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Usually when Neil starts shit in a post-game press interview, he does it on purpose. This time, he really just meant for it to be a joke.

The first question thrown his way is: “This is your last season with the Foxes, are there any pro teams you’re hoping to get an offer from?”

“A ton,” Neil says. He thinks about the hours of work Kevin has put into Neil's media training and continues, “There are so many amazing teams I would be lucky to sign with next year.”

“How do you feel about the possibility of ending up on a team with a former Fox teammate?” is the next question.

“Great,” Neil answers, sincere. “I would love to play with Matt or Kevin again.”

“What about Minyard? Would you sign with Atlanta?”

Neil says, “Andrew? He’s a nightmare.”

He knows it’s a joke. His team knows it’s a joke. Andrew will know it’s a joke.

The press does not seem to know that it’s a joke.

Kevin calls before Neil has even left for a run the next morning. He’s in Seattle, which puts him three hours earlier than Neil. Which means he’s calling Neil at 4 AM.

“You told the press that Andrew is a nightmare?” Kevin asks. He has that tone that creeps into his voice when Neil fucks up.

“Yes?” Neil frowns at the toaster as he drops in two slices of bread and pushes the lever down. “Why?”

Kevin sighs, heavily. “I sent you a link. Try to think before you speak next time.”

Then he hangs up.

Neil glances at the text from Kevin. It’s a link to an article titled Atlanta Exy Player Described As ‘Nightmare’ By A Surprising Source. Neil cannot imagine why this is news. He routinely says dumb shit to the press. It’s why Kevin made him do the media training. He refused to graduate if Neil couldn’t even be trusted to talk to people.

Instead of reading the article, Neil calls Andrew. Andrew is in the same time zone as Neil, but Andrew doesn’t have practice until nine. Which means Andrew will still be asleep. Neil takes his chances anyway.

“Are you dying?” Andrew says when he picks up, groggy and muffled. “Are you calling me in the middle of the night to hear your last words?”

“It’s 7 AM,” Neil points out fondly. He misses looking at Andrew’s angry, squinty face on early mornings. “The sun is halfway up. It’s not even dark.”

“I hate the sun as much as I hate you.” Andrew makes a cranky little noise and Neil can hear the rustle of the pillow that Andrew is probably pulling over his head. They have a four day weekend soon and Neil is skipping a day of class to spend as much time in Atlanta as possible. He just has to get through the next two weeks.

“I called you a nightmare during press last night and Kevin is mad,” Neil says. Short, simple facts that Andrew’s pre-coffee brain can easily process.

“Kevin is always mad,” Andrew says.

The toaster is done, so Neil puts his phone on speaker and sets it on the counter while he gets out the peanut butter. “Someone wrote an article about it,” he says. “I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

“It’s not. I’m going back to sleep.” There’s a pause and then Andrew says, “You’re a nightmare, too.”

“Your favorite nightmare,” Neil corrects.

“Junkie,” Andrew says, and becomes the second person in a row to hang up on Neil.

Atlanta has a game the Thursday before Neil’s visit, and it’s Andrew’s turn to do the pre-game interviews. Neil usually doesn’t watch the interviews, so he’s surprised when they cut to a clip during a time out in the first half of the game.

A reporter says, “Your former teammate, Neil Josten, recently referred to you as a nightmare, do you have a response?”

Andrew looks at her blankly. “Why would I care about anything he says?”

The thing is, Neil knows that Andrew means exactly that. He doesn’t care what Neil says to the press, he cares about what Neil says to him. The press, however, is lacking this insight. Neil is starting to understand why Kevin thinks it might be a problem.

He just thinks it sounds like a challenge.

The television cuts back to the commentators and one says, “There was no hint of a rivalry at Palmetto. This seems to be coming out of nowhere. If you remember, Minyard stopped an attack on Josten during the finals a few years ago.”

“How could I forget?” the other commentator responds. “I don’t think Exy will ever see another night like that one. Palmetto’s win followed by an attempted attack from Riko Moriyama. And then, of course, Moryiama’s tragic suicide.”

Both of the commentators sober for a moment. Neil rolls his eyes. No matter how many investigations and audits Edgar Allan went through after Riko’s death, the Exy community will never stop referring to it as a tragedy and too early. Neil is used to it, but sometimes he wants to tell the world exactly who Riko was. If it wasn’t for the threat of losing Ichirou’s protection and incurring the Moriyama wrath instead, he probably would have by now.

The Hawks win, so when Neil calls Andrew that night he makes sure to open with “Good game.”

“What game?” is Andrew’s predictable response. It makes Neil smile.

“I’ll be there next weekend,” he says. “Are we doing anything?”

“It’s Atlanta.” Andrew’s voice is dry. “We’re going to stay in the air conditioning with our clothes off.”

Neil is still distracted by that idea when Andrew adds, “Besides, if we’re seen in public together, everyone will know you like me.”

“That would be terrible for your image,” Neil says, amused.

“Mine?” Andrew says. “I wouldn’t be the one walking around with a nightmare.”

