“Don’t tell me you’re on his side.”
“There is no ‘sides,’ Arizona. It’s facts. Your dad just wants to keep you safe. Clearly.”
Albeit heavy-handed. I picked up my phone, but nothing from Royal.
“Don’t worry about Prinze.” Ramses lay back again. “Coach takes our phones during away games. Keeps us focused. Anyway, Prinze is probably showering up about now. Once he and the others are on the bus back home, I’m sure he’ll give you a call. You won’t have to stay with me.”
I gazed up, really a shit friend. “It’s not that.”
“I know.” His smile quirked right, actually touching his eyes. “I guess it’s just my pride a bit. He won, and I didn’t.”
“I didn’t know I was a competition.”
“You’re not.” That smile faded, his voice serious. “At least that wasn’t how it started.” His jaw moving, he severed eye contact, and I did feel bad. Clearly, he had feelings for me once and maybe still did.
Getting up, I came over, setting my cup down on the table. “You’re one of my best friends, you idiot, and I’d hate for us to lose that because you’re an idiot.”
The smirk bounced his shoulders, and I tapped his arms until he opened them up for me to hug him. That long wingspan fell around me, warmer than I remembered. God, did I miss him.
“I’d hate that too,” he admitted, falling away until I was under just one of his arms. He pulled a blanket, wrapping it around me. “I suppose I’ll get over you eventually. I hear Brown University has lots of prime college ass to get over a saucy little minx like you.”
I’d forgotten he got into that ritzy school, the genius.
I punched him—repeatedly in his gut until he took that previous comment he said back, and though he eventually did, we both ended up laughing. I’d miss him. I’d miss these days. I completely planned on defying my dad and staying here, but Ramses was leaving. He’d gotten into a great school and was leaving like everyone else.
“I’m going to miss you.” I tipped my chin, pointing at him. “Promise me you’ll text when you go away to school.”
Long fingers wrapped around mine. “I wouldn’t dream of it any other way. You got me to come back to this place. Face my demons head-on.”
I supposed he had, and now, he had his dad too. Mayor Mallick definitely didn’t deserve any forgiveness from his son, considering the way he’d treated Ramses in the past, but it wasn’t about that. Ramses being happy was all it was about.
Ramses and I sat there together before we heard other voices, pulling apart when those voices sounded closer. A door slammed somewhere in the house, followed by several steps in the direction of the hallway.
“You have to help me, Ibrahim.” Principal Hastings… the Principal Hastings from my school stood in the hallway. He looked completely disheveled, hair askew and not himself, when he stood in front of Ramses’s dad, Mayor Mallick.
The mayor slid his hands into his lounge pants pockets. He wore a bathrobe, clearly about to go to bed. He placed a hand on Principal Hastings’s shoulder. “You need to go fix your marriage, Leonardo. I’m sorry. You can’t do this anymore.”
“You don’t understand—”
Ramses cleared his throat, both men looking in our direction. Mayor Mallick instantly stared away, but Principal Hastings fell right back into that headmaster facade.
His jaw clenched, he moved his hand over at least two days of stubble before pointing at the mayor, his brother. “Then screw you.”
Ramses and I both shot back, harsh words from someone who usually never said such things. Not once had I ever caught Principal Hastings being anything but a professional stick in the mud.
That didn’t appear to be the case now, and I didn’t miss when he cut his eyes in, of all places, my direction. I’d describe the look he gave me as nothing short of a sneer before he clipped the mayor’s shoulder and left the man standing there in the hallway.
The mayor approached the open living room doors, placing his hands on the knobs. “Keep it down in here, okay, kids?”
Ramses sat up. “Dad?”
A question in that word his father clearly didn’t want to answer, he merely closed the doors to the living room, leaving both Ramses and me sitting there with nothing but questions.
I raised my cocoa cup. “What’s that about, you think?” I mean, none
of that was any of my business, but it was too weird.
Ramses grabbed a pillow. “Probably the divorce,” he said, and I raised an eyebrow. Ramses shrugged. “Sounds like Unc is going through one. They haven’t told me about it, but I heard my dad on the phone this morning. Sounds new.”