I didn't remember falling asleep that night. All I really knew was that Wyatt was still snoring in my bed and that my head felt like an ice pick was being plunged into my skull. I was absolutely never drinking again. Reluctantly, I turned myself over, both to avoid the sun coming through the window and also to look at him. Now I was the creep who watched people sleep, if Wyatt woke up right now he would never let me live this down.

He was a stomach sleeper, his arms tucked under his pillow forming a circle around his head. Actually, that was my pillow. Also he was drooling on it.

I had really let him kiss me last night…

More than that, actually. I had wanted him to kiss me.

After a moment of thought I made the terrible decision to pull myself out of bed, allowing him to still sleep while I intended to see if a hot shower made me feel a little bit better, even if I wasn't entirely sure I trusted myself to shower and not drown.

I rummaged through the drawer for clean clothes and walked into the hallway feeling like a zombie.

Showering did help a little bit, even though there was a brief point where I was fairly sure I was going to vomit down the drain.

Seriously, I'm never drinking again.

Wyatt was awake when I went back into my dorm, fidgeting awkwardly on my bed he handed me a bottle of water and coaxed me to at least attempt to drink something.

"It'll help." He assured me. "You're dehydrated."

I accepted it begrudgingly and sat next to him. Everything felt different now and a thick tension crept into the air, just sitting next to him felt strangely intimate.

"I'm pretty sure if I eat or drink anything I'll vomit." I stated.

"You're hungover, you big baby. That's what happens when you don't eat or drink any water before getting drunk."

He pushed an elbow into me gently and put his hand on top of mine. I pulled away in an embarrassing panic.

"I'm sorry I kissed you." Wyatt said shamefully. "You must feel weird around me now." I didn't respond, I just kept my gaze on the floor and fidgeted awkwardly. "You just seemed like you wanted me to… It doesn't have to mean anything, we aren't suddenly a couple or any of that."

Did it mean anything to him? I wondered.

"Do you think the guys wanna go grab breakfast or something this morning?" I asked in an awkward attempt to ease the tension. "I'm hungry and I don't really wanna stay on the grounds today."

He gave a sharp inhale in place of a laugh.

"They're always keen to do something that doesn't involve studying so I'm sure they would." He brought his head down and blushed.

"I never realized how petite you are." He said with a small smile. "I noticed when I was holding you. You're on the taller side but you're tiny. I can get a single arm around your waist."

My face burned hot.

"I'm taller than the rest of my team and they're all older than me." I reminded him.

"You're half Russian, of course you're taller than them." He got up, taking me by the hand and pulling me off the bed. "Come on, I need to shower still so you're gonna come to my room so I can get clothes."

I took my hand back before he opened the door, following him down to the end of the hallway. It was funny when you thought about it… My room had somehow managed to become the main hang out area and after almost a month and a half Wyatt had never actually invited me into his room before.

He pulled a key that hung on a necklace chain from under his shirt, unlocking the door and holding it open for me.

Unlike mine, his room was decorated in photographs and postcards spanning from within the last week and going back to when he was younger. One of the oldest ones he appeared to be maybe ten or eleven, posing happily with who I assumed were his parents and surprisingly large selection of siblings.

"How many brothers and sisters do you have?" I asked surprised. He chuckled as though he knew I would notice.

"Five. Two sisters and three brothers." He walked over to where I was looking at the photograph, pointing out himself and then moving along the row. "That's my older sister Cecile, my brother Byron, my little brother Rickie, then the twins are only two in this picture but that's Claudia and Toby." He blushed just a hint. "Our parents like posh names, it's so embarrassing."

The only English names I knew were from Max's team so that meaning was relatively lost to me.

His entire family dressed nicely; posing in what appeared to be some sort of country club setting. Clearly I wasn't the only trust fund baby in the group that had taken me in.

"This was taken in LA," He paused, suddenly remembering I had only ever been to New York. "That's in California, but we live in Aspen, Colorado."

I had heard of California but I wasn't sure where it was on a map and I didn't think I had ever heard of Colorado.

