Chapter Text
“So,” Ames plops down on the beanbag in the common room, a half-finished bag of Swedish Fish she probably stole from Taye’s stash in her hands. “Noam Álvaro.”
Dara flips a page in his book, finishing the line of dialogue Ames interrupted him in. He glances at her smiling face, teeth mashing a red gummy, and sighs. He dog ears the page and puts the book next to him on the couch. “What about him?”
“Your evaluation, Oh Knowledgeable Dara, genius among geniuses,” She rolls her eyes. “Whaddya think about him?”
Noam Álvaro, Lehrer’s pet publicity project, plucked from the hospital after an epidemic swept the poor neighborhoods just outside D.C., plopped into Carolinia Academy as a trial for some charity program for “less-advantaged youths”. He’d been in the dorm suite already when Dara, Ames, Taye, and Bethany walked in this morning the weekend before the new school year. He was sitting on this same couch, working through a pre-calculus problem set. Nowhere else to go, he’d said, wry smile tugging his lips. He wore a ratty shirt, whatever design printed on it a fuzzy memory, along with basketball shorts and no shoes Dara could see.
What did Dara think of him?
“He’s alright,” Dara sits back, crosses his arms. “Seems smart enough. Tall. A bit awkward, though not like that stopped Bethany, or Taye. Or you.”
Ames grins, tossing another gummy into her mouth. “You hate him.”
“I don’t hate him,” Dara says.
“You do--oh my god, you totally do!” She laughs. “You were all cold eyes at him--like that!--and you barely said a thing to him. You gotta admit it was assholish, even for you.”
Dara shakes his head. “I don’t hate him.”
“But?”
But Lehrer shoved a file on his background at Dara a few weeks back at a dinner reservation he’d arranged for them. First time in God knows how long they’d spent time together, especially since the campaign began, and despite everything Dara marked the date down on his calendar with red pen. Lehrer told him, between sips of vintage wine, “He’s an orphan--just like you.”
Except Dara isn’t an orphan, and his father doesn’t make slip ups. Lehrer’s marble eyes glinted above the rim of his glass.
The door to the common room bangs open, saving Dara from continuing the conversation. Taye, Bethany, and Noam walk in, Bethany chattering to a grinning Noam. Noam’s eyes meet Dara’s, and his smile falters before lifting up again, directed at him. Dara picks his book up, crossing his legs.
“Yo,” Ames falls back against the beanbag, looking at them upside down. “Finished hazing the new kid?”
“We weren’t hazing him, Ames,” Bethany flicks her on her forehead.
“They took me ‘round the block,” Noam shoves his hands into the pockets of a pair of old cargo shorts. Summers on the East Coast are hot and humid; Noam is misted in sweat. “Showed me a few of your haunts.”
“Taye’s candy store, I presume? And Bethany’s hippie cafe?”
“For the last time, Ames, it is not a hippie cafe.”
They laugh. Taye plops down on the beanbag, making Ames almost roll off. Bethany sits on the coffee table, leaving Noam to glance between the couch Dara’s on and the floor. He takes the couch. Dara almost commends his bravery.
“It’s kinda a hippie cafe, Bethany,” Bethany makes a face at Noam when he says this. “They also brought me to a bookstore.”
“Ooh, The Owlery?” Dara doesn’t look up, but he can feel Ames’ smirk. “That’s our dear old Dara’s place.”
Dara rolls his eyes, gives Ames a deadpan smile. “Better than your tattoo parlors and gaudy boutiques, Ames.”
Ames reaches into her bag to throw a Swedish Fish at him, but finds none. Taye chews the last one next to her, and she scowls at him. He shrugs. “You stole it from me in the first place.”
Noam chuckles. It’s a low, rumbling thing, slow like his Southern drawl from a childhood spent in Atlanta (Dara planned on not reading his file out of spite, but he only lasted a week). It rolls over Dara’s skin like a summer storm. “Actually,” Noam says, elbow coming up onto the back of the couch, three inches from Dara’s curls. “My parents used to run a bookstore.”
