Maybe something about bi Kevin? And him growing into himself at Palmetto and out of Edgar Allen?
What Kevin knows is this: Thea, a match of passion and love for the sport and not each other. Secrets shared (unwise) and mutually assured destruction. A foundation of blood and pain and something to call your own. A life line, until neither of them need one any more.
What Kevin knows is this: Riko, friend and brother and abuser. As a child, single-minded devotion and awe. Older, wary respect. Older still, confusion and fear and pain. Betrayal. Tenterhooks sunk into his heart and his ribs and the marrow of his bones and he can never escape the pull or the pain of them.
What Kevin knows is this: Andrew, protection, annoyance. A promise, a hope, of life and autonomy and the chance to do what he loves without fear. Irritation, always, at untapped potential and stubbornness. Fear, underneath it all, that he’s not enough. Worse, that he will turn on Kevin. Grudging respect, but they are not even friends, not really.
What Kevin doesn’t know is this: Love. Romance. A relationship built on trust and adoration and reciprocated devotion.
---
When Kevin is thirteen and starting to notice how the older Ravens slip into each other’s rooms and closets and dark corners, his PR coach adds new instructions in his media training. Always smile, deflect questions, represent the Ravens well, date only women. Kevin isn’t sure why the command is necessary, but he agrees obediently.
When Kevin is nineteen and scoping out Edgar Allen’s competition ("As if they provide any actual challenge,” Riko scoffs, and Kevin smiles.) he notices the Trojans’ new captain. Bright eyes and a bright smile and a bright laugh. ("Weak,” Riko says. “Friendship and good sportsmanship does not win championships.” Kevin nods and does not smile.)
It sticks with him in a way it shouldn’t. He has noticed, sometimes, a new Raven who smiles more than he should until he stops. He has noticed, sometimes, good physique in the form of toned muscles stretching across the arms and backs and chests of a few Ravens in the locker room. He has noticed, sometimes, the way Jean’s hair grows too long and curls, just slightly, at the ends. It means nothing.
He admires Knox, as a good player and a good captain. His sense of fairness and sportsmanship is a refreshing break from the Ravens, when Kevin lets himself think something so sacrilegious.
It is admiration, and respect, and a quiet longing for a life of bright and honest and true things, nothing more.
But the smile, the eyes, the laugh, sticks with him.
It means nothing. It must mean nothing. (It means something, and it terrifies Kevin. He refuses to think about it.)
---
He tells Andrew and Neil to keep their relationship a secret, though he knows it’s probably useless. They will do what they want, to Kevin’s never ending consternation. “Coming out generates a lot of bad press,” he tells them. “Bad press means it’s harder to be signed to a pro team, harder to make Court.”
Neil hesitates at that, nervousness flickering across his face. Not making a pro team, not making Court, is a death sentence, and they both know it. Andrew just scoffs. “Of course we’ll have bad press. This one can’t ever keep his mouth shut. Scouts are still interested him, though I can’t imagine why they’d willingly subject themselves to such an idiot.” He scowls at Neil, who, bizarrely, smiles back, nervousness apparently disappearing.
Kevin frowns and looks away. Something aches in his chest, and he rubs at it and wonders if he pulled a muscle during practice.
---
Six months after Riko’s death, Jean calls him. The phone rings six times before Kevin can unfreeze long enough to pick it up.
“Kevin,” Jean says.
“Jean,” Kevin says, his voice hoarse. Then, quietly, “is everything okay?”
Silence, for long enough that Kevin checks to see if he hung up. “Yeah,” Jean says, and there’s a lightness in his voice that Kevin hasn’t heard since Jean first showed up at the Nest. “Everything’s okay.”
They speak again, after that, and again. Awkwardness slowly bleeds out of their conversations and they reach something better than the grim alliance they had under Riko. Jean texts him about Laila’s new puppy and Kevin calls to complain about the freshmen backliners.
The Trojans win a death match against Penn State and Kevin calls to congratulate him. Jean says, interrupting Kevin’s criticism of Penn State’s offensive line, “Jeremy kissed me tonight.”
Kevin falls silent. He thinks of Andrew and says, as carefully as he can, “did you want him to?”
Jean says nothing for a moment, then, “yes. It was nice.”
Kevin swallows back something that burns like jealousy, and says, because there have been few nice things in their lives, “I’m glad.”
“It’s not smart,” Jean says, “I know that. Bad press. But-” He stops and doesn’t continue. Kevin thinks he understands.
Kevin thinks about the Foxes, about safety and protection and the freedom to play the game he loved. He thinks of Wymack, of his father, of the tentative, careful steps towards family. He thinks of something Abby once told him. “We deserve to have nice things in our lives,” he says.
He can hear Jean’s breath hitch. “Yes,” Jean says. “We do.”
---
There’s a boy in Kevin’s Medieval History class with dark brown eyes and short brown hair and light brown skin. He’s not particularly remarkable – when he offers an answer to the professor he is rarely wrong, and his notes, when Kevin sits behind him and sees them, are neat and orderly, but he is not the best student in the class, or the loudest, or the funniest.
When the professor returns their first essays and the boy sees his score, he smiles, quick and pleased and brilliant, and Kevin’s heart thumps strangely against his rib cage.
Kevin sees him in the library, browsing through the history section, and at the campus’s Starbucks, and napping beneath a tree between classes. He sees him at the lecture their professor offered extra credit for, and in the union playing pool, and running around the track with the soccer team. He sees him, it seems, everywhere.
Kevin doesn’t realize the boy has seen him too.
He’s working on homework at the library, Aaron a silent companion, when the boy appears at their table. “Hi,” he says, and smiles, and Kevin blinks at him. “You’re Kevin Day, right?” Kevin grits his teeth, just a little, because he’s not prepared to entertain a fan or field invasive questions about his past with the Ravens. Then the boy continues, “We’re both in History 5300, with Professor Davis.”
“Oh,” Kevin says, “um. Yes, we are.”
The boy’s grin widens. “I’m Jaden.” He nods towards Kevin’s laptop. “Are you working on that Augustine essay?”
Kevin, his words lost somewhere in his throat, nods. Jaden shakes his head, a rueful expression on his face. “I have to admit, this one’s giving me trouble. My grandma’s Catholic, so I thought I’d be able to understand it all a little better, but this guy is ridiculously intense.”
“My mom was Catholic,” Kevin volunteers, and then doesn’t know why he did so. Aaron gives him a weird look, but Kevin ignores him. “But you really just have to analyze it critically in regards to the historical impacts. You don’t have to be religious for that.” It comes out stiffer, more disapproving than Kevin really intended, but Jaden isn’t fazed.
“You’re better at it than I am, I suppose.” He glances at Aaron, then says, a little hesitant. “Do you mind if I sit with you? Maybe we can talk it over, review each other’s theses, that kind of thing.” Kevin doesn’t need help, doesn’t need to talk about the essay, doesn’t even really want to, but he nods.
Jaden beams, and sits down.
---
A year and a half after Riko’s death, Kevin calls Jean.
“Jaden kissed me,” he says. “It was nice.”
He can hear Jean’s smile. “We deserve to have nice things in our lives.”
Kevin smiles, and he isn’t afraid.
