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“You know,” he said, quietly, “you can’t run away from this. You still haven’t told me what you think we are.”

“I have not.”

“Do you love me?”

It was a small question, and he said it lightly, almost carelessly, as one throws a coin. But I saw his hand go white on the edge of the mattress.

Yes, I thought. Yes. Since the pizza. Since the locker room. Since a thousand winters before you were born.

I opened my mouth.

“No,” said Lex.

I stared at him.

“I mean— no. I don’t. Love you.” He was talking too fast. His eyes would not meet mine. “What do you think this is, some Hallmark movie? I don’t love you. It’s just a— a thing. It’s a thing we’re doing. There’s no love or whatever.”

“Lex—”

“But we could be—” He stumbled, and drew a sharp breath, and threw it out like a man leaping off a cliff. “We could be fuck buddies. We could keep doing this. It’s not a big deal. The mate thing’s not messing with me. I’ve got it handled.”

The room seemed to tilt.

I understood, and I want that known, because I understood perfectly. I saw a man who had been told all his life that wanting was weakness, who had built an armor of jokes and fists, standing at the edge of a door he had never dared to look through. He had just said the only thing his fear would let him say, and every word of it was a lie, and every word of it was the biggest thing he had.

I could have refused. I could have said, I will not be a convenience. I could have said, I love you, and you know it.

And he would have run. I knew that as I know the taste of snow.

Small doors, said Tamsin’s voice in my head. You’ve forgotten all the small doors.

I looked at his white knuckles. I looked at the vein pulsing in his throat.

“Deal,” I said.

His head snapped up.

“What?”

“I agree.” I smiled at him. It cost me a great deal, and I think it was the finest smile I have ever given. “Fuck buddies. Until the end of the tournament, if you wish. Or longer, if you do not.”

He blinked. “That’s it?”

“That is it.”

“You’re not going to argue?”

“I am too old to argue about words.” I bent and kissed his forehead. “I know what I am, Lex. I know what this is. Whatever we call it, I will be here.”

I saw him swallow. Something flickered over his face, something raw and confused and immensely relieved, and then something else, quick and small, a shadow of guilt. He looked, for one moment, as though he might take it back.

He didn’t. He nodded, a quick sharp jerk, and stood up.

“Okay,” he said, too brightly. “Cool. Good. So I’ll see you at practice.”

“Yes.”

“And we’re not gonna tell anyone.”