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I found Colton at the skate park a day after Courtney made me her date. He'd been alone and practicing, just like I'd hoped. Rocco had told me bravery started with a small step sometimes, so here was an idea: just get Colton talking to me.

He stopped when he saw me. He looked like a perfect skater, white t-shirt and slightly rough jean-shorts. Strange, he didn't bother with knee or elbow pads, but he had the helmet. His red-brown fur gleamed in the early evening sunlight. He dropped down off the side of the half-pipe with a spring-loaded jump, taking his helmet off at the same time with one deft movement. He was about average weight for a fox, but he still thudded on to the ground and dropped into a crouch, like a soldier dropped and ready for combat. He got up slowly.

'Don't tell me you wanna learn to skate. Those bones'll shatter, raccoon. I know why you're here. I heard about my sister and you.'

'Well yeah, I was thinking, like...I've got take her out for dinner before prom, right? So...why don't you come? Bring whoever you're taking and we'll have dinner together.'

Colton laughed. 'Todd Aldrington, you're the biggest idiot I ever met in my life. I'm not going to the prom, dumbshit. If you were smart you'd have told my dumb sister to fuck off.'

'You're not going?'

Colton raised both hands to chest level, pointing his index fingers to the sky, and took a slow breath as if about to give a lecture on life. Then he seemed to change his mind. 'Okay, I want you to try something.' He held his right hand close to my face. 'Follow my hand with your eyes. Quick quick, like this.' He flicked it back and forth, clicking his fingers each time. Without having agreed, I was trying to follow it anyway. Just being this close to him felt nerve-wracking, and now he was giving me some sort of test?

'Too fast for you?' He stopped. 'See Todd, all those ball games don't give you reflexes worth shit. I am that fast. That's why I just tested for pilot training in the airforce. Guess what? They're signing me up.'

Then something happened that will stay with me for the rest of my life. He snapped his left fingers this time, and then his hand flashed past my face, along with the rest of him, and I barely saw it before his hand was on my shoulder, his arm against my back, and it was like he'd ghosted straight through me. Some part of me already trying to displace reminded me that I knew he was left-handed, and hadn't thought he was testing me with just his weak hand, saving the better one for a real move.

'And if I'm that fast, I get to try out for Nasa. _Astronaut, _raccoon. Think that could be you too?' He patted my shoulder, and I was sure I felt a shiver down the side of my neck that travelled all the way up into my skull. Was that a claw he'd just drawn down the side of my neck? Was this a -

'I get it,' he said. 'At least as much of you as there is to get. But listen. There's me, and there's you. I'm not even going to school anymore. I already completed all the assignments and handed them in and I'd already get a graduation score even if I hadn't. So what's the point? You, you're coasting to a nice easy finish and then the prom is the best night of your life. And you bagged my sister and it'll boost you a little socially. But I'm in the real world now. So what the fuck do I care about a prom?'

'Errrr...' I was lucky to get that much out of my mouth before I just stood there like I was on stage in front of a crowd of millions.

'Yeah,' Colton said with a wicked smile that that made me feel weak all over. He shook himself off, like touching me meant he needed to. 'Good answer.' He stood there looking at me as if searching for some way of making me feel worse than his sister had, but I knew he wasn't going to bully me, let alone touch me again. He was looking at me like actually, he got nothing_about me, but knew how to pretend. It was just the way Rocco said he'd behave. I wanted to believe my brother was right. I didn't want to feel like I was under the spell of royalty, but _man, Colton Vincent made me feel like I should have been on my knees to him, begging. He'd touched me shoulder. I'd never get to touch his coat, or feel the tip of my tongue on his razor-teeth, or tell him everything about the way he dressed and moved drove me wild the way girls were supposed to but just didn't. He'd laugh if I even spoke to him again.

No, none of this. This was what I knew would happen.

Colton turned his palms upwards. 'You're still standing there because...?'

Because I've got something. 'What's your five-k running time?'

'The hell you asking about that for?'

'I already know. It's nearly half an hour. Mine's seventeen and a half minutes.' This was coming out all wrong. Colton didn't look like he was going to hit me. He was going to crush me just by talking. That was the fox who sailed through school so fast he didn't need to attend anymore.

'Ooooh, the raccoon does something better than me. Yeah, have fun with your seventeen and a half minutes when you still can't go pro, and you're working a desk job with a shitty boss in between pretending there's still a chance.'

'It doesn't matter who's better, Colton,' I said. 'You want to be in the airforce, you've gotta be fit. Does half an hour for three miles pass that entry test?'

'Go back to your trailer, Aldrington. The scores I just gave them, the fitness test don't mean shit. And just so you know, I already passed. They only want a mile and a half in under twelve minutes. I did it.'

I believed him. 'That's the minimum,' I said. 'I had a recruiter try to convince me to join once. Know what he told me? Once you get into their college they expect a whooole lot more. He tried to sell it to me saying I could already do it all. Looks like they got you on the booksmarts. But let me know if you want someone to exercise with who won't make fun. And you should quit smoking.'

