We The Pretty Stars (Court High 4)

“That’s like asking me if I wouldn’t mind air.” He smiled, tasting my skin. He pinched my shoulder between his teeth before brushing his nose over it. “I love you.”

I loved him too, my eyes closing. He kissed the palm of my hand and I touched his face.

“Things got weird tonight,” I said, playing with his hair. “You know with what Jax said about you getting sick?”

It actually got to the point where no one talked at all, and I had a feeling that had less to do with the fact we were watching a movie. The veer in conversation had made him uncomfortable, clearly.

Lids fell hard over green eyes. He pushed a veil of dusky blond out of his face. “Yeah. And?”

Defensive, and that was his go-to. The boy was a vault, and I hated that he did that. It was just me here, and he didn’t have to be this way.

“Royal—”

He pulled my hands from his face, then hovered over me. Gripping my wrists, he pinned my arms above my head, extending my body and making my tummy quiver.

“Let’s just be together,” he said, placing his weight on me and reaching between my legs, he got back into what we’d started earlier tonight. What we’d started but couldn’t finish. I sucked in a breath the moment his fingers invaded my underwear, protests hard for me at the moment. He unsnapped my bra as his fingers entered me, and I knew exactly what he was doing. He was using me. He was using us and sex not to talk.

“Royal…” He stole my breath with a kiss, a taste, and that was all it took. I submitted to him.

I gave him what he wanted.

*

I turned in the middle of the night, by myself, and I didn’t understand. Opening my eyes, I realized I wasn’t by myself, but Royal had retreated to the other side of the bed. He sat on the edge in nothing but his boxers, his head in his hands.

Basically naked myself from fooling around earlier tonight, I brought the blankets up to my chest. Shimmying, I got to the edge of the bed, and when I touched his back, his head shifted my way. My hand came away clammy, sweat coating his muscular frame. I touched hot skin. “Hey. You okay?”

Royal’s hand covered mine, gripping on for dear life, and moving, I guided his cheek to make him look at me. His eyes were completely bloodshot, red and dark-rimmed. “Royal?”

A silence filled the room, and I brought him completely to me, guiding him back with me under the sheets. Together, I held him close, and he buried his face in my neck.

“Em…” was all he said, my name in harsh and tortured tones. He hadn’t sounded this way before.

“Hey, talk to me.” I folded my fingers into his hair, praying to God he’d talk to me. That he’d let some of this out. Whatever it was, he didn’t have to do this alone. Thick arms eventually moved around me, and seriously, I questioned his ability to fuse me into his flesh. He held me so hard, so long.

His lips pulled apart on my neck. “I saw their faces, Em… I see them all the time.”

“Who, babe? Who?” He sounded so terrible, tears burning my own eyes. I felt so much pain in his voice. What the hell was going on?

Coarse fingers dug into my flesh, my boyfriend holding on for dear life. “My mom. My sister,” he rasped, tugging me into him hard. “What the fuck? Why can’t I let go?”

Why would he want to? Let go of them. “Why do you need to let go?”

“Because I’m a piece of shit,” he gritted, his hands so hard on my flesh. He pulled me hard. “Because it’s my fault they’re dead.”

He’d said something like this before, admitted he was the reason they’d died when his dad hit him once. He said he deserved it. But how? “How was it your fault?”

Eventually, with some coaxing, I got him to pull away, to face me, face this. His eyes weren’t just lined in red but glassy, a shine to them like he straddled a thin line on the cusp of snapping. Maybe he was on the brink, these moments with me the only ones keeping him from hacking that rope clear through.

“I got so sick,” he said, the swallow hard in his throat. “I got sick, and I was scared.”

“Okay.” I smoothed my hands on his face.

He gripped one. “My family and I were supposed to go skiing. The whole family. My d

ad. Me. My mom and my sister. Because I got sick I couldn’t go, and my dad stayed with me. He wanted Grace and my mom to still go, though. Didn’t want to ruin their time. He used to do things like that. Be so nice.”

“Your sister’s name was Grace?” I smiled a little. “That’s a nice name.”