They The Pretty Stars (Court High 1)

I eased off of leather seats, adjusting the skirt of a dress that road up my ass just as bad as my uniform. I paired my dress with a leather jacket and black boots, ready to party and get out of my head a little. I’d spent entirely too much time since I’d gotten to this town either thinking about my sister or members of the Court, Royal specifically. I had no idea if he’d be here tonight, but at least with several Amazon-sized women surrounding me, I could blend into the crowd and hopefully avoid his wrath. Birdie, in her crop top and high-waisted jeans, passed Kiki the joint we started on our way over to the party in the ’burbs, all of us already slightly baked before getting here. I took one last hit when passed the weed, then allowed women twice my size to slink arms around my waist and across my shoulders. They led me inside, and thank God for that, as they kept me from getting pummeled in a home already filled from wall to wall with people. I had no idea whose house this was, but there were already bodies passed out in it.

I stepped over one, a guy with his head inside a pot.

Birdie frowned. “Uh-uh, not cool, Taylor,” she said, dragging me by the arm away from the sight with a laugh. “It’s too early to be doing all that.”

“Right?” Shakira’s cheeks hollowed as she took a hit from the joint we still had. Apparently done with it, she quickly put it out in Taylor’s pot, then grabbed my other arm. She pumped a fist. “Let’s dance, bitches!”

Our war cries filled the house as we went down the stairs into the pit of a house inside the high hills of Maywood Heights. Surrounded by glass, the open space let in the night, and we danced beneath the stars to DJ tunes. I actually felt like a star a little bit, a shining burst of light amongst the galaxy’s socialites. Don’t get me wrong. I partied hard back in LA, but I went to an inner-city school. We partied in either musty-smelling lofts or abandoned buildings, the scene busted up by cops barely after midnight.

This was different, girls in glittery gold dresses thrusting their hips against boys with silver rings on their fingers. The Court’s presence emanated through this place, but I’d yet to see Royal, LJ, Knight, and Jax. I may get lucky since LJ had been at work today just like me.

But then I saw them all over by the couches, a light burning through the air as they passed their own joint between them. They nearly all had girls, sometimes two or three under their lengthy wingspans. At the center, of course, was Royal, the last to take a hit before settling a hand on a girl in a bright pink dress. A repeat offender, I’d seen the redhead now two times with him in the span of a week. She’d been on the receiving end of the joint, smoke curling from her bright, fuchsia-colored lips before she giggled and pressed her mouth into Royal’s neck.

“Ew, gag.” Kiki spun me around, noticing the sight. She backed up against my hip with her arms in the air. “Might as well get a room.”

“Might as well,” I said, taking her hands before dancing with both Birdie and Kiki. Our party of basketball bitches sprinkled through the crowd, the tall girls easily made out.

“Try and try as she might, that’s all she’s going to get,” Shakira quipped, nearby us. “I swear, I wish Mira would just get over herself. She’s never getting Court kept.”

“Court kept?” I questioned.

Shakira nodded, then pointed to some of the other girls on the dance floor, the ones thrusting all over boys from the Court considering the chrome gorilla rings on the boys’ fingers. I hadn’t had the pleasure of seeing one of the rings up close yet, but the form in the metal was easily an animal’s bite. Shakira lowered to my level. “You see what they’re wearing?” she asked, pointing at the girls with Court boys. “The necklaces?”

I did, being spun by Kiki. They wore silver chains with some kind of pendant in the center. “Yeah?”

“That’s being Court kept,” Shakira explained. “The bitches that aren’t just sleeping around, but actually dating the Court boys have their own little society. They’re as good as kept women, lots of them marrying one of them after high school. It’s like a freaky-ass sisterhood.”

I peeled my gaze off the necklaces over chests both large and small beneath slinky dresses. “And Royal never ‘keeps’ a girl?”

“Girl, none of them do,” Shakira said. “Not Jax, Knight, or LJ either. They fuck women. That’s it. They don’t keep them.”

I supposed I shouldn’t be surprised considering the state in which I’d initially come across Mira. I hadn’t known her name up until now, not that I cared. Feeling winded, I decided to take a potty break and get some air from the floor. Of course, Birdie, Kiki, and Shakira went with me, the she-wolf pack traveling in groups. I took the longest since I actually had to use the bathroom, and they waited outside as I washed my hands. I bumped a girl on my way to grab from the stack of towels, and none other than blue eyes and fiery red hair met me when I gazed up.

Mira tossed a veil of red hair over her shoulder, frowning at me when I attempted to move around her.

“Sorry,” I said, grabbing the towel. Trying to make my exit quick, I barely dried my hands before having to move around her again to discard the towel in the designated hamper.

“You’re excused,” she said, her gaze lingering a little too long before shifting to her reflection in the mirror. She looked at me, though, frowning. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

Only school and, yeah, the community center. She probably hadn’t noticed me, though. I shrugged, passive about it. “Probably school or something.”

I really didn’t want to be the reminder for her about a certain meme I’d been a part of, and when she merely nodded, I let out a breath. I’d completely fallen out of this girl’s head the moment her attention went from me to the lipstick she started to apply from her purse, and I was glad for it. When she started to pull out her phone, I took advantage of a quick exit, easing out of the bathroom and nearly busted out in laughter at how awkward all that was. I told the girls about it back outside the bathroom, and as we’d just been talking about Mira, they laughed as well.

“That girl’s a nightmare. Stay far the hell away,” Birdie explained later in the kitchen. She handed us all red Solo cups filled with beer, which Kiki and Shakira tipped at us before taking back off for the dance floor. Birdie took a sip from her own. “That girl’s crazy. All Court bitches are but especially that one. She’s been trying to bag Royal for years. It’s really some kind of pathetic.”

A task she was completely engaged in right now from what I could see. Mira had returned to Royal’s lap, but now, she currently had him looking at her phone screen over her shoulder. Whatever he saw made his green eyes narrow and placed a hard frown on his lips. Immediately, he pushed her off him, getting up and leaving the circle.

What’s that about?

After looking at the phone, LJ followed, Jax and Knight pulling up the rear without even looking. I was pulled from the scene by Birdie when she took me back to the dance floor and easily forgot about all of it as I took sips between dance steps. The pair of us were just getting into dancing when some of the jocks from the lacrosse team announced beer pong out on the patio. A small group headed over there, and for something to do, Birdie and I went too. We watched the idiots outside as they played, getting completely wasted to the point of being sloppy, and I laughed, bumping into the shoulder of a girl clicking on her phone. It’d been the second time I’d run into Mira tonight, but when she gazed up this time, she smirked at me.

“Is this what you used to look like?” she asked, showing pictures she’d clearly been going over with the friends beside her. She swiped right. “You really should make your profile private.”

Mira and her friends laughed, and Mira flashed her phone at me so I could see exactly what she was talking about. She’d social media stalked me, my own photos staring back at me. They were pictures taken my freshman year, photos where I was heavier than I was now. About forty extra pounds sat on hips under baggy jeans and under oversize shirts worn specifically to hide it all. They’d been photos from a long time ago and photos that triggered a very unsettling time for me but not so much because of the way I looked. In actuality, they were a constant reminder of a certain someone and times I deeply wanted to forget. My self-worth at that time hadn’t been great, and because of that, I allowed someone into my life who took advantage of that. He took advantage of me, and all these photos did was show me that.

Had this been what she’d shown Royal? And had he been that put off by them he physically had to get away from her and what she’d showed him? I felt sick that I actually cared how he’d feel about how I used to look, and peering over, Birdie shot daggers in Mira’s direction.

“What the fuck, Mira?” Birdie questioned. “You’re stalking people now?”