Page 46 of Kingmakers, Year One

So far I’ve found that the food here is simple but extremely good. Fresh-baked bread, meat and produce from the farmland directly around Kingmakers.

“There you are!” Leo says as I sit down. “You almost missed breakfast.”

“Morning,” Ares says, pushing a stone tureen of cream in my direction for my tea.

Ares is dressed neatly in a crisp white button-up, tucked into ironed trousers. His shoes don’t look new, but he’s polished them carefully. I wonder if he likes the uniforms because it makes it less obvious that he’s not as wealthy as the rest of the students.

Leo, by contrast, has not ironed any of his clothes and his shirt is only half tucked in. His dark curls look like he just rolled out of bed, and he’s shoved up his sleeves so he can attack his food more easily, showing his bare brown forearms with veins running up both sides, and his large, long-fingered hands.

As he spears a sausage with his fork, his forearm flexes and I feel strangely warm. Leo is sprawled out in his seat like always, too big to fit comfortably in normal furniture. His long legs are perpetually stretched out under tables and across aisleways, his broad shoulders always taking up more than their fair share of space.

Leo’s loud, too. He talks and laughs with so much animation that every eye in the room is drawn to him. Leo is the sun, and everyone wants the sun shining on their face. Girls flutter around him like moths. Even boys can’t deny his charm. Everyone wants to be friends with him. Everyone wants to be near him.

I have to admit, it’s flattering to be the best friend of a man like that. Everybody wants to spend time with Leo, and he gives that time and attention to me more than anyone.

But lately I can’t enjoy our friendship like I used to. It used to be so pure and simple. Leo was my brother, my confidante, and my partner in crime all rolled into one.

We sailed through every phase of life without anything coming between us. When we went through puberty, I laughed at Leo’s voice cracking and deepening, and he teased me mercilessly about my awful braces and how quickly I shot up in height so that he was the only boy in our class still taller than me.

He started dating girls from our school, and then girls from other schools, and I was never jealous because while they might be his girlfriends, I was his best friend.

I went on a few dates myself, but I never felt that thing you’re supposed to feel, that spark of infatuation. The boys were sometimes nice and sometimes obnoxious, but either way I didn’t appreciate them putting their clumsy hands on me. I never wanted to take things further than an awkward kiss at the end of the night.

I never knew if Leo was taking things further. I assumed he was, because he’s a boy, and wildly popular—he could fuck a different girl every day of the week. But that was the one thing we didn’t talk about. Leo seemed strangely reticent, and since I had no sex stories of my own, it seemed pointless to bring it up.

Our families saw us as cousins, as brother and sister even. I thought I felt the same.

Then, last year, something changed.

All of a sudden I felt a tension that was never there before. I started noticing things about Leo that I don’t want to notice.

When he throws his arm around my shoulders, I breathe in his scent and my heart starts to race. I notice how warm his skin is, and how surprisingly soft. I see how he bites the corner of his lip when he grins, and I get this uncomfortable squeezing in my guts that was never there before.

I tell myself it will stop.

My emotions have never been as stable as Leo’s—it’s something I admire about him. His confidence and optimism are boundless. Whereas I’m often sad or anxious, sometimes for no reason at all.

This just enough swell of emotion, rolling over me like a wave. A bizarre impulse that will fade and die, just like how it rose up out of nothing.

I have to ignore it, even smother it.

Because whatever happens, I can’t risk my friendship with Leo. Nothing is more important to me.

“What’s up with you?” Leo says. “You look grumpier than usual.”

“I’m not,” I say, chewing a piece of bacon.

But I can’t fool Leo.

“What’s wrong?” he persists. “You have a bad dream or something?”

He knows I have nightmares. He knows everything about me. Well . . . almost everything.

“No.” I gulp down the hot mint tea. “I just had a weird thing this morning?—”

I don’t want to tell Leo what happened, because I know he’ll laugh his ass off at the image of me running into some dude buck-naked. He’ll never let me hear the end of it. But he’s sure to hear about it anyway, if Kingmakers is anything like high school. A story like that doesn’t stay quiet for long.

Before I can say a word, Leo’s face darkens, and he glares across the dining hall.

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