So Neil was right, it was a challenge.

Allison calls while Neil is in Atlanta.

True to Andrew’s word, they have spent the last 48 hours mostly naked and inside. Neil loves Andrew’s apartment in Atlanta. It’s a place that’s theirs and no one else’s. In the dorms, there has always been someone in the next room, down the hall, on their way home. The closest they’ve come to this is the Columbia house, but even that had at least one other person in it more often than not. No one is ever in Andrew’s apartment except them, and it’s Neil’s favorite place in the world.

It doesn’t hurt that Andrew let Neil put a framed picture of them on the bookshelf behind the couch. He didn’t even object when Neil added a second picture of all of their friends gathered together the year the cousins graduated, grinning and laughing for the camera. Andrew isn’t smiling, but he’s looking at Neil like he can’t see anything else.

When Allison calls, Neil is making them both coffee while wearing only a pair of too-short running shorts that make Andrew stare at his ass.

Andrew is sitting on the counter in black boxer briefs. Staring at Neil’s ass.

When Neil answers, Allison says, “Are you in Atlanta?” Put me on speaker.”

Neil sets his phone on the counter and hits the speaker button. “Okay.”

“You and Andrew are a thing on Twitter,” Allison says. “Not like, super trending, but definitely a thing.” Her voice fills Andrew’s small kitchen.

“Which one is Twitter?” Neil asks. “The one with the pictures?”

He gets how social media works in an abstract kind of way, from how his friends talk about it. It seems complicated and full of the types of people Neil tries to avoid, so he stays away.

“No,” Allison says patiently. “It’s the one with the short messages.”

“Okay,” Neil says. He can probably remember that for the duration of this conversation.

“Hashtag Minyard-Josten Rivalry,” Allison says.

“What does hashtag mean?” Neil gets out the creamer and sugar and puts a normal amount of both in his own coffee, and an obscene amount in Andrew’s.

When he turns around to give Andrew his mug, Andrew reaches out with his legs and catches his ankles on either side of Neil’s waist. Neil grabs his phone and his coffee and lets Andrew pull him in close, until his legs are crossed behind Neil’s back and Neil is settled snugly between his thighs. Neil leans into him and tips his head up to press a kiss to Andrew’s chin. He misses this more and more every time he goes back to South Carolina.

“You need to learn Twitter,” Allison is saying. “Make Andrew teach you and text me when you have an account.”

“Andrew doesn’t use Twitter.” Or, at least, he’s never mentioned it.

“Sure he does,” Allison says.

At the exact same time, Andrew says, “Don’t be an idiot.”

“Fine,” Neil says. “I’ll learn Twitter.”

Neil wants his Twitter name to be exy4lyfe.

They’ve moved to the couch with their cereal and coffee and Neil has wiggled the upper half of his body partly behind Andrew’s. This is a little bit because neither of them have shirts on and he likes to touch Andrew as much as possible, but mostly it’s because Andrew is holding his phone and this way Neil can see the screen over his shoulder.

“See,” he tells Andrew. “Because there’s a y in Exy.”

“Yes,” Andrew sighs. And then, “But no. Someone already took that one. Just use your name.”

He types in neiljosten, but Neil pulls the phone out of his hand before he can move on to the password. “Boring,” he says. He types in neilplaysexy.

Andrew snatches it back. “Neil play sexy?” he says.

“What?” Neil looks over Andrew’s shoulder and frowns at the screen. “Neil plays exy,” he reads. Then he sees it.

“I see it,” he says. “So maybe not that one.”

Andrew types in josten4exy and holds the phone up to Neil. “Perfect,” Neil says. Because Andrew always gets him.

Neil takes the phone to text Allison, then lets Andrew take over setting up his profile. Less than a minute later he gets a notification. Allison has written, “Welcome my bff @josten4exy to Twitter! I’m sure he’ll talk shit about someone very soon.”

Neil watches as Andrew follows Allison’s account, then goes back to Neil’s account and chooses a profile picture. It’s a selfie Neil took early one morning and sent to Andrew, with his sleep-messy hair curling down over his eyes. The sun is falling across the side of his face, accenting the thin lines of scarring over his cheek. “This one?” he says skeptically.

“Change it if you want,” Andrew says, and pushes the phone back into Neil’s hand.

Neil does not change it. Instead he asks, “What’s your Twitter?”

“My name,” Andrew says dryly.

Time with Andrew is valuable and Neil isn’t willing to waste it, so after breakfast he puts his phone down and climbs into Andrew’s lap. His tiny shorts don’t last very long after that.

He doesn’t think about Twitter again until the next day when Andrew has gone to practice and Neil is in the apartment alone. When he gets his phone out, the screen is filled with notifications. A lot are from his friends’ Twitter accounts, following him and welcoming him to the online world. There are a surprising number of messages and follows from strangers, though. Most of these posts end in #minyardjostenrivalry.

