a few possibilities over in my head but ultimately just put my phone down again. It’s then that I notice Nate staring at me like I’ve lost my mind.

“What? Oh, don’t tell me you already solved it and it’s something as easy as smile again. I knew I should have guessed that one,” I groan. Nate is the undisputed Wordle champion. I’ll never know how he manages to guess all these words so easily. It’s like he sees one letter in the right position and instantly has it all figured out.

“...no,” he mutters and starts poking his chopsticks into the noodles again.

“Are they not good?” I ask after Nate has been twirling up the same two noodles for an entire minute, during which I wasted another guess. “Or is it your stomach again?”

“I’m fine!” Nate insists but doesn’t look at me. Maybe he’s actually a lot more nervous about Saturday than he’s been telling me.

“It’s just a bit…spicy.”

“Spicy,” I repeat. This is the same guy that orders whole chilies on his pizza. “Mh, okay. I mean, we can swap?” I nudge my half-full container with shrimp fried rice closer toward him, but he just shakes his head after a short glance.

“Uh no it…it’s good.”

I don’t really believe him, but he continues eating, so I don’t question it too much. Instead, I mess up another guess and put my phone back into my pocket.

I throw Nate a few glances but then force myself to stop before it becomes creepy. He’s so quiet today. Usually, it’s impossible to shut him up, which I guess is why I’ve been trying to fill the silence. But it’s actually…not so bad. Now that I’ve stopped talking, the quiet feels comfortable.