“Once upon a time there was a land ruled by all-powerful and unyielding gods. They lived on the highest hills and preached morality, but everyone knew them as the Incorrupt of Hea—”
He paused.
“Of fairytale land. For years they lived undisturbed, doing all kinds of things like giving money to…” He blew out a breath. “Warlocks, so they could pass…dragons. They tried to say they were…beneficial dragons when really it only benefited a few—” He’d started speaking quickly, but stopped, noticing Daniel and King were staring at him hard. His blue eyes settled back on me, voice low and exciting. “Until one day they were challenged.”
I leaned forward, grasping a black pillow. “By who?”
“The Corrupt.”
A small breath escaped me. Was this story about them? “Why are they called that?”
“Because people are cruel arseholes with sticks up their bums.”
My mouth dropped.
I knew they cursed, but I still hadn’t gotten used to it. If I said heck I got spanked.
“I mean…” He let out a breath. “Because they were total opposites. Where the Incorrupt needed order and laws, even at the expense of the virtue they preached, the Corrupt reveled in the lack thereof. But really, luv”—Romeo leaned forward, arching a wicked, angular brow, like he was letting me in on a secret—“they were anything but Corrupt. This was a cruel word used to distract people from their true purpose.”
My eyes popped. “What was their true purpose?”
“Freedom.” He settled back against the wall, satisfied. “The Incorrupt wanted to shackle everyone. So even though the Corrupt weren’t doing a thing wrong, they were going to pass more laws to make everything fun illegal.”
“Huh?”
“I mean…” Romeo trailed off as Daniel and King stared at him, brows drawn. “They, uh, declared candy illegal.” He wiggled his fingers, exaggerating the last word like when my dad used to say the word Spoooooky at Halloween.
I was a little lost.
When did this become about candy?
Still, I wanted to know how the story ended. “Okay, well, how did the Corrupt defeat the Incorrupt?
He rubbed the corner of his eye with a sniff, disinterested. “Uh…okay, so the people they freed from the Incorrupt followed them, and eventually they had enough power to become gods themselves. Um…Rebel Gods.”
He spoke insanely fast, like he wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible. I held my breath, afraid I would miss a word.
“And their religion was sin and debauchery and corruption, but in their corruption, they found freedom, and in their debauchery, they found brotherhood, and in their sin, they found…” He trailed off, a smile forming. “Well they found more sin, but it was really fucking fantastic and—”
Daniel elbowed him so hard he fell into the wall.
Romeo righted himself, patting down his hair.
Minutes passed, I waited for him to continue. This was the most I’d spoken with them since the day they’d brought me here. I only had my first impressions. Daniel was definitely the nicest one, he even had the nicest, most normal name—not like King or Romeo. Romeo was a roller coaster about to go off the rails. King was…well, his name fit him. He was king.
The more I saw them, the more I thought the lady at the trial was wrong. I was pretty sure they were all there that night, but I would never say anything.
It was my fault, after all.
All three of them stared at me, the same look on their faces, like they were waiting for something from me.
“Was that the end?” I eventually asked.
Romeo made a face. “Yes?”
“But what happened? Who won?”
“They fought forever and nobody was happy and it was really just a bunch of bullshit.”
My jaw dropped and tears came to my eyes again. The warmth from his fairytale almost nearly erased by the awful ending. I pressed a pillow to my face. “That’s so sad,” I whispered.
“It’s not a fucking fairytale.” Shoved again. Romeo grunted, muttered something under breath that I couldn’t catch.
“They resolved their differences and lived happily ever after,” Daniel finished. They stood up straighter, and I knew the story was over. They’d leave me again.
“And the gods were worshipped as they rightly well should be,” Romeo added.
“Wait,” I called out just as they reached the hallway. “Are they real?” Are you real?
The three of them paused, shared a look with some meaning I couldn’t decipher.
Then, “You’re living with them,” a voice responded, the one hanging by the door. Awe washed through me.
