Chapter 18
Nicky was drunk, but he wasn’t that drunk.
He understood that logically, he probably was making a big deal out of nothing, he tended to be a dramatic drunk. But he was pretty sure that there shouldn’t have been a white horse walking out of Ronan Lynch’s dorm room after Blue Sargent and Adam Parrish’s first trip to Eden’s.
He was also pretty sure that the sane reaction to a horse that popped out of a room it couldn’t possibly have been in was not saying “god dammit, not again,”
However, it was exactly Blue Sargent’s reaction.
Adam was already on his way into the dorm room, calling Ronan’s name.
Nicky whispered to Aaron “you’re seeing this right?” but Aaron couldn’t seem to form words.
Neil was staring at the horse, mouth opening and closing like some sort of exotic fish. And Andrew…
Andrew was showing the most emotion on his face Nicky had ever seen, his eyes wide open in what Nicky would describe as wonder, had he not known better. His mouth was slightly agape, like he had opened it to say something and forgotten to close it. He moved closer to the horse and slowly raised a hand as if to touch it.
Then Kevin ruined it by coming up the stairs and shrieking like he was being chased by a vampire when he saw the horse.
The horse reared up on his hind legs, startled by the sound. And it towered over Andrew, hooves kicking. For one sickening moment, Nicky imagined Andrew, his baby cousin, the strongest person he knew, trampled to the ground by an impossible white horse. And then Neil was in the way, yelling “Woah there” and all the things that Nicky considered cowboy phrases, and calming down the horse.
The horse was docile again but Andrew’s face was an emotionless mask again. So, Nicky wasn't convinced that everything was okay
This was the moment Ronan decided to walk out of the dorm room with Adam, he looked distinctly bedraggled and he was wearing a cowboy hat and holding what looked like a saddle. It wasn't exactly on-brand for Ronan Lynch, but it wasn't a bad look.
Adam took in the scene, Nicky and Aaron standing off to the side, both in various stages of shock, Kevin, still standing on the last stair, looking like he wished he was dreaming, Andrew managing to look like he was just fine and Neil, calming the horse.
“I can tell we have a lot of explaining to do,”
Ronan decided he didn't want to explain, and decided to put the saddle on the horse.
“How did you do that thing with the horse?” Aaron asked Neil.
“When my mom and I were in Scotland, I worked as a stable hand to make some extra money,” Neil answered, not taking his eyes off the horse.
“Do you know if there are any nearby?” Ronan asked.
“What, a stable? Yeah, really close actually, about a mile west of the exy court,” Neil supplied, confused.
Ronan somehow managed to get the horse to kneel so he could get up onto the saddle.
“You can ride a horse?” Blue asked, Ronan somehow managed to look like he both thought Blue was an idiot and also thought that Blue was smarter than to ask him questions like that “Of course you can ride a horse,why am I surprised?”
“Wow, I'm dating a cowboy,” was Adam’s wry comment.
“Shut up Parrish,” Ronan said, grinning like an idiot.
Nicky, like an idiot, thought that this was an appropriate moment to pipe up “how are you going to get the horse down the stairs,”
“I don't think I'm gonna have to,” Ronan said, then, with a soft kick and a “hyah!” from Ronan, the horse jumped through the open roof of Fox Tower.
Nicky was way too drunk for this.
///////////
Blue hadn't quite gotten used to the fact that she was living with other non-psychic women.
So when Dan began releasing surprisingly accurate predictions over breakfast on September third, she wasn't surprised.
“Wait wait wait, it’s September! That means I get to open that book that Blue’s cousin gave me! ‘September first: Bring an umbrella to practice’ how did she know it was going to rain! She gave this to me in July!” Dan said through mouthfuls of Lucky Charms.
“She's a psychic,” Allison replied, painting her nails blood red.
“September second: Channel 97.6 on the radio is playing a lot of 90’s R&B today, and don't forget to write tomorrow’s game plan down before you forget it,” Renee read over Dan’s shoulder.
“Can't believe I missed an R&B marathon,” Dan sighed sadly. “What's next,” Dan said, flipping the page “September third: The eggs in your fridge are bad, ooh, really? I thought we had a few days. And there's a Buy-one-get-one-free deal on hair dye at the local beauty store, oh that must be for you, Renee”
“I have been meaning to re-do my ends, they’re fading a bit,”
“I think you look fine,” Dan said. “Okay, oh shoot, remind Blue about early morning practice, dude, you’d better get to it,”
“Shit!” Blue said, falling out of bed. “Shit shit shit,” she said, frantically changing into her uniform. “Oh shit oh shit oh shit,” pinning her hair into something that looked intentional. “see you guys later, have a good day!” And she was out the door, running towards the parking lot. She fumbled with her keys and practically jumped into the car.