Neil taps on what he assumes is a hashtag and it opens a whole screen of messages about him and Andrew. One of them says, “Did @josten4exy get Twitter just to shit on @andrewminyard? #minyardjostenrivalry #atlantahawks”

Another says, “Exy needs a good rivalry, come on @josten4exy. #minyardjostenrivalry @andrewminyard”

The third one Neil reads says, “Who even are these guys? #minyardjostenrivalry #exyisdumb” He stops reading after that.

Neil taps the little feather to start a new post and considers for a minute, then he types out, “It’s too bad @andrewminyard doesn’t care what I have to say, because I could give him plenty of notes to pass on to his team.”

Then he hits send and goes to Andrew’s profile. It’s mostly reposts of messages from the Atlanta Hawks account, about games and events. There are a scattering of brief, cutting posts about politics and a few replies to Nicky and Aaron’s accounts. Andrew is following his team’s account and an account belonging to PSU’s Exy team that Neil didn’t know existed. That’s it.

As Neil hits follow and goes back to his messages to follow his friends back, he starts getting replies to his post. “Ball’s in your goal @andrewminyard,” one of them says.

Neil scrolls down the replies until one catches his eyes. It’s from Andrew’s account.

He’s reposted Neil’s message and added, “No one asked.”

Neil grins, delighted. He likes this game.

When Andrew gets home, Neil says, “I love Twitter.” Then he pushes Andrew back against the closed door and goes to his knees.

“Yes,” Andrew says, before Neil can ask.

Neil has barely gotten back to the dorm on Tuesday afternoon when Nicky calls. It’s late evening in Germany, and Neil imagines him drinking wine on the porch of the small house he shares with Erik.

“What’s up with this Twitter thing?” Nicky says. “It looks a lot like what you and Andrew might call flirting.”

“Sort of,” Neil says. “There are so many other people sending me messages, though.”

“Tweets,” Nicky corrects. “They’re called tweets. And when you post someone else’s tweet, it’s a retweet.”

“Whatever,” Neil says. He puts Nicky on speaker and opens Twitter. His newest notification says, “Shots fired!! @josten4exy @andrewminyard #minyardjostenrivalry.” He reads it out loud to Nicky.

“Respond to them,” Nicky says. “You have fans. Engage.”

“I don’t have fans.” Andrew has fans, that much is clear from the number of tweets calling Neil a variety of curse words. Neil clicks on one of them. It seems to belong to a teenage girl who thinks Andrew is “a snack in black.”

“Hold on,” Nicky says. A second later another tweet pops up, from Nicky’s account. “RT for @josten4exy. Like for @andrewminyard. I’m voting for my Neil-y baby. #minyardjostenrivalry”

“Never call me that again,” Neil says. “Also, no one is going to do that.”

Nicky straight up laughs at him. “Neil,” he says. “I’m a hot, gay, ex-college athlete with consistently on-point style. I have like, fifty thousand followers.”

Neil clicks on Nicky’s profile and -- oh. He’s right. Neil scrolls down quickly through tweets written in a mix of German and English, with a generous number of carefully posed pictures of Nicky in varying amounts of clothing. Every post has hundreds of likes, replies, and retweets.

“Erik takes good photos,” Neil says.

“He took lessons,” Nicky sighs happily. “It was my birthday present.”

Neil refreshes Twitter. Nicky’s post already has ten likes. It has one retweet, Neil taps on it. “I have one fan,” he tells Nicky. “It’s Matt.”

“Engage,” Nicky says, with emphasis. “I gotta go, Erik made dinner.”

After he hangs up, Neil goes back to Twitter and retweets Nicky’s post. When he checks again later, Allison and eighty other people have done the same. Andrew is still winning with over one hundred likes, but this is just the beginning.

Nicky said they were flirting, but Neil thinks it might be more like foreplay.

Neil engages on Twitter because it means he can talk to people about Exy. By the time Atlanta is in the regional playoffs, Neil has almost as many followers as Andrew. Sometimes he gets crazy messages about his scars or his father, but he blocks those and responds to the people asking for his thoughts on the Trojan’s new starting striker, a mid-year transfer situation that makes Neil think of Jean.

Occasionally, he throws in a dig at Andrew, or vice-versa, usually a few days before they see each other. He’s at a gas station outside of Atlanta when he reads a tweet from Andrew questioning one of Neil’s plays from Palmetto’s last game.

“@josten4exy does know which goal is his, right? Someone tell him I’m the one with the notes this time.”

Neil retweets it and adds, “Sorry, it’s hard to keep the goalies straight when neither of them are shorter than me.”

When he lets himself into the apartment, Andrew is waiting. Neil has barely dropped his bag before Andrew drags him in with a hand on the back of his neck and kisses him until Neil is panting.

“Short jokes?” Andrew says when he pulls back.

Neil drops his eyes to the front of Andrew’s thin joggers. “It worked,” he points out, smug.

“I hate you,” Andrew says, then pulls Neil in close and kisses him again.

Neil has nothing to do with the jerseys.

