They The Pretty Stars (Court High 1)

I could put up with time at the community center. LJ most likely wouldn’t be there since he’d probably be off to college himself, and the job really wasn’t so bad, hard work but mindless.

A sigh bled into the phone. “This is about your sister, isn’t it? From what I understand, you haven’t heard anything, right?”

I’d checked in with her so she knew. “Correct.”

“So now, you’re ruining your life over this? Putting everything on hold when all this is most likely just drama between your dad and your sister? He ran her off, and now, you’re letting yourself get caught up in it too?”

She really wasn’t my dad’s biggest fan, not that I could blame her. I wasn’t his either really.

My phone buzzed on my call and pulling it away, I noticed a text message. Sitting at a stop sign, I checked it out and my eyes nearly bugged out.

“Hey, you almost here? I’m not waiting around forever. It’s Royal by the way.”

Of course, it was and how the fuck did he get my number? My jaw clenched, I ignored it, going back to Aunt Celeste. I sighed, pulling away from the stop. “Aunt C…”

“You’re smart, December.” Her own exasperated sigh bled into the line. “You get pretty good grades. You could go somewhere and get away from all this. You could live your life for you.”

My jaw moved. “Auntie, let’s not talk about this now. I’m kind of in the middle of something.” The sign for the pumpkin patch filled my vision with the words, the insignia highlighted with orange and yellow twinkling lights. The mascot was a scarecrow, one waving to allow people inside between two pumpkins.

“What could be more important than discussing your future, honey?”

Past the pumpkin patch was the corn maze, and outside of the rows upon rows of corn were two cars, a slick Audi and the other a dingy pickup. The one and only Royal Prinze lounged outside of the latter, his legs and arms crossed as he apparently waited for me. I pulled up beside the nicer car, putting my own into park.

“I’m meeting a friend,” I said, seeing the opposite outside my window. Pushing off the truck bed, Royal approached in a tight T-shirt and well-worn jeans, and I faced forward. “It hasn’t been easy to come across those lately.”

A cheap shot, I knew, and had I bothered to update my aunt that I found friends since moving here, other than my older stories about those first days, she might have given me more of a hard time.

“We need to talk about this soon, okay? I won’t bother you about it now. Have fun with your friend. I love you, kid.”

After telling her the same, I clicked out of my seat belt, then grabbed my book bag off the floor.

“All right, get on in,” I said, nudging Hershey. She was already getting a little too big for the bag, seeming to have doubled if not tripled in the short amount of time since I got her, but she managed to wrestle her puppy self inside. Her cushion was all the dog toys that I brought. I got out of the Range Rover in a blue jumper, my street clothes foreign to me considering all my time was spent in school uniforms.

I could say the same for Royal.

He approached around the back of my car, jeans way too tight and hugging his thick, no doubt lacrosse-chiseled thighs. I thought the way his dress shirts and blazers hit his broad shoulders and firm chest made him look good, but a single white tee in the middle of cornstalks made him look like a calendar ad. He looked like a farm boy, uniquely average when he was so not so.

“How did you get my number?” I asked, shooting off at him the moment he placed eyes on me, then my bag. Hershey inside, I squeezed it to my chest.

His eyes rolled as he pushed fingers through his hair. “I don’t know. Asked around?”

“Bullshit. From who? Birdie?” She’d never give him my number, not in a million years without my permission. She and the rest of the basketball team loved how the world fawned all over him and the Court just as much as myself.

He placed a hand on the back of my car. “Your sister, I guess.”

“My sister?”

He nodded. “She gave it to me one day. I don’t know, for emergencies or something? The alternative was your dad, and obviously, she didn’t want him called for anything.” He lifted a shoulder. “I guess I’ve always had it.”

I honestly didn’t know how I felt about that, and when he got closer, I pulled my bag out of his sight, putting it on my shoulder and behind me.

“I take it Hershey’s in there?”

I kept my mouth shut about that, raising my chin. “What do you want with her? You can’t have her.”

“I don’t want her.”

“So what’s this about?”