Page 21 of Ruining His Smirk

“Instead he accused you?”

“Yeah. He said I’d cheated. I was shocked. Absolutely shocked.”

“Did you ask him how you cheated?”

I gave a small, humorless laugh. “Of course I did. Even the referee did. He… he refused to explain.” I shook my head. “He just kept insisting I’d cheated.”

The memory still stung like a barb.

“But the worst part was when I collected my fencing gear from him, there was a moment when there was nobody else around. And that’s when he looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘You’re pretty… and you used it.’”

Keith almost growled. “What a coward.”

I stared out at the Antarctic horizon. “Yeah. I didn’t know what to do with that.”

Keith pushed himself off the railing abruptly. “Nothing. Just ignore him.”

“I honestly thought he would be different.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re not teens anymore.” I shrugged. “He’s not some random guy I picked up from a gym or a bar. We’re professionals. We’re colleagues. This is a workplace.”

The Antarctic wind tugged gently at the pages of my sketchbook.

“And…” I laughed once again without humor. “I never expected someone like him to have so much in common with me. I suppose that gave me a false sense of security. I really liked him, Keith, and I guess I had started crushing on him.”

Keith squeezed my shoulder. “I’d underestimated… the connection between you. Will you be okay while he is here?”

“There is one thing I haven’t told you.”

He frowned. “What?”

“Remember the penguin rescue?”

“As if anyone can forget that.”

I laughed. “…I got a note from him.”

His eyebrows shot up. “You what?”

I unzipped the canvas pouch that held my pencils and sketching supplies and reached inside. I took out the note and handed it to him.

“He sent it through Dr. Park.”

Keith took it from me and unfolded it slowly while staring at me.

“Read it.” I nodded at the note.

I challenge you to a duel, Nate Braddock. Meet me at Waypoint Station. We fight until death.

He looked up. “What the hell? It isn’t even signed.”

I took the note back from him and slipped it into the pouch again.

“Yeah. He didn’t need to. I knew instantly whose it was. It’s our language… if things had been different, and someone wrote me that?” I shook my head. No point in going there.

Keith was quiet for a moment before looking at me again. “You stay away from him, Nate.”