"Have you always gone to boarding school?" I asked. In a lot of photographs he was wearing a uniform.

"Private school, yes, but this is actually my first boarding school. Cecile studies abroad too, in England. We aren't forced to board when we hit high school but my parents think it looks good on college applications and it's a good experience." He turned to me. "For the most part, although I got beat up a few times at private school too."

Was getting assaulted just a part of school I had never been aware of?

He pulled open his dresser drawer and grabbed clean clothes while I continued to look at the large wall of photographs.

"Oh yeah," He perked up, "I've been meaning to give you this." He handed me an old MP3 player. "I noticed you listen to music a lot and you're doing really well in English. I downloaded some American bands I thought you might like."

I didn't even realize he noticed that I liked music, I had figured he would assume my headphones were for tuning him out.

"Thanks." I said, without sarcasm for once. "That's actually really cool."

He winked at me and my face warmed more, a slight flutter hitting my chest.

"I'll be right back." He said, walking out into the hall and leaving me alone in his bedroom.

I didn't like being in here alone, it felt too intimate to be in his room without him, maybe even a little erotic. His bed was unmade and his desk was cluttered with papers, even his dresser had been left open when he took out clean clothes.

I peaked in, I wasn't looking for underwear or anything like that, get your mind out of the gutter, if anything I think curiosity had just gotten the better of me. He had more than just clothes stored away, there was also a bottle of alcohol and a glass pipe stowed in the corner next to what looked like a miniature shampoo bottle but I soon realized was a bottle of lubricant.

I sat down on his bed. My pants had tightened a bit now and I needed to relax before he came back in here. What was I gonna say? Hey sorry, when you went to take a shower I found your lube and got hard thinking about you jacking off.

Yeah that would work great…

That was exactly what had just happened, though…

I still didn't completely understand what was happening to me. Was I attracted to him? Had I just had a sudden jump start into puberty and he happened to be the one who was caught in the middle of it?

I was lying to myself again, just like I had been for the past few weeks. I wouldn't say it out loud, since I didn't even want to say it in my head, but I knew exactly what was happening to me.

I had a huge crush on him.

It didn't take Wyatt long to finish showering. He came back into the room to find me curled up on his bed contemplating that I was losing all control of my life and that I didn't like it, meaning he came back to me laying in his bed pouting.

"I ran into Avery on the way to the showers and he wants to come with us, Emile and Henri are flying home for the long weekend so I think it's just gonna be us this time. Maybe Marcus too, I'm not sure."

He ignored that I was laying in his bed, probably because he did the same thing to me all the time, instead laying next to me and pulling me into a hug. Blushing deeply, I pushed him off and got up, startling him. "Are you alright?" He asked.

"I'm fine. Let's get out of here."

He shrugged it off, clearly used to my socially anxious behavior by now.

We walked out into the hallway; taking the elevator downstairs to where Avery was waiting to sign out with us and took the bus downtown, stopping at a cafe that Tea Shop Girl did not work at much to Avery's annoyance. We found a booth, ordered a pot of tea to share and relaxed, hoping we would be able to find something more interesting to talk about than homework. Although I was drinking tea and wearing a sweater and scarf, I still took notice of how cold it was starting to get outside. Winter was right around the corner meaning that soon everyone was going to fly home and I was going to be by myself, whether I liked it or not.

"Are you both flying back home for Winter break?" I asked. It might be a good idea to figure out some kind of plan for myself.

"Kai, it's not even November yet." Wyatt reminded me. Hey, it was still cold. "Speaking of which who's hosting the Halloween party this year? Since Kyoshiro graduated we can't borrow one of the big dorms." He ruffled my hair playfully. "We're not gonna make you dress up, I promise. The seniors have TV's, though, so last year we watched scary movies and ate junk food. It wasn't a big deal but it was fun."

That actually didn't sound fun at all. It sounded like the same thing we did at Tyson's house but without a coffee table for me to rest my head and fall asleep on.

