A/N: New chapter—tell me what you think and give the fanfic a good review
December 2, 2013
The hotel cafeteria was one of those that serve breakfast until eleven and where the smell of freshly brewed coffee competes with that of toasted bread from the moment they open the doors. Aaron and Hannah arrived at nine-fifteen with the advantage of those who woke up before anyone else and chose a table by the window, from where they could see the Brooklyn street still half-asleep under the gray December sky.
Hannah ordered a coffee with milk and toast. Aaron ordered scrambled eggs, fruit, orange juice, and two additional pieces of toast, which made the waitress look at him briefly before taking it down without comment.
"How is your chest?" Hannah asked when the waitress left.
"Better than last night."
"Which means it still hurts."
"A little."
Hannah looked at him for a second and then returned to her coffee without insisting further. Aaron thanked her in silence.
They ate without haste, talking about unimportant things: the plans for the day, the weather that threatened rain but which according to the meteorological application on Aaron's phone would remain cloudy with no precipitation, so their plan to ride the ferry to the Statue of Liberty would work.
At five to ten, Julius appeared at the entrance of the cafeteria with the Harrison twins behind him, all three in street clothes and with the energy of those who have slept well and have the day off ahead.
"There they are," Julius said, pointing to their table.
They approached. James Young arrived two minutes later with his phone in hand and his headphones hanging from his neck.
Aaron stood up.
"Guys, this is Hannah."
Julius extended his hand with a wide smile.
"Julius. I've heard about you."
Hannah shook his hand.
"Good things, I hope."
"The best," Julius responded, which made Aaron direct a look at him that Julius ignored with elegance.
Andrew was more direct: handshake, name, nothing more. James Young greeted from afar, raising two fingers without taking his eyes off his phone before putting it away and sitting down.
"Ready to show us your city?" Julius asked Hannah.
"It's my city, not hers," Aaron responded.
"You are from Queens. Brooklyn is different."
"Both are New York."
"That's what someone from Queens would say," Julius said.
Hannah smiled over her coffee cup.
They left the hotel at ten-thirty with the December cold receiving the group at the door like a warning. Julius pulled up the collar of his coat. James took his beanie out of his pocket. Andrew looked at the sky with an skeptical expression.
"Are you sure it won't rain?" he asked.
"Sure," Aaron said.
They took the subway toward Manhattan. The car was half-full and the combination of a quintet of college basketball players with heights ranging from six-foot-two to seven feet generated some discrete glances and a photo that someone took of Aaron without his permission from the other end of the car.
Hannah observed all of that from the opposite seat. Julius was the most expressive of them all, the one who verbalized everything he saw as if he needed to name it to process it. Andrew looked without saying anything but with an attention that let nothing slip by. James documented everything in silence with his phone.
They were different from each other and at the same time functioned together with the fluidity of a group that has spent months sharing practices, trips, and locker rooms. Hannah noticed it and did not say it, but Aaron saw it in her expression when she thought he wasn't looking at her.
"I didn't realize," Julius said when Aaron pointed it out to him.
"It's already on Twitter," James Young said, looking at his phone.
"Seriously?"
"'College basketball team on the New York subway.' Forty-seven retweets."
Julius looked at the photo over James's shoulder.
"At least I came out looking good."
Times Square received them with the usual intensity: giant screens, tourists in all directions, the smell of pretzels and bus exhaust mixed with the cold air. Julius and James stopped at the first corner with their phones held high.
"I can't believe this exists," Julius said, turning slowly on his heels.
"It exists every day," Aaron said.
"For you. For me it is the first time."
Hannah walked next to Aaron with her hands holding his a few steps behind the group, observing the reactions of the others with the same attention with which she had observed the game the night before.
"Did you also react like that the first time?" she asked him in a low voice.
"I grew up here. For me, Times Square was always the place where you didn't want to get stuck when you were going somewhere."
Hannah smiled.
"And now?"
Aaron looked at the screens for a moment.
"Now too."
They spent the next hour walking with no fixed itinerary: a turn around Times Square, the New York Times building, Bryant Park with the ice rink full of people. Julius wanted to skate. Aaron explained to him that there was no time if they wanted to see everything planned. Julius accepted reluctantly, although he took three photos of the rink before continuing to walk as compensation.
They ate at a Korean food stall in a side street of Midtown that Aaron knew from his years in the city and which James Young officially declared as the best thing he had eaten in his life after the first bite.
The place was small, with six tables and a line that reached the door. Aaron had been there twice in high school, both times with Drew, and the menu had not changed.
Julius ordered by pointing at random because he did not understand the names. What arrived was a bibimbap that he stared at for three seconds before deciding it looked good and attacking it with determination.
"What is this?" he asked after the first bite.
"Rice with vegetables and meat," Aaron said.
"Well, they should say it like that on the menu."
"It says it. In Korean."
Julius considered that and continued eating without further objection.
They continued south along Fifth Avenue, with Julius stopping every two minutes to photograph something different: the Christmas windows of the department stores, the street vendors, a dog dressed in a striped coat that its owner carried as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
It was Hannah who saw him first.
Or more exactly: it was Hannah who noticed that someone was looking at her from the sidewalk opposite while the group crossed the street.
Tomas.
He was with two friends, all three with their hands in their pockets and the same look of college students who have the whole day ahead of them. When his eyes met Hannah's, he smiled and crossed the street in her direction before she could do anything about it.
"Hannah," he said, with that ease he had of pronouncing her name as if it were part of a conversation that was already underway. "I didn't know you'd be around here."
"I came here with some friends," Hannah responded, with a tone that did not invite him to continue.
"Oh yeah?" Tomas looked briefly at the group behind her with the expression of someone who is evaluating a situation. "With friends from college?"
"Not exactly."
