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Yet, I foundmy mind wander It would make sense if it wandered to the conversation that I had the night before with Sa back to Aiden How happy he looked when I showed up with the cookies How intense his eyes hen he talked to me His attention was so pure, so electric, it was like everyone else who ever spoke to h a filter But Aiden spoke directly to me

I spent the entire day trying to focus, and though everyone see Not froreen eyes and chin-length blonde hair

11

Aiden

Even though the snow still blanketed the mountain, it had ceased to beco someone in the cabin for a couple of days, I felt like maybe I should interact with the world a bithints that I shouldthey had a bar Since I knew the place had good beer and delicious pizza already, I figured why not and texted Brett that we should ain

He didn’t take

As I got to Sergio’s, I noticed that the bar was already filling up Apparently, a ga used to the teams the folks in Ashford rooted for and which sports they seemed more into It was a bit eclectic, as far as I could tell

Brett had a booth in a corner by himself when I came in That wasn’t unusual Neither Brett nor I really seeh he had lived there for a lot longer than I had, he was still an outcast tobeen born on the north side of the train tracks, he was considered almost an outsider Now that he was a mountain boy, it was like they looked at him as if he were a spy

“Hey, man,” I said as I slipped into the booth with him “What’s the score?”

He looked at me with a smirk and one eyebrow raised

“What score?”

“For the gaiant screens on the wall that everyone was staring at

“You hed