I’d been lucky when other guys hadn’t. I’d been lucky when she hadn’t. I swallowed. “That guy’s going to rot in a jail cell for what he did to you.”
“For what he did to me?” She had tears in her eyes, and I didn’t know what pissed me off more, the fact she was obsessed that I blew the whistle on a child predator or the fact she didn’t care enough about herself to do the same. Her jaw worked. “We don’t have a coach because of you, but everyone will think its because of me. Everyone will know about a stupid thing that happened so fucking long ago it doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter,” I challenged. “It matters because of you. Paige… I was just fucking looking out for you.”
“Well, no one asked you to do that,” she said, tears in her eyes. “I swear to God, Royal Prinze. You and your toxic masculinity. You think you can do anything since you got that silver ring on your finger. Even mess around in my life.”
I gripped it. “Not true.”
“Oh, isn’t it? And what’s really fucked up is you don’t even care about all that. In fact, you hate it. You loathe it but deal with it because of your dad, a guy who’s beaten the shit out of you since we were kids, and for some reason you still feel the need to impress him?” She shook her head. “News flash, Royal. What happened to your mom and sister was an accident and had nothing to do with a six-year-old boy—”
“Watch it,” I gritted. “Stop right now.”
“Or what?” she challenged, getting in my face now. “Because you’ll hurt me? Raise your hand and throw down the gauntlet on me like you did Coach?”
I couldn’t hear, the ringing in my ears too loud. She’d never said such things to me… cut me in such a way and I couldn’t see straight. She’d never do that to me, not her.
I think she saw that, witnessed the complete shutdown currently raging a war inside me. She cried then, actual tears cutting down her cheeks, and when she walked away, I grabbed her.
“Paige…”
She collapsed, falling literally into my arms, and I gripped her, not letting her fall.
“Paige?” I asked, freaked the fuck out. She said things she’d never say, crying like this… I shook my head. “Paige, what’s going on?”
She gripped me back, quivering and wailing, and I knew something else was going on here, something deep that would make her act this way. This wasn’t just about what we were talking about, couldn’t be.
“She’s married,” whispered so softly in my ear I barely even heard it. She buried her face into my neck. “She’s married, Royal, and I’m… I’ve been so stupid.”
It took me a minute to register what she was saying, so many words said.
I closed my eyes. She had been seeing someone, acting so different from herself but in such a good way. I’d seen my friend… happy, legitimately happy, and possibly for the first time. She and I had a lot of pain from both our fathers, a lot a pain, but we always pulled through. We always rose above.
I dampened my lips. “Who?” I asked. “Tell me who, Paige.”
Her mouth closed, her headshake adamant against my neck, and I knew she wouldn’t tell me. At least not now.
“What do you need?” I said instead, all of this taking everything within me not to run out of here like an ape and fix whatever this was. To make someone hurt for
hurting my best friend. Maybe Paige was right. Maybe I had turned into something bad. Maybe there was more than one kind of monster.
“Just this, Royal,” she said, making me come down from it all. She squeezed me harder. “Just this.”
I gave her that, knowing exactly what I’d do if she changed her mind. I’d be ready. I’d fix this for her.
I’d do whatever she wanted me to do.
Twenty-Three
December - Present
The last thing I needed to be doing this close to finals was skipping class, but I had way too many questions at the moment to not delve into things deeper with Ramses. His quote, unquote “walk” ended up leading us out into the snow and to a part of campus I’d never been before. The greenhouse was heated, gorgeous with winter blooms, and I studied some of them, taking off my coat and sitting near the koi pond. The school had some of those, their wispy tails fluttering through the water.
“I see you still know your way around this place,” I said, putting my coat on a rock formation next to the pond. They had them everywhere.
Ramses opted out of a coat for our journey, his uniform jacket apparently enough. It seemed he was paying for that because he didn’t take his jacket off like I did upon entering the greenhouse. He warmed his long arms, and my mind was blown that he was even here and we were together right now.
“Not a lot of things change, I guess,” he started, smiling at the pond, then found me. “Well, I guess a lot of things. You’re here now.”