Atlanta and Seattle play each other in the last round of the playoffs. The winners will compete against San Diego for the national championship. Dan and Matt fly to Washington from Dallas and meet Neil in the hotel before the game. Matt hugs Neil so hard that Neil’s feet come several inches off the floor. His season ended early. Dallas was out in the first round of playoffs.

“It means he can help with the wedding,” Dan says cheerfully, and gives Neil a much more gentle hug. She’s in her first year of coaching high school Exy and she reminds Neil of Wymack every time she talks about her team.

Before they get a car to the stadium, Matt unzips his bag and starts pulling out Seattle team jerseys. “I looked at the tickets,” he says. “Andrew put us on the Seattle side, so I thought we should dress appropriately.

He tosses Neil a shirt and Neil shakes it out and looks at it. Kevin’s name and number are in huge letters across the back. “You’re a genius,” he tells Matt.

He makes Dan and Matt pose with him in front of the giant mirror in the hotel lobby, then posts the picture to Twitter and writes, “I’ll be in the Seattle section tonight. Can’t wait to cheer for @kevindayexy! #hawksvssound”

It only takes a few seconds for the replies to start popping up. The first one says, “I called it! #minyardjostenrivalry.”

In the car, Neil clicks on the profile to see that this person did, in fact call it. In a tweet from a week ago they said, “Five bucks says @josten4exy shows up on the Seattle side in full Sound merch. #minyardjostenrivalry #hawksvssound”

Neil goes back to their original response and sends back, “You knew before I did, true psychic powers.”

When they get to the stadium, they’re immediately escorted to their seats. Which are, as promised, in the second row on the home side. As soon as the game starts, Neil forgets about Twitter and the rivalry and everything except Exy. Kevin is a machine, trading between his left and right hands at will and throwing Atlanta’s backliners off with every switch. Andrew looks bored -- because that’s how Andrew always looks -- but he plays like it means it, which is Neil’s favorite thing in the entire fucking world. He thinks he could happily watch Andrew play for hours when he’s doing it like he gives even half a shit.

Atlanta wins by two points, but it’s hard won and Kevin doesn’t seem upset when he stops to wave on his way off the court. Andrew and Kevin have to change and do press, so Neil eats a late dinner with Matt and Dan and goes back to the hotel to wait.

He knows Andrew must be on the way when a notification from his Twitter pops up on Neil’s phone. It’s a retweet of Neil’s mirror picture, and Andrew has added, “Bad luck charm?”

Neil stares at it until he hears the door click open.

Andrew has barely stepped into the room before Neil is on him, winding his arms around Andrew’s neck. “You were so good tonight,” he mumbles, pressing frenzied kisses to Andrew’s mouth and jaw. “Want you to fuck me.”

“Was it my playing or my tweeting?” Andrew asks. His voice has a low, hot edge to it that Neil only hears when Andrew is too turned on to reign it in. His hands wrap around Neil’s hips, warm fingertips nudging under the hem of the thin PSU t-shirt he’s changed into. Like most of the things Neil sleeps in, it used to belong to Andrew.

Neil licks at Andrew’s bottom lip and says, “Does it matter?”

He plasters his entire body against Andrew and pulls him across the room until the backs of Neil’s knees hit the bed and he goes down in a sprawl, propped up on his elbows. His shirt is rucked halfway up his chest and he knows Andrew loves his bare skin, scars and all.

“No,” Andrew says, and they’re done talking.

Andrew kisses him until their clothing has been stripped off, then produces a bottle of lube and works Neil’s body open with his fingers and his cock. It’s not long before Neil is arching off the bed, clinging to Andrew’s broad shoulders and panting his name like it’s the only word he knows. He thinks about Andrew ruthlessly defending his goal and the challenge in Andrew’s voice at the press interview and comes so hard that he’s still hazy and wrecked when Andrew pulls out and jerks himself off in hot stripes over Neil’s skin.

When they can function again, they drag themselves into the shower, and then Neil crawls under the covers and curls into Andrew’s side. “Tweet something else,” he says, tipping his head onto Andrew’s shoulder and reaching over to grab Andrew’s phone off the nightstand.

Andrew says, “I’m not a performing monkey,”

“It’s so cute when you clap your little cymbals together,” Neil says, and drops the phone on Andrew’s chest.

Andrew shoots him a glare, but picks up the phone and opens twitter. After a minute, he posts, “Sending @josten4exy and @backlinerboyd tickets to the San Diego side of the championship complimentary jerseys. Keep tradition alive.”

Matt responds a few minutes later with, “We’d like center court this time. Don’t forget about @daniswildin.”

“The Minyard-Josten-Boyd Rivalry?” Neil muses. “How do you say it if he’s on my side?”

“He’s just your collateral damage,” Andrew says.

Neil nuzzles in behind Andrew’s ear and whispers, gleefully, “I’m going to have a sex dream about your Twitter feed.”

Andrew pushes Neil right off the edge of the bed and doesn’t let him come back until he goes to the vending machine and buys Andrew a candy bar.

