by Eden O'Neill
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?”
“And ruin the surprise?” he said, backing away. “Come on, and did you bring the dog toys?”
At least he admitted to those to my face this time, all this entirely too weird for my liking. I told him I did, following him, but stopped. “Where are we going?”
He circulated the dingy truck, going around to the passenger side, and I followed him. He clicked it open. “We got to go deeper into the patch. We’ll take this. It’ll handle better than our cars in the mud out here.”
Dad would most assuredly kill me for ruining any of his cars, my sister’s included.
I really didn’t want to do this, get in any car with him at all.
“Is all this over after tonight, then?” I asked. “Me owing you or whatever?” I meant, would he keep quiet about Hershey, and when his lips pulled together, his nod firm, he gave me that.
I got inside the truck, then quick, he closed the door behind me. I held Hershey’s bag in my lap as Royal eased himself in, filling the truck’s cabin with his starkly cool scent. He smelled like aftershave and boy, a really good-smelling boy, and that had me thinking about things I didn’t want to think about. Things like how his hands felt on me and in my hair the night I puked my brains out in front of him. These were thoughts I definitely shouldn’t have considering he might be kidnapping me right now.
Royal put the truck into gear, the truck grunting forward, but it handled really well over the divots and bumps as we got going. All the rattling caused Hershey to bark inside my bag, though, and I unzipped it wide so she could pop her head out and see what was going on.
Royal laughed at the sight of her curiosity, a deep and reverent chuckle that played harsh at my insides with how nice it sounded. He didn’t laugh a lot, and the last time I’d seen him, he’d been getting lectured by his dad.
I hugged the bag. “What are we doing?”
“You’ll see, and don’t worry, you’ll like it. Both you and Hershey.”
I highly doubted that, hugging her closer. Royal had his lights on super bright, so she got a real good view of the entire ride, looking just as happy as Royal had only moments ago. The only one not here for this “fun time” was me, my anxiety through the goddamn roof. We stopped suddenly, jarringly, in the stick shift truck, and rather than waiting for Royal to play gentleman and let me out, I opened the door, and I hopped to the dirt myself.
“Where are the dog toys?” he asked once he joined me.
Minding Hershey, I grabbed a couple around her, handing them off to him. He took them, telling me to follow him. He had a couple tennis balls in his hands, ones that rattled when he shook them. He did that toward the cornstalks, and after he did, he just listened.
I stayed silent, a chill in the air, and really, I thought I was about to meet my maker. I was out in the middle of the perfect setting for a teen murder drama, out here with basically my arch enemy. Nothing about my history with this boy put me at any kind of ease.
Royal shook the toys again, then backed up toward me and Hershey. I opened my mouth to speak, but then…
Noses, lots of tiny noses, and yips touched the air, tiny barks that sounded so much like my little dog’s. They came out of the cornstalks, not one but several puppies, and what was crazy was they all looked like mine, miniature chocolate labs that bounded out of the maze.
Royal threw one of the balls, and no less than three went after it. He tossed the other. “Do you have the other toys?”
Blown completely frickin’ away about all this, I got more, and by then, Hershey was freaking out. She wanted to play too, and after giving Royal more dog toys, I fished her leash out of the bag. I hadn’t gotten to walk with her yet, but it was something Rosanna got for her with her initial puppy food. I stared in wonder at all the dogs. “Where did they all come from?” I asked.
Grinning, Royal tossed another toy, more dogs racing after them. He bent when a couple came back with the initial toys. He faced me. “They were born here. My cousin’
s one of the owners of the patch. His lab just had puppies a while back.”
My jaw slacked as I placed my puppy down, and the moment I did, the others descended on her. My heart leaped at first, but Hershey started wrestling with them and I laughed. I lowered, so many puppies playing and jumping on each other. I counted about eight, but really there could have been more.
Royal handed me a rope, and I played tug with one with a white-tipped tail. His grin widened. “They seem to like her.”
“Yeah,” I said, then had a thought. “You don’t think she’s one of them, do you? I didn’t see any other dogs when I found her. I found her in the boathouse that first day.”
