“You mean if you win,” I said.
Nathan laughed. He hooked an arm around my neck, drawing me in to whisper in my ear. “That’s my Sang.”
I started floating. I kind of liked the soccer table.
North rolled his eyes, putting his hand inside the table to find the ball again.
When the ball dropped onto the table again, a girl approached, watching the game. She was tall, with raven hair and big brown eyes and I thought she was very pretty. I wondered if she wanted to play, but I was too nervous to ask her to join us. Something inside me told me I didn’t want her to join us, anyway. I wasn’t sure why and I didn’t want to think of the reason.
The guys were feuding it out on their side of the table. I had my hands ready, feeling ugly and awkward under the scrutiny of the pretty girl who was watching. North spun a handle on his side, and the plastic men kicked the ball from one side of the table, all the way to hit the goal before I had a chance to react.
North pumped a fist. Nathan groaned, but grinned and clearly was not too disappointed. He leaned into me. “Don’t worry, Peanut. Next time try to distract him or something.”
I listened to Nathan talking in my ear but my eyes were on North. The girl approached him, cupped her hand over North’s ear and whispered something to him. North stiffened, shook his head, and waved his hand dismissively at the girl. The girl removed her hand, said something else I couldn’t catch but North shook his head again. He nudged her out of the way to find the ball again, dropping it onto the table in the center. He locked his eyes on my face, the expression icy, focused.
“Ready?” he asked from across the table. The way he did it seemed almost forced. He was tuning out the girl next to him.
The raven haired girl frowned, turned around and headed back into the throng of the party.
“Did she want to play?” I asked. I felt lighter now that he’d dismissed her but was sorry if she only wanted a turn and was just asking him for one.
North tilted his head at me. “No,” he replied. He spun the handles on his side, knocking the ball into action.
I held onto the opposite ends to stop his ability to spin the soccer men at the ball. He tried twisting handles to wrench my hold and we soon got into a match that distracted me from what had just happened. I didn’t suppose he would have told me anyway.
Despite my best effort to cheat, North was faster and he often used my own soccer men against me to score.
After ten more rounds, Nathan held up his hands. “Okay, we’re done. I can’t lose any more.”
“Sorry,” I said, releasing a small pout. I’d had fun but felt like losing was my fault. I couldn’t beat North.
Nathan smirked at me, shaking his head. “Remind me to teach you how to play better sometime.”
“She should be asking me how to play,” North said, coming around the table and carrying his cup. “Did I forget to mention that my dad had one of these things? I grew up with one so I had plenty of practice.”
“They have table soccer in Europe?” I asked. I knew he and his dad traveled around Europe before he came to live here and joined the Academy.
“My friends in Spain were wild about it. The French not so much. The Greeks set the tables on fire if they lost.”
My lips parted. “Greece? Did you ever run into Silas over there?”
“Who do you think talked him into moving out here?” North said. “I told Mr. Blackbourne I wouldn't come over without him.”
The new information sent my mind spinning. North and Silas were friends before the Academy, just like Luke and Nathan and the others were friends before they signed up. Is that how the Academy worked? They focused on groups of kids who were already friends and brought them in together? It made me wonder what kind of school kept tabs on students and who their friends are. And if what Derrick had told me earlier was true, they’d not only brought in the group of friends, but a group of friends they caught stealing. The Academy was very unusual.
I also thought back to what Gabriel had told me. Silas joined them first here in the states, and North didn’t show up until a year later. How did it take so long for both of them to join? Luke said he didn’t know he had a brother before North appeared one night out of the blue. Did that mean Mr. Blackbourne knew before Luke did?
I opened my mouth to ask another question but my arm was nudged.
“Aggele,” Silas collided with me again. “Are you done playing? Come sit with me.”
I nodded, sorry to think that the moment to ask North more about his past was lost. Still, I hoped that this was the time when the guys and I could collect in a corner somewhere, looking somewhat social to blend in but just talk to each other.