In the week before Neil flies to San Diego, the Foxes lose in the semi-final round of the college championship. Twitter seems to think Neil should be heartbroken, since it’s his last year as a Fox, but he’s excited to graduate and sign with a pro team and spend the summer off-season with Andrew.

Kevin comes to the game, because Exy is his lifeline to his father and he’ll be going to Palmetto games until Wymack retires. Andrew doesn’t come, because he has a national championship game in three days. He does tweet, after the game, “I look forward to shutting @josten4exy out on a professional court next year.”

Neil retweets it with, “I hear @andrewminyard has a thing for pipe dreams.”

In San Diego, Matt and Dan bring them jerseys for the game, but they don’t end up on either team’s side. Instead, they end up in a box with Aaron and Katelyn and Kevin, who are all wearing Atlanta jerseys. Kevin looks so annoyed about it that Neil wonders briefly if Aaron sat on him while Katelyn wrestled it over his head.

“This just gets better and better,” Matt says. He makes one of the stadium’s ushers take a picture of them with Matt’s phone. Matt posts it to Twitter. “Lines being drawn,” it says. “#minyardjostenrivalry.”

“This is getting out of hand,” Kevin tells Matt and Neil. “If you put this much energy into Exy, your seasons might have lasted longer.”

Aaron throws Kevin a wry glance. “What’s your excuse?” he asks.

“Oh look,” Kevin says. “The game is starting.”

Three weeks after Atlanta wins the championship, Neil signs with the Savannah Lions. They’re a new team, untested, and signing their contract feels a little like joining the pro version of the Foxes. It doesn’t hurt that they’re scheduled to play Atlanta twice. Once in the pre-season and once in the regular season. On the off-chance that both teams end up in the regional playoffs, there will be more direct competition. Neil can’t fucking wait.

Plus, he likes the idea of being in the same state as Andrew, even if they’re still more than three hours apart.

His ever-increasing number of fans must check the schedule the second Neil posts a picture with the Savannah coach, because less than 30 seconds later he gets the first response.

“The #minyardjostenrivalry has leveled up!! #hawksvslions” it reads.

Another one says, “Clearing my schedule for both games immediately. We’ll need a drinking game. #minyardjostenrivalry.” In the replies to that one are easily thirty suggestions for the proposed drinking game. One of them is “Drink when @andrewminyard looks bored!”

Neil taps the comment icon and replies, “You’ll be blacked out before halftime.” The numbers under his tweet immediately start ticking upwards with likes and retweets

Andrew, who is sitting a foot away from Neil on Wymack’s couch, types away on his phone for a few seconds. Then his tweet pops up under Neil’s response. “Give me something to look interested in.”

“Fuck,” Neil whispers. He’s suddenly, painfully hard in the middle of Wymack’s living room. He can hear Abby and Bee talking to Savannah’s coach in the kitchen and all he wants to do is straddle Andrew’s lap and show him how interesting Neil can be.

Andrew smirks at him. “Junkie.”

When Neil looks at his phone again, there’s another tweet that reads, “Guys? Do any of you think they might be flirting? #minyardjostenrivalry or #minyardjostenromance?”

The rivalry thing dies down over the summer. Andrew helps Neil pack up his dorm and they dump all of his shit in Andrew’s small guest room. Neil will have to find an apartment in Savannah at some point, but he has six weeks with Andrew before they have to report for their respective training camps.

They might be famous enough to have a surprisingly large Twitter following between them, but they aren’t so famous that someone will recognize them on their annual summer road trip. They choose a different area every year and spend a few weeks aimlessly making their way towards a destination of some sort, talking and arguing over music and visiting the tourist attractions Neil buys them tickets for. At night, they have slow, lazy sex in hotels where Neil whispers yes into Andrew’s ear over and over again until it all blends into one long gasp. They’re going north this year. Up to Chicago and then along the coast of the Great Lakes and into Canada before they end up in Ontario for a few days.

They keep their phones on for music and pictures, but they ignore texts and Neil turns off Twitter notifications until they’re back in Georgia.

When he does look at Twitter again, sprawled across Andrew’s couch, the first thing he sees is a link to a Buzzfeed post. The title is A Pre-Season Refresher Course On The Minyard-Josten Rivalry. Buzzfeed loves to post screencaps of their tweets and the responses they get, usually paired with a reaction shot from some TV show or movie. It’s not the most inventive reporting Neil has ever seen.

He thinks that he might also need a refresher course, though, so he clicks on the link. It’s the standard fare, except that almost all of the reaction shots are of him and Andrew. The last one is on the Palmetto State court. It must be after a game, because Andrew’s helmet is at his feet and he’s holding his neck guard in one hand. Neil doesn’t remember the moment, and he has no idea what he’d said or done, but Andrew is glaring him down with a heat in his eyes that probably looks like anger. Maybe even hatred. Neil knows Andrew better than that.

He gets the same look later that night, when he’s dropping kisses up Andrew’s thigh and over his stomach, inches away from where Andrew really wants him. He thinks about Andrew looking at him like that on the court again next season and...yeah. He’s fucking ready.

The next morning, he posts the photo from the article along with, “Counting down the days until training camp.”