By the time she got to the court, Blue had convinced herself that being late was the worst possible thing she could have done for her exy career in college. Being late showed poor form, and it was unprofessional, and she could basically have given Kayleigh Day the middle finger and told her to fuck off.
“Sargent!” called a voice from the court parking lot. Kevin Day himself.
Sure he was a raging asshole, but he was also the best striker in the world, and Blue intended to learn everything she could from him (and also, like, tell him off a few times).
But before she could learn anything, she had to deal with being late. She waited for Kevin to go on one of his trademarked rants, but it never came, instead he said.
“Thanks for coming, I thought you weren’t going to make it,” (in a very passive aggressive voice, might she add). It made her more angry than if he had yelled, she flipped the bird at his back as he retreated back into the court.
///////////
“Again,” Kevin said.
Blue had been running the drill since she arrived, tossing ten balls in quick succession at a circle drawn in dry-erase marker on the wall, if one ball fell outside of the boundaries, Kevin made her repeat the drill. She had lost count of how many times she had tried.
Then, after what must have been the gazillionth time, she hit nine balls within the boundaries, and one on the very edge of the circle. Blue’s head whipped to find Kevin’s.
He stared at her through icy eyes. “Again,”
Blue grumbled, gathered the balls and went back to it.
Then after a billion more times, she got ten within the boundaries of the circle.
“Yes! Ha! Yes! I did it! I did it, did you see that? I did it!” Blue did a little mini happy dance and looked at Kevin with a gigantic smile. Kevin’s smile was not as gigantic, but it was definitely there.
“Good, I’m happy for you, now do it again,”
“What?”
“It doesn’t mean anything unless you can do it like it’s second nature,” Kevin said “Now do it again,”
Blue did the drill, over and over again, until she got ten balls in the circle ten times in a row. She walked over to Kevin and dropped her racquet in front of him.
“All right, pick that up, I’ll add a bit of variety in,” Kevin said, opening the door to the court. He walked over to the wall and erased the circle. Blue had never been so happy to see anything disappear in her life.
Then Kevin drew another, much smaller circle in the place where the other circle had been.
“That should keep you sufficiently challenged for now,” Kevin said, walking back to his place off of the court.
Blue grumbled and picked up her racquet again, it was going to be a long morning.
///////////
The Breckenridge Jackals were by far the most brutal team in the college syndicate. If Kevin had to choose between playing the jackals and throwing himself off a cliff, he would probably choose the cliff, just because he would end up with less injuries.
Still, the road to finals was taken not by throwing oneself off of rocky precipices, but by playing the most violent NCAA exy team on the court and winning.
“Alright team, we could get away with losing the last game,” Wymack- his father said.
“But we didn’t lose the last game,” Nicky piped up.
“That doesn’t change the fact that we aren’t allowed to lose this one. Play, play hard. The Jackals are looking to win by any means necessary,”
“Meaning violence and as many checks as they can get into the game,” Kevin added
Coach tried to take the reins of the pep talk again “That doesn’t mean we’re stooping to their levels, the refs at jackals games tend to be prejudiced in favor of the home team, if I see anyone here get anything worse than a yellow card, I’m signing them up for the next forty two kilometer run through the city,”
“There it is,” Ronan jeered “I was wondering when you would mention a marathon, pay up Dan,”
Wymack glared as the money exchanged hands “Well good for you Lynch, are you actually going to be a halfway competent dealer this time?”
Ronan grunted “we’ll see.”
“Ronan,” Gansey reprimanded
Ronan sighed “Fine, just because Dick asked so nicely,”
Kevin had noticed Gansey and Ronan get over whatever issue they had at the beginning of the season and grow into a bond that resembled one between brothers. Unbreakable, familial, full of love. Adam approached Ronan and lightly nudged him in the shoulder and whispered something into his ear that made a Ronan struggle to keep a laugh in and shove him gently. Kevin felt a smile rise up on his face.
“Okay so first half strikers, Kevin, you're playing the full half, Neil, if you overexert yourself, I'm switching you out with Sargent, that's a promise not a warning,”
Neil gave a mock salute. He had grown more playful since he first arrived at the court. Something warm, pride, Kevin realized, rose up in his chest.
