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“I wanted to. I walked over there to do it, and I didn’t.” My voice comes out worse than I want it to. “I’d like that to be worth something.”

Berwyn looks at me for a good three seconds. “Get out,” he says.

I turn around and reach for the door.

“Kennebeck.”

I look back.

“It is worth something,” he says. Then, past me, into the hallway, “Greeley, get back in here. Shut the door.”

It’s cold walking back, and none of us talks. Mathers peels off toward his house. Koda goes up to his floor. Rafe walks down the hall on three with me, looks at my bag outside our door, and says he’ll bring it in, because it’s obvious where I’m going.

Kylie’s door is unlocked. I knock as I walk in.

She’s sitting on her bed in her T-shirt and leggings with her back against the wall and her phone in her palm, like she’s been waiting for something. Her eyes find mine across the room, and she gets off the bed and takes my face in her hands.

“Hi.” She looks into both my eyes. “Are you okay?”

I think so. “Yeah.”

She takes my hands to inspect them. There’s a split knuckle from Friday, scabbed over. “Friday’s game,” I tell her.

She kisses the knuckle. “Okay.” She lets out a breath and presses a small kiss to my mouth. “Okay.”

“I didn’t touch him.”

She nods like she already knew. “I’m sorry. I know I said don’t hurt him, but I was kind of hoping you would.” She starts laughing, and I drop my forehead to hers. “He would’ve deserved it,” she whispers.

She runs her fingers through my hair, and I close my eyes and let her.

“For what it’s worth, Nash, I’m proud of you.” She closes her eyes too. “You did the right thing.”

That’s worth everything.

37

He Told Me

Kylie

Nash kicks off his shoes and lets me pull him onto my bed. He lies between my legs with his head on my chest, and I keep running my fingers through his hair. I can tell he’s exhausted, so I don’t say anything and let him rest. I scroll on my phone for an hour, and I think he’s asleep. When he finally shifts, I rub his back.

“Are you hungry, Nash?” I whisper.

He nods. “Yeah.”

We order food, and I walk down to the front entrance to pick it up. We eat out of the containers sitting on my bed with something on my laptop that neither of us watches. He eats an entire order of fried rice without saying four words. He isn’t being weird. He’s just done. It’s all sitting on him, and he’s using about nine percent of himself to be in this room.

Tessa comes back at ten with her laptop under her arm. She looks at Nash sitting shirtless on my bed with a container of rice and a fork, at his shoes under her side of the desk, and at me in his T-shirt.

“Hi,” she says. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” I smile at her. “It’s your room too.”

She sits at her desk and puts her headphones on.

Later, with the lights off, I ask him once. “Do you want to talk about it?”