Max

I walked into the pool hall, greeted by the very specific smell of carpeting, felt, and buttery popcorn that was being popped at the snack counter nearby. I looked around to find Adam. It didn’t take long—he was warming up at a table in the back, a light softly shining over him. I smiled a little bit, shaking my head. He really did always have a way of making himself one of the most visible things in a room.

I walked over, and Adam stood up straight, the pool cue in his hands. “It’s not Aspen. You think you can manage?” he teased.

I dropped my jacket onto a chair. “Don’t worry about me,” I said as I rolled my shoulders. “Rack ’em up.”

Unsurprisingly, once the game started, it felt as if the air in the room changed. If there was anything Adam and I seemed to be good at, it was focusing specifically on competing against each other. When the two of us focused on something, nothing else existed. It was just Adam and me and whatever it was we were fighting each other on.

I made my rounds on the table, brushing by Adam as I did. The space was small, so there was only so much room. We’d be bumping into each other all night.

Unsurprisingly, Adam was just as good as he said he was, but I was able to keep up with him. With every ball I sank, I offered a smug, teasing smile in his direction.

“All right, no need to get cocky,” Adam said as he walked up to the table again. He stretched long over the table, and I found my eyes trailing up and down his body, taking in the view. It was hard not to admire him. As always, he’d managed to find a riff on what would be an ordinary T-shirt and jeans on everyone else. Always one to blend in, I appreciated the way he wore colors. He treated the most daunting shades like neutrals, knowing how to blend them together to feel cohesive.

It was all so deliberate—everything coordinated but not matching. It made my outfit look so boring standing next to him. The way he carried himself was entirely undoable for me.

It was hard to imagine me being able to be as confident as Adam was with himself. He totally owned who he was, loudly and proudly wearing what he wanted and doing what he wanted. I’d never been that kind of guy. I’d always kept things simple—my clothes, my routine, my future.

Despite myself, I smiled a little bit as Adam reacted to a good shot. He pumped his fist gleefully, biting his lip with pride. I knew that every celebration was cause for concern that I might lose, but I didn’t feel particularly worried about losing to him. I preferred the thrill of competing with him.

“Nice,” I said.

“Let’s see what you got,” Adam said, stepping back from the table. We were exactly evenly matched, giving ground only when we had to when we inevitably missed.

I bent down and lined up my shot, wondering if Adam looked at me the same way I’d been looking at him. I was careful and particular, knowing exactly what I had to do to win.

When I sent my cue forward, the balls ricocheted just right—exactly what I was expecting. When the ball sank in, Adam nodded his head in approval.

“All right, not bad,” he said and grinned. He threw a light punch into my shoulder. “You weren’t kidding when you said you were pretty good.”

I shrugged. “Lots of practice.”

It was obvious Adam had had a lot of practice too. His game was good—he noticed specifics, little things that I also noticed when I was playing. He had an obvious eye for detail.

We ended up playing four games total, each of us challenging the other to a new game when one finished. By the end, we’d both won two games.

“As much fun as I’m having, I think this place is closing in about thirty minutes,” Adam said.

I nodded. “See you Monday.”

Adam nodded with a small smile. “Monday.”

***

That Monday, I woke up with a small smile on my face. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the night before. I didn’t know what it was—it wasn’t like the night had been that special. It’d just been fun. Genuinely fun. In a way that I didn’t feel like I’d experienced in a long time,

My good mood continued throughout the morning. As I was pulling on my pants, I thought about Adam’s face when I nailed an impossible shot toward the end of our last game. As I was finding a shirt, I thought about the way it felt to brush beside him, just a split second of our bodies touching.

A shot of pleasure ran through me every time I thought of our night out. And every time I thought about our night out, I thought of Adam. And it seemed to just bounce back and forth. I was unable to get myself to think about anything else for very long. Small things would remind me of him—something the same green color as his shirt, certain words or jokes.

I felt something stir in me when I thought about the heat radiating off his body. It had never occurred to me how beautiful his hands were until I saw him holding the cue. And I’d never realized, until the lights over the pool table hit him, that Adam had such blue eyes.

I pulled into the school parking lot, having thought of what felt like nothing other than Adam. Even just getting to school felt like it had happened in a daze.

I spotted Adam’s car already in the parking lot and felt a rush in my chest at the thought of seeing him again. And then there was another rush, something more unexpected—eagerness.

I was excited to see Adam. It wasn’t just the thrill of crossing paths; it was that I really wanted to see him. I wanted to be around him, in his presence, because something different happened within me when I was around him. There was a rumble of new feelings…something like attraction.

I gripped my steering wheel, the realization hitting me like a punch to the gut. It wasn’t something like attraction–it was attraction.

I had a crush on Adam.

Crap.

***

Adam

I walked into school with my head totally lost in my own thoughts. I was barely paying attention, moving through the morning with no sense of where I was. I was purely going off of routine.

I’d also barely slept, for better or for worse, because all I could think about was Max. There had definitely been chemistry between us. It was undeniable. I’d never been someone who assumed someone was into me; I only ever felt that way when there was real proof. And maybe Max didn’t do the usual flirting, maybe he wasn’t as direct as someone like Sasha, but there was something there. There was a look in his eye and a feeling in the air that I’d never felt from him before.

All I knew was that Miranda was going to be disappointed because I had a feeling the pass I was going to make at Max would be received favorably. I could see the way he would look at me when I was playing, how his eyes would focus on my arms instead of my face during conversation.

The thought of asking if Max admired me lit me up. I could just see his expression when I asked. It was a good thing we were on the same team this year because it would’ve been hard to be rivals when I was this attracted to him.

I was finally snapped out of my sleepwalking by the headmaster, who was coming up behind me and saying my name.

“Adam!” he called out again. “I need a word.”

I stopped, feeling bad that I had no idea how long he’d been chasing me down. I was on a completely different planet.

Whiggins steered me into an empty classroom. “I’m glad to have caught you first thing. I want you to know that the terrible situation we put you in wasn’t lost on the teachers and coaches here.”

I frowned slightly. “What? What situation?”

“We met this morning and decided it was only fair given your standing at your previous school to give you an equal shot,” the headmaster explained, barreling on and clearly not caring whether we were on the same train of thought or not.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “Equal shot at what? What’s going on?”

“Debate team captain,” he said, as if that answered everything. Then, the realization hit me just as he was explaining himself. “We’ve agreed you and Max Rhodes should compete toe to toe for the position.”