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Eames was beginning to wonder if "deceived and betrayed" was his natural state. Instead of the promised freedoms of sixth form, Eames had the tyranny of an American high school timetable, the injustice of first period calculus, at an hour when Eames was certain that no human brain worked properly. Eames was sure that he'd used to be quite good at maths.
He'd been promised lazy homeroom by American films. He'd been promised cheerleaders and tacky school dances. All lies. His father wasn't properly apologetic.
Moving the bloody goalposts, that's what it was. The driving license was small consolation.
In exchange for all Eames's friends, and his intellectual freedom, and home, he had betrayal, and he had Arthur, who was more trying than the worst of the Oxbridge boys. Arthur's brain worked just fine for calculus at half seven.
He had Arthur, who walked to school from somewhere in the surrounding neighborhood, but whom Eames, try as he might, had never managed to catch on the street to be offered a ride.
On rainy days, Eames left home half an hour early in the hopes of finding Arthur trudging along, awaiting rescue. Preferably drenched to the skin in one of his fine white shirts and with his hair curling up, but that was negotiable. The universe owed Eames something.
**
Hollywood had promised him this as well, an odd-couple pairing on a group project. Eames's brain worked marginally better by fourth period AP History, and he could still hardly believe his luck.
"Are you seriously," Arthur said, "going to start a fight about colonialism?"
"I wouldn't call it a fight," Eames drawled. "Hoped I might get you riled up enough to undo a button."
"Just because I don't pick fights to make myself look cool-"
"Just because you've never won a fight in your life-"
"I box," Arthur said, and Eames promptly lost his train of thought. Stubborn, he recognized. It wasn't a far walk to fierce; he could almost picture that on Arthur, but not violent. Fascinating.
"Used to play hockey, but it's expensive. Boxing's cheaper."
It was the first thing Arthur had told him, the first thing Eames learned in any way other than frustrated observation of the perfectly opaque box that Arthur had made himself into.
"Ice hockey," Arthur said.
"Right," Eames said. "Of course," as if that confusion had been the reason for his silence.