“Really?” Bethany glances at Dara. “You like to read, then?”
“Well, of course. Was kinda unavoidable, considering I slept among bookcases.”
Noam’s eyes rest on Dara’s skin, poking at him like stepping a toe past the caution tape. Dara shuts his book--same page, he hadn’t been able to read anything--and offers him a tight smile. “You’ll have to recommend me some, sometime,” he says, standing up. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go finish the one I’m on.”
He waves the paperback, stepping past Bethany on the coffee table and heading to the hallway. As he’s shutting the door to the dorms, he hears Noam’s voice from the common room saying, “What’s his problem?”
“He…” Taye answers. “Dara’s chill. Usually.”
“He’s just a private person,” Bethany says. “I wouldn’t take it personally.”
--
Classes began. Dara was glad for it; he didn’t quite enjoy going to school, the monotonous daily schedule, playing the role of the charming honor student for his classmates and teachers. But it was at least better than spending summer in Lehrer’s huge penthouse alone. At one point, even Ames got sick of getting hammered at clubs they were too young for every night, and no matter how many bodies and how much alcohol he drowned himself in, Dara still woke seeing the word broken tattoed over every inch of his flesh.
At least here he had shit to distract himself with. Classes. Homework. His dorm mates. College apps, though he knew that even without being top of his class, being Calix Lehrer’s adopted son would get him in anywhere.
Noam Álvaro.
And what a distraction that was. For all of Dara’s hostility, the boy sure made his presence known loud and annoyingly clear, to both Dara’s consciousness and the rest of the school as well. Noam is a sophomore, but even so Dara can’t seem to make it through a day without hearing gossip about him. Carolinia Academy is a K-12 establishment, so most people here have known each other for all their lives, and new students--especially in the high school block--were rare, and therefore talked about. Cases like Noam, with his scruffy weekend clothes and lack of a prestigious family name doubled with his involvement with Lehrer, were unheard of.
It’s only been two weeks since the semester began, but it felt like everyday some new piece of information on the boy was stirring the student body up. Just yesterday someone had spread the news of Noam’s time in juvie, and a few days before that they were talking about how he’d dropped out of school in eighth grade. Even Taye and Bethany were shocked at the news of his apparent delinquency, though of course Bethany didn’t let it affect her interactions at all, and it only took a while for Taye to get over it as well.
And, who could live in their dorm and think Noam’s a delinquent? He spends every minute of his time with his head stuffed in a textbook. Swensson had gotten him mostly caught up over the summer, but Noam still studied with a feverish intensity.
The bell for the last class of the day rang--Dara’s AP Lit class, where they were assigned books Dara had read in middle school--and his classmates filed out. As he’s packing up, he overhears a conversation between the girls who sit next to him. “Hey hey, did you hear?” one says. “Apparently Rebecca found that Álvaro boy in an article about some protest in January. He’s a, what’d she say? A hacktivist?”
The other girl nods. “Yeah, I can see that. He’s actually in my AP Comp Sci class, he’s always coding something complicated looking during lessons.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Teacher hates his guts, though.”
Dara resists the urge to grit his teeth. Always, always it’s goddamn Noam Álvaro. From the moment Lehrer shoved that file across the dinner table at him, he’s been slowly seeping into every corner of Dara’s life. Dara escapes the classroom before the girls can turn to him and ask his opinion in their high voices and simpering smiles.
Ames catches up with Dara as they make their way to the dorms. “Hey,” she says. “Raleigh tonight?”
It’s a Friday, and they haven’t gone out since school started. Dara had been left to drink Lehrer’s scotch on his bunk, leafing through Nabokov or watching goat videos on his phone. Trying not to think about the now slept-in bed across the room, sheets mussed and kicked around in one of Noam’s nightmares, or the burning brown eyes glaring something scalding in Noam’s mugshot pressed inside the manila folder Dara’d left in the penthouse.
“Yeah,” Dara says. “Let’s go.”