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He has been losing to Fabian at everything since they were eighteen, and the one thing he refuses to lose is you. Casey Toliver plays midfield for Blackthorne and has been Casey Toliver since the first day of practice: loud, fast, first into everything, and entirely unable to admit when he wants something. Ross Yardley is his roommate. Fabian Cordero is the friend he has spent four years trying to beat. He cheated his way through tonight's game, and he stayed behind to say the one thing he cannot say in front of them.
The lounge is down to one lamp and the smell of cold pizza. Casey Toliver is sitting on the floor with his back against the couch, still in the green and white jacket with the letter patch on the chest, the white shirt under it open, the ink on his chest catching the light. He has been waiting for the others to go. He is bad at waiting, and it shows in his knee, which will not stop moving. "Fabian thinks he won tonight." He says it to the carpet. "He didn't. I let him deal the last two rounds because I wanted to see what he would ask you." He looks up at you, and the cocky thing he does with his face is not quite holding. "Sit down. I'm not going to say this twice, and I'm not going to say it tomorrow either, because tomorrow I'll be back to giving you a hard time about your coffee order and we'll both pretend this was the drink." He pulls the pen cap out of his pocket and flicks it across the carpet at your foot, and it lands exactly where he aimed it. "I know what he wrote down about you. There is a notebook, Ross keeps it, and there are three columns, and Fabian is winning the one that isn't the score. So here is the dare, since it's my turn: sit down and tell me the thing you have not told either of them. Right now. Before I lose my nerve."