He put a Marlboro red between his lips and snapped a Zippo to it. Slowly, but I guessed he could have done it in a motion as fast as the one he'd used on me. 'Let me tell you something about my half hour time: I don't bother doing better because why would I want to compete when it's you at the front? My sister made a good choice, Aldrington. She really deserves to be fucking a trash-panda like you.' He walked away, back up onto the halfpipe, and started practicing moves, a cloud of smoke around his head with every jump. I watched him, hoping that me still being there would stoke him up enough to continue this until we just plain had a fight.

Then I knew I'd never win it and simply gave up.

* * *

'Bro that was killer!' Rocco said when we talked about it later in his room, in low voices. 'You've got him. He knows you're right. That asshole really got into the airforce as a pilot? I bet he's making it up anyway. You ask his sister yet?'

I'd asked several of her friends. It was true. The recruiters had had their eyes and Colton right from that career fair, and he'd given them gold.

'Rocco, listen, I don't think I like Colton anymore. Sure he's awesome to look at, but I should have just talked to him all along. He's a total shithead. I thought he was trying to be smart, but you know what he said to me?' I told him the last part of our conversation. 'I've got feelings, Rocco. Colton just wanted to hurt them. For real. And he did it. I feel like shit right now.'

'Okay, so now you can forget about him and find someone nice. I told you you could do better.'

A knock at the door came. Mum came in without waiting for a reply. 'Courtney Vincent's here,' she said. 'She wants you.'

* * *

Courtney looked like she was actually pleased to see me. She listened for a while, her sharp fox's hearing tuned in to how close my family were. Then she dropped her voice. 'I heard about you and my brother. This is perfect. Let's take a walk. I hear you're into barefoot. I'll leave these here then.' She took off her shoes and dropped them inside my doorway. Then before I could answer, she pulled me through it by my t-shirt and shut it behind us.

'Okay,' she said when we were down the block. 'For one night only, consider me your friend, because you're better at this than I thought. The whole idea of this was for me to help my brother. Because I'm really not so much of a bitch as you think. I need you for this. I need you to get him fit so he doesn't get eaten alive in this dream career of his if he gets it.'

'Stop,' I said. 'Right there. Why didn't you just ask me to help him? You've made me a laughing stock. Everyone knows it wasn't me who asked you to the prom. You did all this just for him? I'm not playing this game. You told me not to be a coward. So here's me not being a coward: fuck off, Courtney. I'm not going with you.'

Here eyes flashed, but it was with pleasure. 'Now_we're getting somewhere. Colton said he told you to say that. Here's why you _are still going with me: my BFF is going to do to Colton what I did to you and it's going to work, because he does care about the prom, because all the other hotshots out there like him who'll join up with him do. So we're going to have dinner together. The four of us. And that's the first step to him accepting your help and you...well, maybe you make an unlikely friend.'

'I really do not feel comfortable talking about this with you.' I was looking down the street. I forced myself to look at her. 'How did you know I was even....that way? And your brother...I'd never even talked to him before this afternoon. How did you even know all this?'

Courtney looked at me like for a moment, she was just an ordinary, averagely popular 12th grader. 'I didn't, dummy. Not until you just told me. My senses were just twitching a little. I didn't know it was Colton. I just know you go running past the skatepark all the time. You run a six minute mile. When you get to the skate park, you're just jogging. So I had a mental list, people you might have the eye for. Some of them were actually girls. I wondered about guys. But Colton? He wasn't even on it.'

I shut my eyes. 'Oooooh God! I'll give you anything you want if you'll just kill me right now.'

'If I killed you, how would I get whatever it is you're offering?'

'Look this is stupid anyway. Colton's not gay, is he? And by the way, I know what he actually is: a complete fucking douchebag. Did he tell you what he said to me?' I rattled off the whole conversation and didn't realise how mad it was making me until I stopped, and felt hot and twitchy.

'Yeah, he told me.' Courtney said. 'He felt bad about it. I know he did.'

'How?'

'You tell other guys when you've burned someone and you're proud of it. You don't tell your sister.'

Had I just found something that made this whole thing different? The world felt very still and calm all of a sudden. 'This is what he does? Use you like a therapist?'

'Just sometimes,' Courtney said. 'Not all the time. Alright, I told you I'm your friend for just one night. So make use of it, because this conversation never happened. I don't always know what Colton is underneath, Todd. I just know a couple of things people don't, and they're not for me to say. But just between you and me....okay, I meant it when I said you were a nice guy. Are you a nice guy who can keep a secret?'

'I've been in the closet for how long now and you're asking if I can keep secrets?'

She shrugged and smiled. 'Okay, you got me. Nice snark. You enjoy it?'

'Yep.'

'Okay. I did this whole prom-date thing because I just wanted to let one decent guy like you into the house. Not all the people I'm supposed to like. I wanted you on radar because I want Colton to know you too. Because I think he's going to need a good friend soon.'

This was sounding like it was about to get into something sad, and the way she said it, I was almost more afraid of the real her and the real Colton than the ones I'd already been burned by.

'Todd, I don't think the airforce can take Colton. They just haven't seen the reason yet. As his application gets more advanced, they'll see it. He already knows it but he's trying to pretend it's nothing. And it's not the fitness thing. It's worse than that. It's not anything terrible about him as a person. He just had some bad luck.'