It’s his most liked tweet ever in less than four hours.

For their first game against each other, their fans make shirts. When he clicks on the rivalry hashtag from the Atlanta locker room, his screen is filled half with pictures of blue and yellow Team Minyard shirts and half with pictures of green and white Team Josten shirts. Some of them look professionally made, others have been drawn on with Sharpie. One woman has tye-dyed a shirt in a swirl of green and blue and both of their names are written on the front. The tweet says, “How was I supposed to choose one? #minyardjostenrivalry.”

As he scrolls through them, he gets a notification from Allison’s account. It’s a picture of her and Renee standing in Allison’s living room with their arms around each other. The pre-game is on in the background. Allison is wearing an emerald green v-neck with “Team Josten” written in white vinyl script, while Renee’s sky blue shirt reads Team Minyard in bold, blocky letters and matches the streaks in her platinum hair.

“Representing our boys. @reneewalker @josten4exy #minyardjostenrivalry #walkerreynoldsrivalry,” her tweet reads.

Renee’s retweet pops up a minute later. It says, “@allireynolds bought a Cricut and a heat press for the occasion. @andrewminyard ”

Neil doesn’t know what those things are, but he taps the little heart on both tweets anyway.

At halftime, he checks again and finds that Matt and Dan have joined in, both with Team Josten shirts. They’ve been quickly countered by a shot of Aaron and Katelyn, along with Katelyn’s sister and baby niece. They’re all four wearing matching Team Minyard shirts. Neil thinks about how far Aaron and Andrew have come since he met them, and feels a little extra warmth in his chest when he taps the heart under Katelyn’s picture.

Savannah loses and Neil doesn’t care. He’s missed being on the same court with Andrew. He’s missed being this close when Andrew blocks a perfect shot without moving a single muscle on his face. And even though Neil’s team loses, he gets a goal past Andrew that no one else would ever be able to. That feels like a fucking victory all on its own.

Also, it gets Neil the look from the photo. Neil holds onto that look all the way through the post-game interviews, during which he’s asked, “You’ve hinted in the past that the Hawks could improve their performance. Is the shot you made tonight an indication of Minyard's lack of skills at the goal?”

Neil meets the reporter's eyes. “I have never once disparaged Andrew’s playing abilities,” he says coldly. “The truth is that he’s the best goalie in Exy and I got lucky.”

The next person asks, a little timidly, “Just luck? Because from where I was standing that shot looked almost impossible.”

Neil calls on Kevin’s media training and gives her a bright smile. “I’ve been watching Andrew play for years,” he says. “Maybe he should pay a little more attention to me.”

Andrew’s look is still there when he pins Neil down against the bed that night and says, “I’ll pay plenty of fucking attention to you.”

“Yes,” Neil breathes, and thinks who’s winning now?

A couple of months later, Andrew appears with a few of his teammates on an Atlanta morning talk show. Neil doesn’t see it, because Andrew refuses to tape it for him, but he does see the clip that hits their hashtag later that day.

In the video, one of the hosts says, “So, Andrew, you and Neil Josten are creating quite the reputation for yourselves on Twitter?” He turns to the camera and adds, “Neil Josten is Savannah’s rookie striker, for those of you playing catch up.” On the screen behind him, a slideshow of tweets about the rivalry is scrolling by.

“Are we?” Andrew says flatly. “What kind of reputation?”

The other host cuts in and asks, sweetly, “Is the rivalry real? We’re dying to know how you really feel about Neil!”

Neil knows what’s coming before Andrew even opens his mouth, so he recites it in unison with the Youtube clip. “I hate him.”

He immediately goes back to Twitter and scrolls down the hashtag. In between links to Youtube, there are a million .gifs with a variety of reactions. One of them says, “Too far @andrewminyard!! #minyardjostenrivalry.”

Another says, “Pretty sure he’s kidding guys, I know it’s hard to tell but in this TED talk I will… #minyardjostenrivalry.”

Neil picks his favorite .gif of Andrew’s I hate him and posts it. “Tell me something I don’t already know,” he adds.

This time when someone retweets him and adds, “I swear it’s like they’re pulling each other’s pigtails on the playground #minyardjostenrivalry or #minyardjostenromance?” it has dozens of likes and retweets.

They play against each other in Savannah next time and there’s another round of team shirt posts before the game, this time with even more hashtags. Someone has added #teamjosten and #teamminyard to the mix. Neil doesn’t tap on either hashtag. People are assholes on the internet and he doesn’t want to be pissed off before a game.

Matt has an off week, so he and Dan fly in the morning of the game. When Matt posts a selfie of them in front of the stadium, he’s wearing his Team Josten shirt, but Dan is wearing a new Team Minyard shirt.

“The rest of the fam isn’t here so @daniswildin is representing #teamminyard,” his tweet reads. “I’m sticking with my boy #teamjosten! #ahousedivided #minyardjostenrivalry #hawksvslions.”

