Wesley stabbed his salad like he wished it was me, and I took a long drink from my water to cover up how nervous that made me. When he showed up at the door to my room, I'd expected him to yell at me some more. Instead, he'd just jerked a thumb down the hallway and said that he was headed to the dining hall, and if I wanted some dinner, I'd better get a move on.

I hadn't exactly gotten a move on. I wasn't about to jump at his every beck and call just because he got some sort of weird power trip out of it. Instead, I made him wait while I dawdled through the process of washing my face and pulling on my shoes, and then I made sure he had my phone number so that next time, he could text me first instead of showing up unannounced. I wondered how he'd even figured out which dorm I lived in. Patrick, probably.

Now, I was apparently in for the world's quietest, most awkward dinner. I shoved mushy, over-steamed vegetables around my plate while Wesley abandoned his salad and tore into his hamburger. It didn't look like a very good hamburger. Watching him eat it was like watching a dog eat a shoe.

"Sooooooo…" I began, in an effort to fend off some of the awkwardness. " What are you majoring in?"

Honestly, I had been stewing on this question almost since Wesley had launched his feud against me. As far as I knew, his only interests were soccer and heckling me, and as far as I knew Bancroft didn't offer degrees in being a shithead. Maybe it was political science...?

Wesley did not enlighten me. Guess I would have to keep making shit up about that one. I tried again: "Sean talked me into joining his art history class. It's actually pretty fun so far. Except the teacher yelled at me for talking already, so that wasn't so fun."

Wesley's eyes flickered up from his awful-looking burger. "Maybe if you kept your stupid mouth shut, you wouldn't get yelled at so much."

I sighed. "Fine. Have it your way. We don’t have to talk." I shoved vegetables into my mouth and chewed without pretending to enjoy it. The sooner we finished eating, the sooner we could leave.

The silence seemed to suit Wesley just fine. He chomped away on his burger, and I tried not to feel jealous of all the lively-sounding conversations happening all around us. Those people sounded like they were having fun. Why couldn't I just go sit with Sean and Duncan?

A girl in a shirt with some kind of violent cartoon action going down on the front passed our table. Then she backtracked and leaned towards us. "Hey, Wes!" she chirped.

Wes? Someone was actually on friendly enough terms with him to call him Wes?

"You coming to Anime Club on Thursday?" she asked.

Wesley's shoulders stiffened. He grunted an affirmative that made the girl leave, and then he shot me a narrow-eyed look as though daring me to say something about it.

I raised my hands in defense. Of all the things I might try to give him shit over, this wasn't it. "Hey, I don't judge. I'm a comic man, myself." How many Spider-man posters did I have on my walls, anyway?

Wesley dropped his gaze. I couldn't tell what he thought about that—if he thought anything at all about it. Shoving the last bite of his hamburger in his mouth, he pushed to his feet. Good, I thought. Dinner's finally over.

The next few days involved a lot of not talking: not talking during meals, during drills, during workouts. Wesley communicated with me as a matter of necessity alone, and I felt by turns lonely, annoyed, and intimidated. It was especially bad in the gym when I had to ask him to spot me for weightlifting. I thought for sure he would say something cutting about my poundage or my technique, but if he had an opinion, he kept it to himself. All he did was silently ensure I didn't injure myself. I guess I was grateful.

I was in the bathroom on Thursday morning, scrambling through a shower and mentally listing all the things I would need for class that day, when Sean's yell from the bedroom alerted me to just how late I was running. Scrubbing shaving cream from my face, I cut the water and tumbled into a towel, calling back, "What?"

"I said your breakfast buddy is here!" Sean called.

Shit. "Just a minute!"

I heard Sean echoing, "He says just a minute," and through the cracked bathroom door I caught a glimpse of Wesley's eyeroll. Great. I shot into my clothes and piled all my things in my bookbag, jammed my phone in my pocket, and raced for the door.

Wesley had his arms folded, shoulder tilted with rehearsed impatience against the wall. "Here I am," I said.

He sucked his teeth and turned his face away from me. "Well, obviously. Let's go."

My skin had gotten thicker over the past couple of days, but that still stung a little bit. More than anything, it was the prospect of spending another hour putting up with him. I followed him outside, and as soon as we hit the sidewalk, I disappeared into my phone. It rattled in my hand as a half-dozen encouraging texts from Sean flooded the screen.

I tabbed open my messenger app. A gif of a kitten clinging to a branch with the cartoon letters Hang in there! wiggled at me from the display. That was so corny, I wasn't even sure how to respond to it, but it made me smile anyway.

Suddenly, Wesley grabbed hold of my arm and yanked me close against him. I felt more than heard the biker zip through the space where I had been standing. Both of us blinked after it, too startled for a moment to separate. I could feel the heat of his body seeping through his shirt. An answering heat flooded my cheeks. He smelled really nice.

Then Wesley stepped back. He looked a little flushed, too. Probably anger. "For a supposedly elite athlete, you sure are oblivious to your surroundings."

I was too flustered to rise to the bait. I stepped back, too, widening the distance between us and rubbing distractedly at the back of my neck. I would have thought Wesley would get a kick out of watching me get mowed over by a biker—not that he would pull me out of the way. "Thanks, man."

Wesley turned away, heading for the dining hall at an accelerated pace. "You better not be this oblivious on the field later," he said, but I thought that the words lacked their usual bite.

Was it my own optimism, or was it possible that we were making progress?

That night was anime club. Wesley hadn't texted me about it, but I'd figured out where and when it was being held, and I showed up proudly on time and in the right common room. A bunch of guys and girls were all gathered on couches and big, fluffy bean-bag chairs, and most everyone had on violent-looking shirts like I'd seen on the girl in the dining hall.

Wesley didn't notice me right away. He sat off by himself on one of the smaller couches, not talking to anyone. I went over and sat next to him, feeling awkward.

He actually jumped when he realized who I was. "What?" I said. "We have to do everything together." No reason to be surprised.

He didn't say anything. He had this guarded, careful expression on his face, like he thought I was the one who was going to be rude to him.

Hah. As if. I spread my hands and said, "I've never watched much anime. Maybe I'll like it."

The girl from the dining hall bounded in front of the TV and smartly clapped her hands together. "All right, everyone! We're starting!"

People who had been standing around and chatting started clamoring for seats. Three or four others squeezed themselves onto the loveseat where Wesley and I sat, and suddenly I was crushed against his side. He made some small, desperate-sounding noise in the back of his throat and fidgeted to get comfy, but we stayed pressed together. Without a word, he draped his arm across the back of the couch behind me.

This should have sucked, but—weirdly—it didn't. It was actually kind of nice to be so close together and not fighting. The show started, and I tried to focus on it instead of the strangely non-horrible emotions I was feeling.

Whatever series we were watching, I was coming into it in the middle. I had no idea what was going on. There was something about a book that murdered people and a detective, and then in the middle of the show, the two main rival characters got handcuffed together.

I chuckled at that and leaned in to whisper to Wesley, "Hey—it's kinda like what Coach did to us, huh?"

He scoffed softly, but I caught the corner of a smile wedged into one side of his mouth. A real smile. Because of something I said. My chest filled with something that felt suspiciously like happiness.

Maybe getting stuck together wasn't all bad after all.