The next time his phone went off, it was Dan: "nicky said u have a phone y/y".

"Yes," Neil sent back, and hoped that was enough.

Seconds later Dan was back with "bout time thought u'd never get one".

Neil considered asking her how she was doing in her English classes but took the higher road of silence.

By the time Neil made it to the athletes' dining hall for lunch he had twenty messages. Most of them were from Nicky, idle comments about nothing in particular. Neil read them but didn't respond unless Nicky was asking a question. Two were from Matt, first checking up on the rumor of Neil having a phone and then complaining about the bet Andrew sabotaged by getting such a cheap model.

"No one uses those anymore. Did he find it at a pawn shop?" Matt messaged Neil.

Neil didn't know what to make of it. The Foxes spent seven hours together at practices every day and roomed with each other at Fox Tower. How they had anything left to say to each other was beyond him. He wanted to turn the messaging off somehow or tell them this wasn't why he had a phone. Phones were for emergencies, not running commentary on a teacher's boring lecture. Neil refrained because he knew he was in the wrong this time, but he still jumped every time his phone hummed at him.

The others were undeterred by his silence. Nicky peppered him throughout the day and through most of Thursday. Finally Neil's patience wore thin enough to say something. He sat on the stairs of the hall where he had his tutoring session and painstakingly typed a message out.

"What happens when you use up all your messages and then need them?"

Nicky's response was almost immediate. "???" A couple seconds later he came back with something more useful: "our plan has unlimited txt. we can't use them up. man i try tho :)".

Neil sighed and gave the fight up as a lost cause.

He had seventy messages by the time they boarded the bus late Friday afternoon. They were up against USC-Columbia tonight. Columbia was the only other Class I Exy team in the state, so the two schools had a rowdy rivalry. The odds were good, even though the Foxes were playing with the same crazy lineup they used last week.

Nicky wanted to drive to Columbia separately so they could go out to Eden's Twilight afterward, but Wymack put his foot down. He knew what sorts of things they got into at the club and didn't want to risk it this close to the banquet. If any of the officials at the banquet thought for any reason Andrew was off his drugs they could push for blood work to be done. Wymack didn't want dust showing up in the results. Andrew didn't fight Wymack's decision, but Nicky was more than a little grumpy about it.

Nicky turned in his seat to talk to Neil over his seatback. Halfway through his rant about a current class project Neil's phone hummed. Neil answered without thinking. It was a smiley face from Nicky. Neil looked up at Nicky, not understanding.