His head lifted with that, and he turned, peering into the cornstalks. “It’s possible. I mean, we’re pretty far out from campus, but it’s kind of odd you just found what looks like a purebred Labrador retriever.”
One of Hershey’s potential brothers or sisters tugged at the rope, my tugs a little distracted. Especially when Hershey kept trying to jump on the puppy and play with them herself. I took the rope away, letting her, and watched the two be way too cute for my heart. It made me happy, but kind of sad too for some reason.
A shoulder touched mine, Royal’s when he lowered to his knees. He watched them play too as he touched a knee to the dirt.
“Should I leave her with them?” I asked him, finding his eyes. Too deep, they drowned me in their depths.
He wet his lips. “Up to you or maybe up to Hershey?” he stated, turning to the pup. His lips lifted at her. “My cousin isn’t getting rid of them. They’d live their lives here together.”
That thickened my throat more than it should have, and suddenly, I found myself moving away from him. This had been a part of his plan. He kept my secret about Hershey only to take her away from me after all.
I freed my puppy from her leash, giving her the option to run away. I’d done it quick so I wouldn’t let myself think. I just wanted her to be happy, and though she started to run away and play with the others, she didn’t get far before coming back to me. She pressed paws to my knee, wagging her tail.
“Go,” I said, trying to be selfless when I nudged her. “Go play. That’s your family.” I guided her away, but once again, she’d get maybe a few steps before coming back. She wouldn’t leave me and actually tried to climb on my leg to come back to me.
“I guess she’s made her choice,” Royal said, smiling at the pair of us. Taking a toy out of my bag, he tossed it. Eventually, I watched him stand and go after the other pups. He played fetch with them, even showing them tricks like sit and roll over. He knew what he was doing.
She chose me.
I knew it was stupid, but I wanted to break down in damn tears at that. I cradled Hershey’s little face, scratching her deep behind the ears the way she liked.
“Come on. Let’s play, little girl,” I said, tossing a toy. I kept her unleashed, trusting her to come back, and each time she did. She never strayed, loving her good time with the others, but she always came back to me. She played her little heart out, and Royal was able to show her a few tricks as well. He got her to roll on her back before giving her a toy and even sit a couple times. By the end, she’d exhausted her damn self, and I carried a sleeping puppy in my arms to the cabin of the truck. I used the front of my bag as a dog bed for her, and no sooner had I placed her on it than she fell asleep.
“She obviously doesn’t have as much stamina as them,” I said, laughing at her. I closed the door silently, watching as Royal climbed in the back of the truck bed and tossed more toys.
I joined him. The two of us sat and tossed toys until there weren’t any more, and eventually, we both heard a whistle. The doggies darted off in the general direction, disappearing behind the cornstalks.
“My cousin, no doubt,” he said, raising a leg. “Probably called them inside the house.”
“Well, they exhausted this one,” I told him, laughing when I glanced inside the truck window. Hershey’s tongue hung out and everything in sleep.
This made Royal’s smile quirk up. His gaze found the stars, and mine did too for a while. It really was beautiful out here, open.
I panned his way. “What exactly is Route 80?” Honest to God, the words fell out of my mouth. I mean, true, I’d thought about them. More than once, and seeing Royal… I don’t know. I just spoke…
I shouldn’t have, and I knew the moment his fingers went to his mouth. He clamped up a bit, not how he’d been before when his jaw worked.
“So you had been spying?” he asked.
“I didn’t,” I lied. I pulled my arms around my legs. “I mean, I didn’t mean to do it. Jax was just showing me around Windsor House. I heard.”
His nod had him looking out to the stars again. “My dad’s a jerk.”
“I guess we share that, then.”
His gaze flicked over, his expression softening a bit when he laced his fingers. “Your dad is just cold. Mine’s an ass.”
“Why didn’t he want you to go out to that Route 80? What’s out there?”
“I don’t know if I should tell you.”
“Why?”
Green irises shifted toward me. “Because that’s the last place I saw your sister.”
I froze, not what I’d been expecting him to say. “What?”