Savannah wins this time, but Neil doesn’t make a single goal. Andrew shuts him down over and over again, until Neil is seething in frustration. His coach pulls him out and sends their starting striker back in. She immediately scores a goal. Neil wants to punch Andrew in the face almost as badly as he wants to suck his dick.

While he waits to do press after the game, he checks Twitter. One of the tweets says, “Isn’t @backlinerboyd like bffs with @josten4exy?? Why would @daniswildin wear that shirt if it was real?? #minyardjostenrivalry #minyardjostenromance #teamromance.”

Another person has posted a picture of Neil from the game, he’s on the bench staring towards Andrew’s goal. Much like the look in Andrew’s eyes in the picture from PSU -- Neil’s look could easily be anger or hatred. But Neil is pretty sure he was on the dick sucking end of the spectrum when that was taken. He knows because the very edge of his lower lip is indented where he’s biting the inside of it and trying not to get hard.

They’ve added, “I dunno y’all, this doesn’t look like lust to me? #teamrilvalry #minyardjostenrivalry #minyardjostenromance.”

He scrolls a little more, but his coach calls his name so he shoves his phone in his bag and goes to do press. He’s not surprised when one of the first reporters addresses him directly and says, “In the past you’ve praised Andrew Minyard as being the best goalie in Exy, despite your rumored rivalry. Is your lack of points tonight evidence of that?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Neil says. “He’s been pouting about the last game for weeks.”

Eventually he’s free to go. Matt and Dan come back to Neil’s apartment and Andrew escapes his team and brings takeout. They sit on the floor around the coffee table and eat with chopsticks while Dan regales them with ridiculous stories about her high schoolers. Neil laughs until his face hurts.

An empty bottle of whiskey later, Dan and Matt take an Uber back to their hotel. Neil locks the door behind them and pours himself into Andrew’s lap. The alcohol is making him feel warm and lightheaded. “Twitter thinks we have a romance,” he tells Andrew.

“If you want to call it that,” Andrew says. There's an amused tilt to his mouth that makes Neil want to kiss it. So he does. Then he kisses it again and again until Andrew takes him to the bedroom and Neil forgets all about hashtags.

He checks the hashtag in the morning and finds a whole string of tweets about his comments during post-game press. The #teamromance tag seems to be slowly gaining traction, with a mix of hashtag-supporting .gifs and photos from interviews and games. One of the most popular ones is Neil saying I’ve been watching Andrew play for years, maybe he should pay more attention to me.

Andrew is still asleep, so Neil pulls on shorts and sneakers and goes for a run. He sets out on his usual path around the neighborhood and lets his mind wander to the hashtags and how he feels about all of these people potentially finding out about their relationship. Good, he decides eventually. He thinks he feels good about it.

He’s not rushing to out them or anything, he doesn’t even know how Andrew would feel about that. But if they’re so obvious the internet is picking up on it, then this was inevitable. The more fans they collect, the more likely they are to be recognized when they’re out together. Neil isn’t committed enough to any kind of fake rivalry to not hold Andrew’s hand in public. The question is, do they take control of the narrative and put it out there themselves, or wait and see what happens.

It turns out that it doesn’t matter which way Neil wants to go. Before he can make any decisions, a kid on a blue bicycle rides directly into the path and Neil can’t stop in time to avoid a collision. The last thing he remembers is the sidewalk rushing up to meet him.

There’s a stabbing pain behind Neil’s eyes when he wakes up. When he looks around -- squinting against the sun streaming in through the blinds -- he realises that he’s in a hospital room. Andrew is curled up in the chair beside him. His eyes are closed, but Neil can see the tense furrow in his forehead.

Neil reaches up and feels his head. There’s a bandage on his right temple that throbs when he prods it and his left wrist is sore and wrapped. His head swims when he tries to sit up and he groans, fighting down dizziness.

“Lie back down, idiot,” Andrew says beside him, then his hand is on Neil’s shoulder, gently pressing him back down against the bed. Neil sinks back into the pillow easily and closes his eyes. He feels seasick.

“What happened?” Neil asks. His throat is so dry he has to try twice to get the words out.

Andrew’s fingers brush over his forehead, pushing his hair back. “A six year-old gave you a concussion,” he says. He sounds soft and worried. Neil doesn’t think he’s ever heard that tone from Andrew, not even after Baltimore.

“The bike,” Neil says. He remembers a little girl with a purple helmet. “How long ago?”

“A few hours. You’ve been awake a few times, but all you did was say embarrassing things about how much you love Exy.” Andrew’s fingers have traced their down down the side of Neil’s face to his jaw.

“Glad you’re here.” Neil leans into Andrew’s touch and grounds himself in the rhythm of Andrew’s breathing. He doesn’t feel the fuzziness that comes with pain meds, but it means the pounding ache in his head is relentless.

“Yeah,” Andrew says. He cups Neil’s cheek in his hand. “Don’t let me forget to show you the video.”

He’s released into Andrew’s care the next afternoon. “Don’t you have practice?” Neil asks, as a nurse wheels him out to Andrew’s waiting car.