Then the big one, King, shut the door.
I felt a bit safer.
Safe enough to fall asleep, hugging my pillow, dreaming of my Rebel Gods.
FLIP
“Rebel Gods?” I asked, voice tinted with humor.
“You wanted a fairytale,” Romeo shrugged. “I gave her a fairytale.”
“Blow more smoke up your own ass next time; I don’t think the astronauts got the signal,” King said. Romeo huffed into a closed fist, releasing his middle finger like he was blowing up a balloon. King shove him so hard he fell, but Romeo laughed.
“Happy late birthday,” Daniel said while King and Romeo wrestled. My brows popped. I’d forgotten. As the year passed and everything happened, it wasn’t important.
“Your birthday is coming up,” I noted. I was barely fourteen when I met them. King was the oldest, having just turned sixteen, then Romeo at fifteen, and Daniel last at thirteen. Now we were all another year older, Daniel soon to follow.
He nodded then folded his arms. “Where are you staying?” We walked downstairs as Romeo and King continued to wrestle. It sort of felt like before everything went to shit.
I thrust my hands into my pockets. “Around.”
Daniel’s hazel eyes saw through me. “Dude, just come back.”
“I’m her living nightmare,” I said, nodding to King as we reached the ground floor and headed to the solarium. That caused King and Romeo to freeze.
There was a long, tense silence. Tree branches scratched the bay windows lining the hallway to the solarium, the leaves a brilliant emerald green even in the moonlight, the kind only seen right before they die, the finale in a firework display.
Then, with Romeo still inside a headlock, King spoke up. “I have a place for you.”
“Did you buy another house we’re not aware of, rich boy?” Romeo asked, face pinched in King’s arm. Romeo flipped King, pulling his arms behind his back and pushed him into the solarium.
If I missed one room the most, it was this one. As bright at night as the day, the stars so vast. Tonight the starlight dripped and melted across the glass ceiling. I always thought Patchwork was too good to be true, was always waiting for the shoe to drop. Still, we’d almost had a year together before I messed it up.
That was better than anything I’d had before.
“Where is this magical place you’ve been hiding that can store our chap safely?” Romeo said, exaggerating his accent comically and twisting King’s arm, eliciting a yelp.
“My parents’ house.”
Romeo dropped King like hot cookies.
Silence, while we tried to figure out if he was joking. He wanted me to stay with the people who’d been gunning for our destruction since day one?
King stood to his feet. “It’s a win-win.”
Romeo tapped his lip. “I don’t think your definition of win matches…anyone’s.”
“It could be a cease-fire. A truce,” he said. “I’ll look after Tweetie, and you can look after Pip.” He added it like it was an afterthought, but I was sure it was at the forefront of his mind. Pip, his girl. A name I’d only ever heard him use once, the night we met, and then never again. “You owe me, remember?” He pinned me with a dark, granite stare.
My mouth dropped. “You’re serious?”
“Have yo
u been, uh,” Romeo made a drinking motion with his thumb and pinky.
“You know what happened,” King continued. “If they think it will get to me, they’ll let you.” King ran away. Unlike us, he came from a relatively happy family, from parents who actually gave a shit. The tactics they used to get him back were messed up at best, but they did stem from love.
Not an orphan.
Not kicked out.
Not abandoned.
He had Christmas presents and happy, smiling siblings in his head.
“Daniel is already up there watching your sister.” I tossed a hand in Daniel’s direction, silently watching like usual. “Can’t he just pop in on your girl?”
“Daniel has his hands full with my sister.” A look crossed Daniel’s face, almost like he’d been caught, but in an instant it was gone, and I was sure I’d misread it.
“Um. Yeah. Bizzy is…” He tugged his hood down, passing a hurried hand over his dreads that caused them to briefly lie flat before springing back into place.
King rubbed an eye. “Bizzy is a lot, but if you do this, he can stop. You’ll be up there so he won’t need to be.”
