Page 44 of Good Losers (Lochkelvin Academy)

“We resume,” Rory declares stoically, sliding his mask over his face as though to shield himself from view. And then he adds, in a desperate kind of voice, “Please.”

I try and fail to hide my grin. I move back to my end of the piste with a spring in my step, knowing how easy it is to bring Rory Munro to his knees.

I would quite like him on his knees in front of me.

Rory counts down stiffly to the next bout, but he must have been more thrown off than I assumed because, to my utter astonishment, the tip of my foil lands squarely on his jacket, sending the buzzer beeping at my side of the piste.

“Yes!” I shout, dancing along the piste as Rory nurses his chest. “Yes, yes, yes!”

“You took me by surprise,” he grumbles. “The score is still three-one tome, if I may take a moment from your victory parade to remind you.”

For a long while, I wonder what to ask Rory. My silence seems to put him on edge, now that every part of him is mine for the taking, the cross-examination. He spreads his arms out and asks in a testy tone, “Well, what is it? I don’t have all day.” It’s something of a double standard, given how long he’s had to come up with questions for me. “You have all the power now. Ask me anything. Literally anything.” He sounds extraordinarily irritated by this.

There’s nothing I can ask, nothing important enough to bring down kingdoms and reveal mass subterfuge. But there is something that’s been niggling in the back of my mind ever since Finlay brought it to light, loudly and with great hysteria.

“What’s so special about the room I’m in?”

Rory stares at me uncomprehendingly for a moment. There’s a slump to his shoulders that suggests he’s disappointed. “That’swhat you’re asking? The whole of me is available to you and you ask… about a stupid, petty fight Fin decided to pick while drunk out of his mind?”

“Is that all it was? It sounded a lot more important to Finlay than that.”

Rory’s jaw tightens. “I am not happy with this choice of subject.”

I shoot him a bright, beaming smile. “Oh, well.”

“Do understand that Iwillget you back for this.”

I shrug. “If you must.”

Rory sighs as though he’d expected me to abandon my request. “Very well, then. Though it is troublesome to admit,” he says slowly, avoiding my eyes, “as it’s not in my nature to kiss and tell.”

A loud, ringing silence follows this proclamation.

My shocked heart skips a beat. “You and Finlay…?”

I’d never expected anything like this. Hoped for, perhaps, in that locked-down, secret part of me that must never be revealed to the world for fear I’m considered even more worthy of myWeirdomoniker. But this…

I stare at Rory. “I…How?”

“It didn’t mean anything,” he tells me in an instant. Again, Rory shrugs, as though this is a topic he is thoroughly uninterested in discussing, the way politics is for sane people. “He always slept in your room when he stayed over. And last summer… He’d been abandoned here by his mother again. We’d both been watching this terrible film Fin insisted on seeing. You know the sort — arthouse, intellectual, something about a revolution. Probably French. Except it was an 18 and… I don’t think either of us realized how…” Rory clears his throat slightly, rubbing the back of his neck. I’ve never seen Rory look so awkward before and it’s utterly fascinating watching deep red bloom across his pale face. “I don’t think we knew it’d be quite so… explicit.”

“Explicit?” I ask, not daring to breathe. Who knew Finlay would have such an artsy taste in films?

“Very odd film. Weird incestuous overtones. Twins. Lots of sex. Threesomes. Baths. Threesomes in baths.” He breaks off slightly, still muttering to himself. “Definitely French, now that I think about it.”

“And then?”

Rory gives me a baleful look. “Well, what do you think?” he snaps. “Do I really have to spell it out for you?”

Flinching, I realize I’ve spooked him. I’ve come on too strong. I bite my lip and ask, honest, “What if I’m just interested?”

“Interested?” Rory asks sharply. “Why on earth would any of this interest you? Last summer is a very, very buried part of me, it was a mistake, and—”

“I’m interested in you,” I tell him in a quiet voice. “All of you. Even the parts you hide.”

His gray eyes glint at me with deep distrust, analyzing my face as though he expects me to laugh at him, as though he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop.

When he finds nothing of the kind, he lowers his gaze to the piste. Always, he’s been in control on the piste, whether scrapping with Finlay or encouraging Luke to hit him. This is the first time I’ve seen Rory genuinely unraveled.

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