“I took a few days off,” Andrew says. The tone in his voice indicates that he did not ask for permission. He comes around the hood and lifts Neil out of the wheelchair before the nurse can touch him.

At Neil’s apartment, Andrew makes him eat a bowl of soup and lie on the couch where Andrew can keep an eye on him while he drifts in and out of sleep. When he’s awake, Andrew reads out loud to him from whatever book he’s in the middle of and Neil slips back under to the familiar sound of Andrew’s voice.

Sometime the next morning, Neil asks, “Where’s my phone?”

“No screens yet,” Andrew says. “Also, you fell on it and there were rocks embedded in the screen. I had to order you a new one.”

“Read me a book about Exy,” Neil mumbles. He can feel sleep tugging at him, but he doesn’t want Andrew to stop talking.

“In your dreams,” Andrew says. But when Neil wakes up again that afternoon, one of his Exy magazines is on the coffee table.

“Exy,” Neil says, delighted.

Andrew sighs, but picks up the magazine. “Junkie,” he says, and reads an interview with Jeremy Knox while Neil eats another bowl of soup.

Neil finally starts to feel like himself again on the third afternoon. The pain has receded to a dull ache and the fogginess is gone. He sits up carefully, propping himself against the arm of the couch, and looks around. Andrew is in the chair, watching but not objecting.

“I feel better,” Neil says. “I’m supposed to remind you to show me a video.”

Andrew leans over and puts his fingers under Neil’s chin. He studies Neil’s face intently for a long moment, then picks a phone up off the coffee table and hands it to Neil. “I’m sure you can find it,” he says. “You get thirty minutes of screen time.”

“I’m not a toddler,” Neil says, but Andrew is already walking into the kitchen. A second later, Neil hears a cabinet open and then the click of a stove burner being switched on. More soup, Neil assumes.

Andrew has already logged Neil into his account, so all of his apps are downloaded and ready. He doesn’t even have to go to Twitter to see the video Andrew is talking about, Allison and Nicky have both texted it to him.

Neil taps on it and a video of a hospital waiting room fills his screen. Neil spots Andrew immediately, standing at the nurses station a few feet from the camera. It’s a crystal clear shot. From behind the camera, a female voice says, “That’s Andrew Minyard, right?”

Andrew is leaning over the counter, getting in the face of the nurse sitting on the other side. The audio picks up perfectly when he says, “You will let me in to see him or I will sue not only this entire hospital, but you personally.”

“Who is he talking about?” another girl whispers.

“Shhh,” the first girl says.

The nurse behind the desk does not back down from the threat in Andrew’s body language. “You are Mr. Josten’s emergency contact,” she tells him. “But you are not related. Once he’s responsive, he can decide if he wants to see you.” Neil can tell from the way Andrew’s hand is twitching that he’s wishing he’d kept the knives in his armbands after college.

“Josten?” one of the girls hisses. “You mean like…?”

She talks over the first part of Andrew’s response, but when Neil can hear him again, he’s saying, “and I have enough money to make you regret this for the rest of your life. Now let me fucking see him.”

“Holy shit,” one of the girls says, loud enough that Andrew’s head snaps around and his eyes lock on the camera. The screen goes blurry and then black as the girl scrambles to stop recording.

Neil goes to Twitter and is inundated with tweets about the video. The one at the top of his feed says, “Has anyone heard from @josten4exy? What was @andrewminyard so worried about in the vid?

A few tweets down, he sees, “Daily reminder that #minyardjostenromance is real and the internet is psychic.”

Neil taps on the hashtag, which is full of clips from the video. “Everyone knows your boyf is your emergency contact. If yours is still your ex, change it now. #minyardjostenromance #teamromance,” is the first tweet he reads.

Another one says, “Just because they’re friends doesn’t mean they’re boning. My bestie is my contact. #minyardjostenromance #minyardjostenrivalry #teamfriendship.”

The rest of his feed jumps from #teamromance to #teamfriendship and back again. It seems like #teamrival has been mostly eliminated.

Andrew comes back into the living room and sets a bowl down in front of Neil. It’s still soup, but this one has solid chunks of chicken and pasta in it. Neil opens a new message and types out a quick tweet. He hits post in the millisecond before Andrew takes his phone away and replaces it with a spoon.

His tweet says, simply, “#teamromance.”

By the time Neil signs a contract with the Atlanta Hawks, their hashtag has changed a little.

Neil likes a lot of things about Savannah, but his teammates are just co-workers and he doesn’t feel any particular loyalty to them. Plus, he misses Andrew all the time. Especially once their relationship is public and all over the internet.

He moves in with Andrew a week after he signs the contract, three months after the video came out. On his first night there, he takes a picture of their legs as they sit on the couch. Andrew’s bare feet are resting on the edge of the coffee table and Neil’s knees are draped over his lap. Andrew’s hand is curled possessively against Neil’s thigh.

When Neil posts it to twitter, he makes sure to tag it with the latest iteration of their hashtag, which happens to be his favorite.

“#teamboyfriends.”