Tomas was going to add something else when Aaron finished crossing the street and placed himself next to Hannah. He did not do it in a deliberate or theatrical way. He simply arrived because the group kept walking and he walked with the group.
Tomas looked up.
Then he kept looking up.
Then he kept looking up a bit more.
Seven feet is a height that on a basketball court looks normal because everyone is in motion and the distance distorts the proportions. On a sidewalk of Fifth Avenue at noon, up close, without a sports context, he was simply enormous.
"Hi," Aaron said.
"Hi," responded Tomas, with a register of voice that had dropped half a tone without him realizing it.
"This is Aaron," Hannah said.
Tomas extended his hand. Aaron shook it.
It was at that moment when Julius, Andrew, and the other two members of the Wildcats arrived at the sidewalk and placed themselves behind Aaron in the span of two seconds, with the five of them looking at Tomas and his two friends with the direct and innocent curiosity of someone who does not know they are generating a certain impression but is generating it anyway.
Tomas's two friends looked at each other.
Tomas looked at Aaron. He looked at the group. He looked back at Aaron.
"Everything good?" Julius asked, addressing Aaron but without taking his eyes off the situation with that antenna of his for detecting when something required attention.
"Everything good," Aaron said.
A brief silence.
"Well," Tomas said, pulling back his initial smile with the efficiency of someone who knows when to change the subject. "It was a pleasure, Hannah. See you around campus."
"See you later," she responded.
Tomas and his friends resumed their pace along the sidewalk. One of them said something in a low voice. The other two responded. Aaron did not need to hear it to imagine what it was about.
Andrew had seen everything from two steps behind without saying anything. When the group resumed their march, he started walking next to Aaron.
"Who was that?" he asked in a low voice.
"A classmate from Hannah's college," Aaron responded simply.
Andrew nodded.
"Got it."
He said nothing else. That was also part of how Andrew worked: he processed fast, spoke little, and never asked more than necessary.
Julius waited until the group disappeared around the corner.
"Who was that guy?" he asked.
"An acquaintance from college," Hannah said.
Julius nodded slowly, with the expression of someone who has an opinion on the matter but has decided to keep it.
"Very well," he said only.
They kept walking.
The ferry to the Statue of Liberty left Battery Park at four in the afternoon. They arrived with a ten-minute margin, enough to buy the tickets and get in line before the pier filled up completely.
The subway ride from Midtown to Battery Park took them twenty minutes. Julius took the opportunity to review the photos of the day on his phone and edit the ones he was going to publish. James dozed for five minutes with his head resting on the window. Andrew studied the subway map with attention.
Hannah asked Aaron things about his life back in Lexington while the train moved underground.
The ferry trip lasted about twenty minutes. Julius and James spent half of it at the bow with the wind in their faces taking photos that, according to James, were for Instagram but which according to Julius were too artistic for Instagram.
Andrew and Aaron Harrison stayed inside the ferry looking at the water with their arms crossed, processing the day in a reflective silence. At one point they approached Aaron and told him in a low voice that they liked New York but would prefer to return in summer. Aaron told them that in summer the city was another thing completely. Both nodded as if that confirmed something they already suspected.
Aaron and Hannah stayed on the side rail, with the Manhattan skyline receding behind them and the green silhouette of the statue growing on the horizon ahead.
The wind was cold and constant.
Hannah put her hands in her coat pockets. Aaron was next to her with his elbows resting on the rail, looking at the water.
"Do you know him from before?" Aaron asked.
Hannah took a moment.
"He's in my biochemistry class. He has been asking me out all semester."
"Right."
"I've told him I have a boyfriend."
"I know."
Hannah looked at him.
"How do you know?"
"Because if you hadn't told me, I would have asked myself."
She did not respond to that but drew a step closer and rested her shoulder against his. Aaron did not move.
In front of them, the Statue of Liberty kept growing.
"It's bigger than it looks in photos," Hannah said.
"Everything in this city is bigger than it looks. And noisier. And it smells different from any other place you've been."
Hannah looked at the statue for a moment.
"Had you seen it before?"
"Once, as a kid. With my mother."
He said it without further context and Hannah did not ask for more. She rested her head on his shoulder and both stood watching as the statue kept approaching over the gray water of the harbor.
When the ferry arrived at the dock and the others began to move toward the exit, Aaron turned his head and kissed her. Brief, without prior warning, with the wind still pushing from the west.
Hannah took a second to separate.
"What was that for?" she asked.
"Nothing," Aaron responded.
Hannah looked at him. Then she looked at the statue. Then she looked back at him.
"Do you always do that?" she asked.
"Do what?"
"Kiss someone without warning."
Aaron thought about the answer.
"Only when it makes sense."
Hannah considered that for a moment while the harbor wind moved her hair over her face.
"And did it make sense now?"
"Yes."
She nodded as if that were a sufficient answer, which was exactly what it was.
Julius passed next to them at that moment with his phone held high, photographing the statue from the dock with the same dedication with which he had photographed everything else during the day.
"I'm not going to upload that to Instagram either," he said, without stopping, already pointing his phone toward the statue. "Although the scene deserved it."
Authors thought
What did you think of today's chapter? Give me your opinions and thoughts.
For football fans, check out my other fanfic, *The Golden Standard*, and discover the story of Wyatt Sterling.
Don't forget to subscribe to my Patreon to get more than 15 chapters in advance! https://www.patreon.com/c/merchant17
I created a Discord server! For those who want to join, the link will be here and on my profile https://discord.gg/pyqGRbHxt I also added some character images on Discord, so go check them out!
For everyone subscribing to my Patreon: if you're using an Apple device, avoid doing it through the app! Apple charges a commission, and you'll end up paying more. It's better to subscribe through the website instead.
I would also love to hear your thoughts on both stories so far, and if you have any suggestions