His sigh was heavy. “It’s the last place I saw your sister, the last time we were together before…” His jaw moved. “Before she took off and basically told me the next day in a text. She said she was skipping town and didn’t respond to any of my texts after that. Straight ghosted. Anyway, my dad doesn’t want me out there because he knew why I was out there.”
“Why were you?”
He stared off. “I guess I was doing some sentimental shit. Paige was one of my best friends.” He shrugged. “I missed her, wanted to be where I last saw her, and my dad wasn’t having any of that. He isn’t her biggest fan. Never has been. When we were kids, we always got into trouble and, when we got older, even more. We skipped class together. Skipped town sometimes, and he just wants me to forget all that and her as he sees her as the source. She’s not, though. He is. He and your dad. I think that’s how we got to be friends. We bonded over our shitty dads.”
My heart squeezed, at a complete lack of words.
His hands came together. “I owe her so much, everything. She looked out for me. My dad’s a real fucking asshole, and she was always there.”
I swallowed, seeing just a snapshot of that. I cradled my legs tighter. “Any idea why she left? Was it Dad?”
He wet his lips. “I wish it was this time. It’s more complicated than that, though.”
“How?”
He moved his legs. “There was this girl she was seeing. Made her all tense. When things were good, they were awesome, but when things were bad…” His expression hardened. “She and the situation with her ran your sister off, and I know it did. I just wish she would have stayed. We could have dealt with this, her.”
“Who was the girl? Someone at school?”
He shook his head. “She doesn’t matter, though. What matters is she drove your sister away. The end of all that with her and your sister went down pretty fucking shitty. I saw it, was there for it. That girl broke her damn heart, and though Paige wasn’t without fault in some of it, she didn’t deserve that.”
“What happened between them?”
“That doesn’t matter either.” He braced his arms. “I just know she’s not coming back. Not this time. She ripped her goddamn heart out.”
Paige had mentioned a girl she’d been seeing last summer. She passed it off like it hadn’t been much of a thing then, but I knew better. She’d been so lit up, then suddenly, it’d been like a switch went off. Paige’s texts had become more guarded, her calls less and less. Had it been this?
Had my sister had her heart broken and I didn’t even know?
Chills racked my shoulders, and I rubbed my arms. “You really don’t know anything? About where she is? What about t
he girl she was seeing?”
“She don’t know shit, and she doesn’t care either.” His growl brought more chills, that bite about him familiar. “Just leave all that alone. She hurt your sister, and the last thing Paige would want is you anywhere near her. She was a monster.”
I covered my arms. “It sounds like you two really had each other’s backs.”
He said nothing, his swallow hard. “I could have had it more.”
I watched that move over his face, his guard up again. Eventually, he stood to his feet, and I tilted my head.
“Should we probably get you back, then?” he asked, putting a hand on top of the truck.
I rose up. “We don’t have to. Hershey’s still sleeping. I wouldn’t mind letting her rest.”
I had no idea what the fuck I was doing, but for whatever reason, I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay, be around my sister’s best friend for a while.
Royal’s lips parted, a clear debate in his eyes, but for whatever reason he got down to his knees and reached into the cabin through the back window. He pulled out some blankets and handed me one. “Might as well get comfortable, then. It gets chilly out here.”
Nodding, I helped him spread out one blanket, and the pair of us lay on top of it. The other I wrapped around my body like a burrito while he laced hands behind his head and gazed up at the stars. The way he lay, his hands behind his head, brought form to his biceps and broad chest, a form that had me looking at him as neither an enemy nor my sister’s bestie.
Swallowing, I studied the stars. “Can I ask you something?”
He turned on his side, his focus all on me.
I swallowed again. “What’s with all this? Dragging me out here with Hershey and everything? How is that me owing you anything?” If anything, it all seemed kind of nice what he did.
He shrugged. “More sentimental shit, I guess. Your sister and I used to come out here all the time when we were kids, and when I heard about my cousin’s pups and knew you had one just like them…” He shrugged again. “I don’t know. It gave me an excuse to come out again, something to do.”