Silas collected my hand, and I picked my cup up from the table. Before I could bring it to my mouth for a sip, North shot a hand between my mouth and the cup lip. My eyes widened and I turned to him, confused.
“Give me that,” he said, taking my cup from me.
“Was that yours?” I asked. “I thought it was mine. Sorry.”
“No,” he said. “I’ll get you another one.”
“Come on,” Silas urged.
I followed behind Silas, looking back at North. Nathan collected his cup and followed North back toward the dining room.
“Hey, Silas,” a familiar voice said. I peeked around his arm. Jay and Rocky sat together on the center couch. The raven-haired girl North had dismissed earlier was perched on the arm of the couch next to Rocky. His arm was wrapped around her waist. Rocky nodded in my direction. “Well, if it isn’t Sang. I thought for sure Silas was bullshitting.”
My spine rippled. I slid a glance at Silas, finding it impossible to ask the many questions that I wanted to ask in that moment.
His hand tightened around mine. “Nope. Told you she’d come along.” Someone got up from one of the nearby sofa chairs. Silas slid into it, pulling me along until I was sitting in his lap. He kept one hand on my back, smoothing across the outside of the hoodie and warming. His other hand cupped my knee.
Because of my sideways position and the way he was sitting in the chair, I felt unbalanced, even with his hand at my back. I leaned into him, putting an arm around his shoulder. I planted a hand on his chest.
He shifted slightly, sitting back in the chair, beaming. “Comfortable?”
My heart started to flutter again. I nodded to him.
“Doesn’t she ever talk?” Rocky asked. His aggressive eyes zeroed in on me. “Talk.”
My eyes widened. I glanced at Silas but his look was encouraging me. I didn’t know what to say. “Talk about what?” I asked in a small voice, quiet enough that I wondered if he could hear me over the music.
“Anything,” Rocky said. An eyebrow lifted and an intense sensation swept over me.
The raven-haired girl bent over, saying something to Rocky. Rocky shook his head, waved her off but continued to fix his eyes on me. The girl glared in my direction. I felt myself shrinking into Silas, wanting to squirrel away somewhere else. Maybe I could tell Nathan I was tired and he’d drive me home. I didn’t fit in here. If raven-haired girl wanted the attention, I’d let her have it.
I still couldn’t find anything to say. What did Rocky expect me to talk about? I was about to say I didn’t want to talk but was saved when North approached, holding another red cup out to me. I took it. “Thank you,” I told him.
“You did a good job out on the field today, North,” Jay said. His bald head nodded toward North. “I had to admit, I didn’t think you could do it. At practice you’re always so slow.”
“I do what I have to,” North said, his expression unreadable to me. He took a sip from his cup.
“I missed the baseball game tonight,” Silas said. “Anyone know the score?”
Silas redirected the conversation. Jay was quiet, like North, but popped in with a sarcastic comment on occasion. Rocky and a couple of the other guys fell into a conversation about the upcoming World Series games.
Nathan and North
talked behind me. I yearned to stand up and talk to them instead, but Silas kept his arm around me. It was comfortable to be with him, but I didn’t like the way Rocky kept looking over at me, and the way the girl at his side glared in my direction.
At some point North sat down on the arm of the chair. This made it easier to hear their conversation. It didn’t matter what they were talking about, their familiar voices were soothing.
My hands reflexively curled around Silas’s hair at his neck as I relaxed. Silas traced a finger along the inside of my knee.
North’s broad back warmed mine.
At some point, Nathan reached out to tug at my hair to get my attention, I figured it was just to let me know he was still there.
The girl’s eyes could have shot daggers with as cold a look as she gave me. It was uncomfortable enough that I didn’t want to sit with Silas any more.
When felt I could do it without seeming rude to the people talking, I turned around in his lap so I could face the other guys. Silas hooked an arm around my waist, still holding on to me but leaning a little to one side so he could continue the conversation with Rocky.
North inched over, and sat further back on the arm of the chair to give me room. Nathan drug over a folding chair someone had abandoned, planting it near the sofa seat and sitting in it backwards.