I thought my way through the same recruitment process I'd had explained to me. 'Something on his medical history?'

The look she gave me said I was on the right lines, but I could tell she was refusing to nod, or shake, or do anything. 'It's really not for me to talk about. I already told you more than I should have, and I'd be an even worse sister if I went into the really personal stuff. If you can ever get it out of him, it's for him to say. I'm pretty certain he's in for one great big crash. And I'm glad he knows you. Because God knows half his other friends will probably just think that getting him wrecked is what'll help when it happens. When it happens, Todd. I'm sure of it. They're not going to take him. All that stuff I said about you getting him was crap. But I want you to try it anyway. Because I want him to know someone decent.'

After what he'd said to me, I shouldn't have felt sorry for him, but I did, whatever the reason was. 'Maybe I should just respect his space then. It'll just be awkward if he ever finds out I like him like that and he doesn't feel that way about guys. I can't mess with someone's feelings. Maybe I actually am nice. And I think you're going to let me be your friend for more than just once day.'

'You'll only hear me say it once, Todd-boy, so listen up: I'm not who people think I am either. You want my _secret? I think I'm starting to hate gymnastics. I think I wanna go to college and take up something new. _Anything but more fucking gym. Soon as I tell Mum and Dad I didn't sign on to the Harvard team, oh just start imagining the freakout.'

'You got into Harvard? I didn't think we'd had applications returned yet.'

'Todd. Who are my family? Of course I'm getting in.'

'But they can't get Colton into the airforce?' I wished I hadn't said it. 'Sorry.'

'Stop saying sorry for everything. You've got it exactly: money and influence doesn't reach everywhere. Colton thinks it does. That's the real crash. Mummy and Daddy can't buy the one dream he really wants to come true.'

I couldn't help myself now. 'Can I stop being the nice guy for a bit and just pester you until you tell me what's behind all this?'

'No, but here's what I'll tell you about Colton. He really is as smart as he says. So smart that he even gets under my radar about where he goes and what he does sometimes. I know he's had plenty of girls. What I don't know is who else he likes. I think he might actually be both ways. For real.'

'How? What are the signs?'

'Can you really keep your mouth shut?'

I mimed zipping my mouth closed.

'I was teasing him one day with gay jokes. The usual shit. Him and me having a word-fight's hilarious, by the way. But it's not any signs he ever gave. It how my mum had a quiet word with me later and told me maybe I should be a bit more sensitive. I asked her what the signs were. She just said she wasn't sure there were any. But that one day I'd learn. The usual parent crap. She saw something. At least I think she did. It's not much to go on, but it's already got your hopes up, hasn't it?'

I pretended it hadn't, trying not to get carried away.

'But listen, here's something you'll like. Colton's always got a boner.'

I nearly choked on air after bursting out laughing. 'I thought you were trying to be a good sister. If one of my sisters said that about me to someone else I'd want them dead.'

'Oh, consider it a little revenge for all the times he's been a dick of a brother to me. And that's plenty. I mean, he is the easiest_person to turn on _ever. He probably thinks I don't notice the bulge down there half the time, or he doesn't care. I have real fun trying to work out what he must be thinking about. Really, I've got no idea. Just that I bet he's got serious energy whenever he finds somewhere to put that thing.'

I was still laughing, and trying not to imagine Colton in one of his skating poses that I liked, showing off his package to me. Why did I even want to imagine this, still? This whole evening had told me I was in way over my head.

'Can I ask you something serious?' I said. 'Do you really think we should carry on with this? With you taking me to the prom?'

She put her hand on my shoulder, but this time it felt friendly. 'You're taking me, Todd-boy. At least now I've been honest about why. So what the hell: I also asked you because you're safe. And I knew that before you just came out to me. You know the reputation I have. What it really means is that I'm probably not safe with anyone. Or maybe I am but it will all just end in awkwardness when I say no. Because I'm not a prom-night prize. I'm not anyone's prize. I'm sorry if I made people laugh at you. But come on, laugh back and then we can make this work. Because you just changed the game.' She let go of me and looked down the street towards the skate park and shook her head. 'All along, I never had the one name on my list that should have been on it first. It's always the most unlikely person.'

'What is this, a crime novel?'

She walked back up to me and tapped my head. 'Don't go using this too much. Let me think on this. We can so make this happen. I need to call Caitlyn. She's got to do her thing on my brother and we're going to that dinner together. By the way, smart idea. Welcome to Courtney's World. You're going to love working here. Now go home and talk to your brother. That money he offered? Take it all and then milk him for a little more. He works at Joe's Garage, right? That's perfect. Big bro's about to get you your real graduation present.'

When she told me what it was, I laughed. 'There's no way, Courtney.'

'Where's the jock spirit gone, raccoon? There was no way you were winning that game on your birthday. Until you, like, actually _won,_maybe? You know why I've got parents worth millions? Because they always know the answer to one question: how badly do you want what you want? Right now, I want a decent prom and decent friend for my brother. That's why you're going to go home and get what we need. And this is why I said I'm your friend for one night only. Because now I'm your partner.'