“I don’t mind! I mean…” Daniel rubbed the sole of his shoe into the floor. “I’ve got time. It’s not a big deal.”
Another moment passed, and it felt like everyone was actually considering this ridiculous proposal. “This is insane. I’m not going to stay with your parents. They’re not going to let some random street kid stay in their house.”
“You don’t know my parents like I do.”
“Rich people are all the same. They donate. They say the right things. But they’re not going to let me inside their house, next to their valuables and their twelve-year-old daughter.”
“Fifteen,” Daniel corrected. “I mean, I think so…” He trailed off, scratching an ear.
“Whatever.” Exasperation stung my tongue like hot peppers. Who cared how old she was? Obviously not the point.
“Remember how you fucking owe me?” King folded his arms, jaw clenched. I knew he wasn’t just talking about how I’d asked him to watch Tweetie.
He’d taken the fall for me.
I hadn’t come through on my end of the deal.
I exhaled, a sign of capitulation.
“Don’t touch Pip. Don’t even go near her. But you make sure nothing happens to her and I’ll keep making sure nothing happens to Tweetie. Deal?”
I ground my jaw. “Deal.”
Nine
Poser: Someone who poses as a skater, or who tries to be something they're not.
FLIP
Some time ago
Flip is 16, Tweetie is 11
I stopped short in the adjoining door between my bathroom and bedroom—well, King’s bedroom. My clothes were laid out on the bed and a man futzed with them, putting the finishing touches on what already looked perfect.
“Oh, sorry. I didn’t—”
He stood straight, spinning like a dreidel to see me. “Good afternoon, Mr. Li.” He stressed the word, insinuating that I slept too late. Again. “I see the bed was once again not to your liking.”
For what must have been the thousandth time since I’d arrived, he raised a brow in the direction of the couch I’d been crashing on in King’s room. For what must have been the thousandth time since I’d arrived, I ignored him.
“You can just call me Flip.” He looked like I’d just asked him to eat a live tarantula. “Or, Mr. Li works too…”
I thought living on the street was hard, but that was before I stepped through the gates of Heaven’s Court—hulking wrought iron gates, the kind that separated people like me from people like Mr. and Mrs. Ayers.
There were so many rules I didn’t know but was expected to follow. Don’t sleep past a certain hour. Don’t acknowledge certain people, like the maids, when they come in rooms.
It was the twilight zone. A cook. Maids. Butlers.
“I’ve washed and ironed your clothes, Mr. Li.”
“Cool, man. Thanks.”
His face was flat.
After putting on my ironed distressed jeans and the shirt I’d had since before Patchwork, I went to make myself lunch. The house was huge, and unlike Patchwork, you rarely saw anyone, save for the occasional maid who scurried away at the sight of me, whispering Corrupt under her breath.
The fridge slammed shut the moment I opened it, a surly, dour-faced man staring at me like I’d tried to open a bank vault. “Sir, what do you think you’re doing?”
“Making a sandwich?”
“I’ll make it for you. Pancetta with caramelized walnuts? Roast chicken with Waldorf salad? Jamón ibérico and Manchego cheese?”
Alright, now he’s just making things up.
I blinked. “I was thinking like ham and cheese.”
His jaw tightened, and when he spoke, he may as well have rolled his eyes. “I think I can manage that.”
A few minutes later, sandwich in hand, I walked through the empty house. I’d seen his parents once, the night King and I interrupted their dinner. They loved King. It was obvious from the photos of him still lingering in every corner of the house, in the way they set the table for him as if he would walk in and join them any night.
And then, he did. Mrs. Ayers had dropped her glass to the floor and Mr. Ayers had run to embrace his son. They thought he’d come home, but instead he’d given them me. They accepted me like he knew they would, hoping it meant they were one step closer to a real reunion.
I learned their habits so I could avoid them: work until late, then parties every night. Weekends were spent on foolish things like donation drives for kids like me and more parties—fancier ones. I didn’t think they used a tenth of their huge home, but it was always ready to be seen.
