“Cherri has skipped every single class so far,” he replied. “It’s not going to be cheap.”
“Like I said,” Nathan replied, “name your price.”
“Since it is just the first day, I suppose I can let her off for five hundred dollars.”
My heart dropped. Five hundred dollars to cover Cherri’s ass for a few hours seemed a steep price to pay.
“Fine,” Nathan said. “I’ll have it to you by the end of the day, but if she skips any more classes today, just look the other way. Five hundred at least covers the day.”
The vice-principal sighed. “Very well, but if anyone else catches her out of class, I won’t be able to cover for her.”
“Yeah,” Nathan said. I watched as the Vice Principal walked down the hallway in the direction opposite of where I was, but Nathan turned around and recoiled when he saw me staring back at him. “Nikita.”
“That’s a lot of money,” I said.
He walked up to me and attempted to grab my hands, but I pulled away. “Please,” he begged, “let me explain.”
“You don’t have to explain. I can see it very clearly. You do have feelings for her.” Again, Nathan tried to touch me, but I shoved his hand away. “Don’t. Just leave me alone.”
I gave Nathan a shake of my head before turning to walk away, just as a tear betrayed me and streaked down my cheek.
6
Nathan
Unlike the more laid-back place that Kyle had taken me to for breakfast, Brayden dragged us to an upscale restaurant in the middle of downtown Postings. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and white tablecloths and crystal ware adorned all the tables. It was fancy from top to bottom, and it was packed with people. Everyone in the restaurant was likely catching an early dinner reservation, and they were all dressed formally. The only reason the maître d’ looked the other way at three designer-dressed teenagers was that I quickly flashed him a hundred dollar-bill when we walked in. He knew who my dad was, so although at least fifty people were standing around in the lobby who didn’t make reservations and were waiting to be seated, the staff immediately brought us to a table in the back near the windows where we could look out over the cityscape of Postings Proper.
“I’ve always wanted to try this place,” Brayden said. “Thanks for getting us in, Nathan.” He smiled brightly at me, and I mustered as much of a smile as I could back at him.
“Yeah, man, of course. It’s the least I could do. I mean, jeez, as if I wasn’t a shitty enough friend for completely ignoring you all break, you guys didn’t get the Christmas party or any gifts. Terrible.”
At that, Brayden frowned. “I was sad about the Christmas party, but only because I’ve grown so used to it. It’s not about the gifts. I just wanted to hang out with you.”
Brayden was like a puppy I’d neglected to feed, and now I had to look at his baleful, round eyes and emaciated stomach and know that I’d caused that. “Yeah. It’s just—”
“Hey, listen,” Kyle cut in. “Let’s not focus on the past so much, huh? The good news is that we’re back, right?” He looked at me and then Brayden. “Right? I told you, once the winter break was over, we’d go back to normal.”
A small sigh of relief left Brayden’s lips before he spoke. “Yeah, you did. You were right.” He looked across at me. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re okay and that we’re back.”
“Me too,” I said.
My head was pounding against my skull from how exhausting the day had been, and it would have been my preference to go straight home and try to contact Nikita so that I could explain myself. Still, she needed time to cool down, and I owed it to Brayden to spend time with him after worrying him so much. In truth, I wasn’t in much of a position to deny any of my friends anything they wanted. If Nikita wanted space from me, she’d get it. If Brayden wanted to drag me to every high-brow restaurant in Maine, he’d get that too. After everything I’d put everyone through, not just in the past six months but in the past four years, they certainly deserved it.
“Remember when Brayden joined?” Kyle asked with a smile. “Nathan hadn’t let anyone outside our grade join before that.”
A bright smile of pride crossed Brayden’s face, and I side-eyed Kyle with a thankful grin. “I knew he’d be good for The Royal Court,” I added.
It wasn’t entirely false. During my junior year, my dad bumped into some health issues and started grilling me on how to run his company just in case he got too sick to work or died. I realized that there was no plan in place to keep The Royal Court going if anything ever happened to me. To an extent, I wanted it to follow me, but I also wanted it to outlive me. I had Kyle as a second in case I was ever out of commission, but I knew we’d be graduating at some point, and someone would need to establish a whole new Royal Court. I’d planned to welcome more juniors and younger into the fold to prepare for a new regime, but after adding Brayden, I realized that I didn’t really care about The Royal Court existing past me. It was just about my friends and me. Brayden got to stay, but I stopped pressing the issue after that.
“You reminded me a lot of myself,” I continued. “I knew that you were the one I wanted to carry on The Court.”
“I’ll have to pick all new people,” Brayden said. “I’ve got a few people in mind, but I didn’t want to make any decisions until I knew for sure.”
It all seemed so trivial now. A year ago, no one could have convinced me that The Royal Court wasn’t the most important thing in any of our lives. Now, it was really just a title that held us together, one that I was terrified to let go of lest we all fall apart. If leaning back into the idea of The Royal Court continuing on after we graduated was going to keep it from bursting at the seams, I was more than happy to do that.
“You have my official permission to start recruiting,” I said.
His eyes widened. “Really?”
“Yeah. No one’s in until next year when this group is gone, but yeah. If you have some thoughts in mind, go for it.”
He nodded. “Okay. I will!”
Next to me, Kyle shifted uncomfortably, but I ignored him. I honestly didn’t care about any reservations he might have. I just wanted to get through dinner so that I could go home.
“By the way, Nathan,” Brayden started again. “I’m sorry about that stuff with Cherri earlier. I thought she was kind of free-game to talk trash about because she broke up with you and left The Royal Court.”
Cherri and Brayden didn’t like each other. It wasn’t a secret or a fact which either of them tried to hide. Somewhere along the way, I noticed how little Cherri tried to vie for my attention, and I started hanging out with Brayden more to make her fight for my attention more, but if anything, she was relieved. Nikita did more complaining about how much time I spent with Brayden than Cherri did. Ultimately, my actions hurt all three of them.
Kyle held out a hand. “Look, it’s a complicated situation. Nathan and Cherri—”
“It’s not,” I cut him off. “It’s not a complicated situation. There’s nothing complex about what happened. Cherri and I didn’t give much of a damn about each other, but we took our roles as the king and queen seriously. If Deon had never shown up, we’d probably still be doing that.” No one other than Nikita knew much about my true relationship to Deon, and it seemed like Alistair and Avery didn’t tell anyone else that he was my brother. Nikita likely told Jaxon since he was her best friend, but Kyle, Brayden, and Colette, at least, were still in the dark. “I raped her.”