"Hey," Lanz says softly. "Easy." He glances around as we get closer to the main hall, like he's looking for eavesdroppers. "That’s…we’re…I mean,technically, it’s…” He shuffles his weight. “It was just this spontaneous thing at first, and then…I don’t know, it’s not like I justdecidedto fall in love with him, you know?”
I stop in my tracks.
“You’re in love?”
“I—we—oh shit." Now Lanz stops too. He swears and looks gently skyward. “No—well, I mean…I didn’t mean it like?—”
He’s practically stammering. His cheeks are bright pink.Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much.
“It’s okay.” I cut him off, putting him out of his misery. “You don’t have to explain.”
Lanz shuts his mouth, nods. “Okay.”
We start walking again.
This doesn’t matter to me. I know it doesn’t. Nor does it especially change anything—I might not be able to physically get away from any of them, given this guard-duty situation, but I can still keep mental boundaries. Emotional ones.
Except it does change something. Just a tiny bit. Because there is one lingering question I have, one moment that passed between us that we have literally never spoken of since, and one that now makes even less sense to me than it did before.
If you love Callahan, why did you kiss me?
That night, after the fencing match. Where Kingston got hurt, and Lanz took over. When I’d been a sobbing, unstable disaster in the field house locker room, just bubbling over with how much I hated myself, and I came out and Lanz was just…there, to sweep me into his arms.
He kissed me. Hedidkiss me. And…
Not that it matters. Not that he’d even care. Not that I’ve even let myself think about the truth of that moment since, because it’s embarrassing, shameful, that I am the kind of unfriendly, unpretty, unpopular girl who gets to age eighteen, gets tocollege, without ever…
I grit my teeth.
That was my first real kiss, Lanz.
We’ve arrived. Lanz stops at the door, and grabs the massive brass handle to pull and hold it open for me.
“Registrar,” he says.
I can only nod. “Yes. Thank…you,” I add, awkwardly.
Have you told me the truth about anything?
Haveanyof you?
NINE
LANZ
Practice should be a relief.
Today, it’s…weird.
Bzzt.
Callahan barely flinches as I slam a touch into his shoulder.
Just nods. “Good one.”
I cock my head. “No, it wasn’t.” I didn’t win that touch so much as he lost it. He’s like molasses.
Meanwhile, I’m so jumpy I’m practically short-circuiting my body wire with nervous energy.