The only person besides the help I saw was Bizzy, King’s sister. The first night she’d come to me, proclaiming me as her new little bro. We were the same age, but I quickly learned you don’t argue with Bizzy.
“What does your real family think about you staying here? Aren’t they mad?” My dad, who left before I was born? Or the mom who left her kid in the night to follow the latest douche to call her pretty? I think they’re both okay with it.
“They’re chill.”
“Cool. My parents are the opposite of chill.”
I couldn’t imagine my presence made it any easier for them, a poor substitute for the real thing. I tried to make it simple by being a ghost. So when they were both in my bedroom, I paused, mouth mid-bite in the fanciest ham and cheese ever known to man.
“Nathan,” Mr. Ayers said. He had gray eyes like his son, though his were a bit bluer and weathered with time. It was the middle of the day; they should be at work—or in Mrs. Ayers’ case, helping kids like me get on the straight and narrow—not sitting on my ironed sheets. Yeah. Ironed. They did that here.
“You can call me Flip,” I said, swallowing my bite of ham and cheese. At their faces I said, “Or, you know, Nate works too.”
“It’s been a while since you arrived, and we haven’t seen you once. You don’t come down for dinner. We’re worried you feel unwelcome.”
“Mr. Ayers—”
“Call me Tom,” he interjected. “Think of me as a friend.” Another bite, because I didn’t know what to say. “The way we went about getting King to come home was wrong,” Mr. Ayers continued.
A twitch of Mrs. Ayers’ jaw, and Mr. Ayers grabbed her hand, squeezing. Mrs. Ayers had the same silky, coffee skin both her son and daughter inherited, though darker, with less milk and cream. It was her expression that reminded me the most of King. Bizzy was like her father, everything open and ready to be absorbed. Mrs. Ayers was closed.
“He’ll be eighteen soon and it’s out of our hands now, but we love him. We’ll always love him, and there’s always a place for him here—for him and his friends.” He pinned me with a stare.
Uh huh. Sure. The people who branded us Corrupt were also completely chill with us kicking our feet up on their polished glass
coffee tables?
I plastered a smile on my face. It had gotten a lot easier to smile over the years. In fact, it was almost easier to smile than it was to frown.
To let the real emotions out.
“Cool,” I said. “I’ll let him know.”
Their shoulders fell, relieved, and they left.
I finished my sandwich, throat dry and scratchy. King didn’t leave because his family was broken, so coming back wasn’t that simple. And didn’t that suck? There’d been a time when all I ever wanted was someplace like this, King had it, and had to leave.
Sandwich unfinished, I tossed it into the trash and went to do what put me here and put King out: watch his girl, make sure she was safe.
TWEETIE
Tweetie is 12, Flip is 17
King slammed the door shut so hard my sandwich fell from my hands. The bread split open, banana falling to the ground.
“What’s the first thing you learned?” he demanded.
“I—I—” I stammered through my words. King was massive, mean, and had zero patience. I could tell not everyone was happy with me being here, but they at least tried to pretend—well, except the Patchwork Girls.
And King.
One more year had passed. One lonely, lonely year marked by irritated looks from every girl in the house and a seven o’clock bedtime. I hadn’t gone to bed at seven since before I could remember, but like this room, it wasn’t up for discussion.
His eyes narrowed and narrowed.
“Don’t go in that room,” I whispered. The bedroom beside mine was off limits. I knew that. It was the first rule they’d told me. Everyone else only had four while mine kept stacking up. But why? I was so curious. They didn’t give me a reason just off limits.
“So are you dumb or just a brat?” His arm stretched high above me, an iron cord keeping the door bolted shut. I couldn’t cry in front of him, especially not now that a crowd had gathered. Penelope was among them and she was absolutely the worst Patchwork Girl. Despised me.
Skater Boy (Patchwork House Book 1) Page 8