“First half strikers, focus on scoring as many goals as possible, you’ll be taking a lot of hits, Gansey, Sargent, second half strikers, again, points, I'm not expecting you to get as many as the first half, but your minimum? Two goals each. Offensive dealers, Wilds, Velez, get the balls to the strikes and keep the backliners occupied, let’s see if Velez can use his smartass mouth for a good purpose for once,”
“Hey!” Jack protested
“Not my fault you can’t shut up. Now, Reynolds…” As Wymack’s voice faded out, Kevin took a moment to think about the game.
The Jackals weren’t coordinated, they focused more on strength than precision, but it was enough to give them a slight edge over their smaller players. There was a reason Wymack hadn’t threatened to switch him out with Sargent, they needed as many large players on the court as possible.
Sargent herself was revving up in a corner, stretching, the buzzing intensity that surrounded her before games was here yet again. Kevin remembered the same intensity that had convinced him to let her on the team. He made her way over to her.
“Are you sure you’ll be able to sub in for Neil and play the second half too,”
“Hopefully it won’t come to that,” was her brusque reply, she cracked her neck and shoulders and Kevin caught her arm to make sure she was listening to him.
“That isn’t what I asked,” This time, Sargent looked Kevin square in the eye.
“Yes I will,” She wrenched her arm away from him “I know you’re used to being able to push people around, but I’m not one of your little lackeys, so I’m warning you, if you touch or talk to me like that again, you and I will have words, are we clear?”
The way that Blue Sargent said words made it sound like she meant a fight to the death, so Kevin decided against disrespecting Blue Sargent for the time being.
“I just want to know that you've got this,” Kevin said.
“Then rest assured,” Blue hissed “I do, you’ve drilled it into my head enough for me to get it, now go back to whatever you were doing before and stop bothering me”
Kevin took this as a comfort that everything was well in hand.
///////////
Being on the court was a welcome sensation. Kevin felt himself grow into his jersey and padding
The press liked to say he became someone entirely new on court. Kevin knew that was wrong. He simply became more of who he already was.
It was a long quarter, and Neil was where he needed to be for most of it. Though he was provoking the backliners a bit too much, Kevin was pretty sure he would get punched at one point during the game.
The other team was relentless. A bit through the second quarter, the defensive dealers seemed to be trying to make Kevin drop his racquet, it was an old strategy, but Kevin had to admit it was a good one. Kevin tried to pass the ball to Neil, but one of the the defensive dealers and the backliner trailing him, Jason Kim, were effectively blocking his path.
At this point, Kevin had to hope and pray that something would stop the game.
Sure enough, Neil’s face was greeted with a fist, and after scoring on a penalty shot, he was switched out with Sargent.
Blue bumped Kevin’s shoulder as she took her place on court and he immediately felt a burst of energy, like magic. Knowing the freshmen, it probably was.
“Any last words of advice?” she asked as she took her place on court.
“Yeah, give them hell,” Kevin replied.
Her laugh rang in the air along with the referee’s whistle
///////////
“Damn,” Henry said when he heard the final score “they never stood a chance, I forgot how hot it was when you two win games.”
“Coach?” Dan asked loudly, as to gather the attention of the room.
“What, Wilds, I want to go home,”
“Of course, of course, in due time, but first,” Dan paused for dramatic effect and Kevin fought the urge to roll his eyes, instead, he smiled. “I believe that we were promised a bottle of Tequila!”
Cheers resounded around the room. Kevin was looking forward to drinking as much as possible.
Neil and Andrew left the room as quickly as possible. Ronan and Adam left soon after.
Then most of the vixens left, then Andrew, Neil, Ronan and Adam came back, probably for alcohol. They stayed for the disney movies that Matt was marathoning.
“Hey,” Kevin said to Shauna, the freshman who was currently acting as bartender to the Foxes and Vixens.
“Hey,” she replied “what’s your poison,”
“Do you think that you could let me have a whole bottle of vodka?” Kevin asked
“I think that I could let you go fuck yourself,” Shauna said fondly, then she left to go find a bottle of vodka.
While he was waiting. Kevin felt a ball of energy pop up by his right elbow.
“Sargent,” he greeted her “Is there anything I can do for you,”
“Nothing yet,” She smiled, reaching behind the bar for some pineapple juice and a cup.
“Good game today,” He said
“Yeah not bad for the worst striker in the universe, huh?” Blue said
“Not bad at all,” Kevin agreed. Blue grinned and opened her mouth to say something, when she was interrupted by the door opening.
“Mr. Gray!” She said instead.
“Gina?” Asked Nicky.
“You!” Cried Matt.
“Geez, Gray,” Said Scarlet “I think we’re a little early,”