And They Were Roommates(51)

I must fail at the whole “level” thing because Blaze’s demeanor shifts to pity. He nods and leads me toward the cockblockade. Instead of approaching the usual gate, he makes a left and continues down until we reach a different side gate. Beyond it is a barnlike structure with white paneled walls and a Valentine-red roof. A second checkout booth rises before it, where a middle-aged employee sits.

By the time I catch up, Blaze is in the middle of saying, “He requests a viewing of the equestrian premises to preview his future ranking privileges—”

“Just go through, Blaze,” the employee interrupts. He presses a button inside, and the gate opens, its hinges shrieking. “Both of you.”

I blink, stunned.

Unspoken Guideline 15: Top five’s rapport really does beat all guidelines.

The moment Blaze and I walk through the gate, we’re standing in an enclosed white-picket paddock surrounded by well-kept pink-and-red flower beds, where eight brown horses that double my height meander. No employees or students.

“Where is everyone?” I ask.

“Stable hands unofficially depart prematurely on weekends,” Blaze says, tapping numerically labeled buttons on a panel by the locked door. “We hold the code.”

There’s a click, and then Blaze twists the handle. I follow him through a hall of empty stall gates and bales of hay, then into a back storage room packed with multicolored treat buckets and enrichment toys shaped like fidget spinners. By the only exit door stands a girl with light-brown skin, wearing a plaid skirt and thigh-highs. She’s digging through a tarp bag.

“London,” Blaze whispers.

London turns around so rapidly that her straight, dark hair swishes into her face. The number-three pin on her dress shirt collar matches Blaze’s. She reaches for Blaze’s backpack, takes out the rubber-banded love letters, and shoves them into hers set on the ground. In return, she hands him a fresh stack from the sister academy students.

I silently watch the exchange. Even though this room is tucked away, I imagined way more secret-agent-level dexterity here. “Hey, do you know Delilah Miller?”

London doesn’t look up from the backpack. “Kind of.”

“Could you tell her to come around here? Now? She’s not top five, but if she could just pass the sidewalk here or something, I can step out for a sec—”

“Is this for STRIP?”

“He can be trusted,” Blaze says simply.

She hesitates before nodding. She sets off with the letters and heads out the back emergency door leading to the enclosed paddock of horses.

So, we sit cross-legged on the back-room floor and wait, picking at stray hay. Blaze glances my way every few seconds, radiating nervous energy even though he’s done deliveries plenty of times before. Maybe my own nerves are contagious.

Eventually, the ten-minute warning bell rings.

“Milady may hath been captured on her passage to seeth thee,” Blaze says through a frown.

I’m sure she wasn’t caught. Odds are she just wasn’t in her room when London went to find her.

But a gut feeling that something is off persists. I rise and offer Blaze a hand. His eyes swell as he accepts it, but not without knocking his head against a helmet hung on the wall. “Maybe we should get out of here,” I say uneasily.

Blaze leads the way out of the equestrian center. We pass the horses in the paddock that barely pay us any mind, then the gate. My shoulder knocks into a rake, and it falls and clanks against the handle. I jump, looking over my shoulder.

“Comrade?” Blaze calls. He’s already by the cockblockade.

“Nothing.” I hurry to catch up with him before the crash gains the attention of anyone it shouldn’t.

“Would you like to speak with me instead?” Blaze asks once I catch up, voice quiet. “Instead of milady?”

Blaze, who’s in STRIP? At Valentine, period?

“How dare I be so forward?” Blaze says as if my slight pause alone turned him self-conscious. “However, you heed of my war. And although I fail to possess such a real tie, I envisage you as someone as trustworthy as an elder brother—” His pudgy eyes widen more. “I mean, brother of ancestral darkness.”

I try not to laugh as we head through the cockblockade again. In Queens, there were middle school girls who were indifferent toward me during my tutoring lessons until goodbyes, when tears would suddenly launch out of their eyes. I never thought I’d find that here, let alone from another boy. But then I remind myself, Blaze is only twelve.

“Jasper and I fought,” I say honestly.

“Are you not both eternally quarreling?” Blaze asks.

“What? You’ve seen us?”

“Such is never a laborious effort. You both excel at commotion.”

My body tenses at the profound weight of being perceived. My conversations with Jasper always feel so isolated, like the rest of the world doesn’t exist, that I always forget people can see them, let alone think about or draw conclusions from them. Luis said before that there are rumors about why we’re roommates. But are there more?

“This was worse,” I mutter. “I think I’ll be quitting STRIP.”

Blaze glares at the crescent moon above us. “Jasper, that crook.”

The fact that he takes my side without needing any explanation warms my heart again. But the words quitting STRIP still hang heavy in the air between us as we walk back to Philautia Residence Hall.