Speaking of Tyson, an obnoxious but very familiar voice shouted my name through the shop, startling me enough to make me spill tea on the table.

"Kai!" He yelled again, running over to us with a large grin. "What are you doing here?"

Wyatt shot up in excitement.

"You're Tyson Granger!" He yelled, unable to bare his fan boy excitement.

He was truly a detective.

"Chill out, Wyatt." I told him, placing a hand on his shoulder. I wasn't really sure what to say to Tyson, we had never really run into each other outside of the practice season before, so I was thankful when he answered for me after gaining composure.

"We're Kai's friends, from Prep." He said, shaking his hand.

Tyson looked down at me confused.

"I didn't even know you went to the Prep School." He stated. "Isn't that a boarding school?" To be honest I was expecting the confusion to stem from me having friends, not me going to school here.

"That's the one." I answered coldly.

He sat down with us without asking, unintentionally shoving Avery into the booth. I wondered if Wyatt was secretly bummed that he wasn't sitting next to him.

"Have you always been this close to my neighborhood? I live like ten minutes away. I think our schools have competed against each other in sports before."

I couldn't tell if Tyson was truly curious about my life or was offended at the idea that I had been here all this time and never told him.

"I started part way through the first semester. I haven't actually been here that long."

The confusion wore off of his eyes, like it suddenly clicked that I didn't just not tell him where I was because I didn't like him. In my defense, I had no idea where he went to school; the only reason I knew he lived in the area was because I had been to his house before.

He giggled slightly uncomfortably, scratching at the back of his head.

"To be honest, Kai, I didn't even recognize you at first. I'm so used to only seeing you during training I've never actually seen you in street clothes before. I've never even seen you without your face painted."

He was exaggerating, actually, I'd spent the night at his house and we had shared a hotel room before, and last time I checked I didn't automatically wake up looking awesome.

Now Avery seemed more confused.

"Wait, you guys don't hang out together outside of tournament season? Aren't you all friends?"

"I mean, yeah," Tyson chimed in, "Of course we're friends, but Rei goes home when he isn't training and Max goes to school in New York. Honestly Kai, you usually just show up eventually, being dark and mysterious is just kind of who you are. I seriously cannot picture you wearing a school uniform."

"I have pictures!" Wyatt laughed, putting an arm around my shoulder.

"Would you knock it off?" I pushed him off of me. I was getting anxious. Not seeing my team regularly had made it easy to keep my personal life quiet and up until recently friends were not exactly a large part of said life. I mean, I shouldn't feel embarrassed that I had friends, my teammates were my friends, but I suddenly felt like I was watching a movie about my life instead of being a part of it, which meant I wasn't in control anymore. Wyatt seemed to notice something was wrong but to absolutely no ones surprise Tyson remained completely clueless.

"Kenny should be here any minute." He stated, "We're actually meeting up with Max as well today! He's here for the long weekend, his dad is probably at the airport now, actually. Something about wanting to get the baby used to flying for long hours. I think the reality is just that his mom wants some peace and quiet."

I could hear and take in what he was saying, but for some reason my mind still felt clouded. I couldn't tell where my eyes were even looking because I still felt like I was watching everything happen from somewhere else.

"We're allowed to be out until eight at night." Avery told Tyson. "Sorry, I know we aren't part of the team or anything, I don't even blade, outside of Kai only Wyatt does, but it's not every day you run into someone famous."

"Avery, the Prime Ministers nephew is in our Maths class." Wyatt remarked.

Tyson's ego was too big to notice anything outside of being called famous, so he ignored the last remark, stating that we could all go over to his house. Actually if our entire team was here I would have at least had Rei to roll my eyes toward whenever Tyson said something stupid. Avery was a pervert but harmless, Wyatt was actually the one I was worried about. He had no filter and he liked to tease me, which would be fine if I wasn't currently coming to terms with the fact that I was feeling something toward him.

Something about Wyatt made me let my guard down, which was bad because if my team really wanted to get together on these terms I needed my guard up.

I wasn't ready for this.