There was no running from Sebastian's gaze, while he was standing still and I was sprinting. No dodging the heavy weight of his eyes, appraising every swing of my legs, every inch of my stride, every bob of my head. He was both our team captain and coach at the same time, giving tips and pointers as easily as praise. But where he hesitated—where he floundered—was with criticism. Instead, he was stoic, biting his lower lip, his fingers drumming on the sides of his legs.

"We'll work on it," he said, as he handed the baton back to me after looping down from the finish line. "Run with the open end facing the wind, for less drag. The air whistles down the center and you'll hear when you have it just right."

"Gotcha," I said, but my face heated beyond the sheen of sweat on my brow. "I'm just a bit out of practise."

Appeased, Sebastian nodded without meeting my eyes, and we worked on drills for the rest of the morning, the sun rising as the temperature spiked, amber light filling every part of the sky. Then, at the end of practise, he handed me the baton to keep. "I have fifty more," he said honestly, his tone light. "But don't run too much outside of practise. Rest days are as important as training days."

Before I could agree, I saw Harrison sticking out his tongue, his running shoes splattered with mud from narrowly avoiding a puddle on the grass. "Oh, I see how it is," he said, tying back his curly hair into a little puff behind his head. Laurie wasn't quite as lucky, his hair too short to make a ponytail, so he just pushed it behind his ears. "Our new boy gets shoes and perks and pats on the head. What about me?"

He seemed so serious, as he said it, but Sebastian just rolled his eyes. "The last thing you need is more encouragement," he said, and nodded at the bleachers, which had filled partway through practise with other students who had gotten to school early, a few of the girls waving in our direction. Of the four of us, Harrison was the only one who waved back. "You've got a big enough head as it is."

"How dare you," he said. "I'm a growing boy." But even Laurie laughed, his eyes following Sebastian's mouth as he talked.

"He's right, you know," Laurie said, and that just made Harrison laugh even harder.

It was a good group dynamic, I decided, and as awkward as I felt standing in the space they'd left for me, I felt happy too. There hadn't been any hard questions, any weird looks. I was exactly who they wanted to see and nothing more.

"Okay, Jack, time to change," Laurie said, grabbing our two backpacks and slinging both over his shoulders. "Leave the two of them to fight it out."

"Like an old married couple?" I offered, and hearing the younger boy snicker eased some of the tension in my hands. I reminded myself that I had still made good time, on my sprints, even if I held the baton wrong while I ran, or had fumbled the first hand-off. I had this.

Or, well, I had time to figure it out.

***

Standing in the shower, down in the boys' locker room attached to the gym, I listened to Laurie's soft humming coming through the walls, the metal doors hardly muffling any sound. I'd seen the changing room at the academy twice before, and others besides, but always lingered like I'd never return. Like each time was a gift, rare and wonderful. Mostly because it was.

Back home, our bathroom was crammed corner to corner with stacks of old magazines, broken clothes hangers, and half-used bags of Epson salts, save for one side of the shower where the water could hit the tile under the window. And it was grimy, around the drain, so I always wore flip flops, even when the water ran clear and didn't smell like rusted metal.

Here, I had the space to put my bottle of body wash on the wall rack, my shampoo by my feet. Here, the shower-head was high enough to duck underneath, the water running down my back without me having to crouch under the half-hearted flow. Here, I could breathe, and the room smelled like soap, fresh towels, and air conditioning. Here, I felt clean. Refreshed.

The only real downside was knowing I wasn't alone. That every little shift of my body could be heard by everyone around me, any sound amplified by the sloped ceiling and perfect acoustics.

So I washed mostly without moving, until someone knocked on the stall door.

"Ten minutes to first period," someone said, and it took me a moment to realize it was Sebastian, the toes of his dark shoes and the bottom hem of his dress pants just peeking under the curve of the door. I hadn't noticed when he'd walked in, but he must've already showered, to be back in his school uniform.

"Oh shit," I said, and hurried to shut off the water, the silence so deafening for a moment that it was like the whole world was holding its breath.

When I stepped out, Harrison had gone, his first class on the opposite end of the school, across from Laurie's. That left me with Sebastian again, his back to a set of lockers, his eyes on his phone.

I had partially dressed, in the shower stall, but I hadn't expected him to still be here. I wasn't wearing a shirt.

He looked up, when I walked out, and immediately his eyes darted to the scar along the bottom of my ribs, pale and puckered by the hot water and the steam.

I had no good answers, and he didn't ask for any. He just stared, maybe a moment too long, before looking back at his phone.

"You'll need your own lock, for down here," he said, pointing at a stretch of lockers across from him. "Most of the sports teams come early to claim a bunch in a row."

"Right," I said, and eyed the ones behind him, which I knew were still empty. Laurie and Harrison had two next to each other by the door to the showers, which were easy to pick out since Harrison had keyed Harry into his. He almost got suspended for it, Laurie had said, when we'd walked in together and he'd pointed it out. But they let him off with a warning. He's so lucky that way. "Where's yours?"

Sebastian gestured with his free hand, and I guessed he meant the one on the other side of Harrison's, but the next two already had locks. "I'll nab one nearby, if I remember," I said.

Sebastian blinked, then shook his head like he'd forgotten something. "Sorry, I meant, we got you one already. So you just need a lock with a combination only you know."

"Oh," I said, catching his meaning and eyeing the two lockers again. "You really think of everything, huh?"

There was a beat of silence, then Sebastian dropped his gaze, shrugging. "You're new," he said softly, his dark bangs hiding his eyes. "You wouldn't know. That's all."

"Still," I said, and I hesitated like an idiot. What had I wanted to say? What did I need to say? I swallowed. "Thank you, for everything. Yesterday. Today. You don't really know me but you've given me a chance and I—"

My voice broke. Fuck.

I was supposed to play it cool; I was supposed to be the chill, unaffected newbie. The surprisingly had-it-all-together transfer student from a school no one had ever heard of. This was supposed to be a fresh slate for me.

But here I was, vulnerable and half-naked, trying to thank the hottest guy in school for just being nice to me. I forced myself to look away.

I couldn't quite put into words what Sebastian's approval meant to me. What it shouldn't have meant to me. Because I wasn't supposed to need it. I knew I was fast. I knew I was a good addition to the team. No one needed to tell me. But whenever Sebastian looked at me like he did, plainly, with a faint smile and a small nod, always quick to reassure me in that careful, gentle way of his, I was never quite sure what to do.

Like now.

When I looked up again, Sebastian was still poised against the wall, his gaze steady, unflinching. But he had bitten his lip again, the bottom one a bit red.

"You're welcome," he said finally. "But you make it easy, you know."

I met his eyes, then pulled on my button-up and my uniform blazer, so my hands had something to do. So I could drop my gaze back to the floor without being too obvious about it. "You're cooler than they said you'd be," I mumbled. "Can you stop doing that? Save some for the rest of us."

The joke sounded like the most forced thing I'd ever said, but Sebastian laughed, quiet and low, the sound clinging to the walls as we walked out together, heading to class, keeping pace.