by Elle East
“Want to hang out with us?” Grayson asked, and I was almost too shocked to answer.
That had not been what I was expecting them to say—I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but definitely not that.
“Uh, no?” I answered sarcastically.
Grayson rolled his eyes. “Uh, why not? We’re fun guys.”
“Are you serious?! You’ve made my life a living hell ever since I got here. You’ve been huge jerks to me and my friends. Why would I EVER want to hang out with you guys??”
“Well, sorry for being a jerk.” Grayson smirked.
“Sorry, let me correct myself. ASSHOLE. You’re a huge asshole. Better?”
“Much.”
I rolled my eyes. Grayson really was the most infuriating person on the planet.
“We are inviting you to hang out with us because we… missed you,” Archer said, and it seemed like he was struggling, like it was taking all his self control to admit that.
“You can’t be serious,” I said incredulously. “This has to be some type of trick.”
“No trick. No game. We’re being honest,” Brett added in his deep voice.
“We missed you. You were right about what you said outside the dining hall; we used to be close friends. And now that your charity student hazing is over, we wanted to hang out with you again,” Archer continued.
“Oh, so that was all just hazing? And now you want to slum it and hang out with me for no reason other than you miss me? Excuse me if I find your change of heart hard to believe.”
Archer groaned in exasperation. “Look—we are trying to apologize here.”
“We are trying to extend an olive branch,” Grayson added. “The way things work at this school is different than what you’re used to.”
“You don’t understand how things work around here,” added Brett.
“This is the worst apology in the history of the world,” I said.
I could see that they were all getting frustrated. I guess they had thought this conversation would go differently, but really how did they expect me to act? They extend one little token of niceness and I’m supposed to bend over backwards with gratitude? I had no reason to trust them so they couldn’t be surprised that I was being this suspicious.
“Maddy, we want to hang out with you. We aren’t trying to trick you. We couldn’t be friends with you before and we’ll talk about why later tonight,” Archer said.
“It’ll be fun catching up. That’s the only reason we’re here, just to catch up with an old friend… and maybe make out with her a bit.” Grayson smirked like he couldn’t help himself.
My mouth dropped open in disbelief. “Are you serious?!”
“No, he’s not serious,” Archer said quickly with an eye roll.
Brett stepped closer to me, closer than the other two guys. “You’ll be safe. We promise.” He looked into my eyes sincerely and it took all I had to keep my walls up.
I was wavering. I felt like a person dying at sea and these guys were handing me a sip of water. How pathetic was that? After everything they’d put me through, I still missed the friendship we used to have. I remembered how close we used to be and the way they treated me hurt even more because of that. They were offering me a crumb, and I was desperate to leap at it.
My pride was just a bit stronger than my desire to be close to them again so I was about to tell them to get stuffed when I suddenly remembered why I was at this school in the first place. They were offering me exactly what I was there for, and even though the most likely explanation for why they were inviting me to hang out was so that they could do something even worse to me than they already had, I had to take it. I was doing it for my mom.
“Fine,” I said flatly. “We can hang out.”
All of them, even Brett, smiled, and it almost melted the ice that they had caused to form around my heart. I knew there was no way they would have had such a quick change of heart and want to genuinely be my friends now. I knew I would have to be on my guard around them. I knew all of that, but still, it felt nice knowing we would be spending time together like we had when we were kids. I missed my three best friends more than I cared to admit, even to myself.
“Great!” Archer said. “We’ll pick you up tonight. At seven.”
He hadn’t even said it as a question, it was more like a statement. They were the words of someone who always got what they wanted.
And with that, they all started walking away.
“Wait! I can’t tonight, I have to study.”
“How long do you have to study for?” Archer asked.
“Umm I don’t know, maybe three hours?”
“We’ll pick you up at six and drop you off at eight thirty, that’ll give you plenty of time to study before and after. Don’t eat dinner. Do you still like pizza like you used to?”
“Everyone likes pizza,” I said matter-of-factly.
“Good.”
They all turned in unison and walked away again. I was left there feeling unsettled, like I had just been on a rollercoaster that I didn’t know I had gotten on. They were coming to get me at six, did I agree to that? I wasn’t sure I had, but regardless, they were coming at six.
I walked to the Bell Tower in a daze. I wondered what we’d be doing that evening. My educated guess was that we’d be eating pizza for dinner and that it would last for about two-and-a-half hours, but beyond that I had no idea.
What do mean, rich boys do for fun? I wondered. Maybe we’d tease someone about being poor until they cried. Maybe we’d hit on girls we weren’t interested in beyond how they looked naked. Maybe we would spend a lot of money just because we could. I had no idea, and I was nervous to find out.
They were coming into the evening with an ulterior motive, I was sure of it—but so was I. This would be a weird night, I thought. What was I going to wear?
Six o’clock came and I was waiting anxiously at my desk. I had decided on something casual, but not too casual. I was wearing slim-cut jeans, a white tank top and a black cardigan. I had put on lipstick, then wiped it off, then put it back on, then wiped it off. There was a knock on the door and I almost tripped over my chair when I jumped up to get it.
When I got to the door, I took a deep breath before opening it. The three of them were standing there, and it seemed so surreal to have them here. I never thought in a million years that they’d be here picking me up.
Grayson whistled as he eyed me up and down. Brett elbowed him, hard. Grayson grabbed his arm and rubbed it, clearly displeased but he said nothing more.
They were dressed casually, Grayson in black jeans and a black t-shirt, Brett in gray slacks and a black button up, and Archer in jeans and a white t-shirt. They were all wearing their uniform black wool coats, and they all looked impeccably tailored—and incredibly hot. So this is what it looks like when rich guys do “casual”, I thought. I was impressed.
“Ready?” Archer asked.
“Ready,” I said and followed them out onto the landing, shutting and locking the door behind me. “Where are we going?”
“We figured you wanted a relaxed night tonight—” Archer said.
“It’s a surprise!” Grayson cut in.
“Don’t get her hopes up,” Archer shot back. “It’s not that good and she’ll be disappointed if she’s expecting something great.”
“It’s a crappy surprise!” Grayson said happily.
I laughed despite myself. It felt like old times. They were fun to watch when you were on the inside and they let their guards down. You could tell they all really cared about each other and joked around like brothers. They presented themselves as these impenetrable, always-in-control, god-like figures, but I remembered how fun they could be.
We walked down the stairs and out of the school. I was secretly relieved that none of the scholarship students had been in the halls. We had just started to rebuild trust and if they saw me with the Kings I knew that would destroy any progress we’d made.
We walked across
the fields towards the student dorms. The couple people who saw us stopped and their mouths dropped open—I couldn’t blame them, the three most popular guys walking with the least popular person at school was probably quite a shocking sight.
When we got to the dorms, we went into a building that I hadn’t been in before. It was different than the one the Queens lived in, but just as nice. I assumed we were going to one of their rooms and I wasn’t wrong. We took the elevator to the top floor; they had to swipe one of their passes to get up there—and when the elevator doors opened I realized why. We stepped off the elevator and were immediately in the suite.
I was in awe. The space was the entire top floor of the building. It was a huge, open concept suite with wrap-around windows, an open kitchen, living room, games area, movie theater and several other areas I couldn’t even catalog. It had old wood and leather accents but the space was clearly modern in design.
“What is this place?” I asked.
I tried to close my mouth so they wouldn’t know how impressed I was.
“Our place,” Grayson said as they all walked in like they were right at home—which I guess they were.
“You all live here? Together?”
“Yup. We have our own areas, but yeah we’re roommates. My room is over there.” Grayson pointed to a massive walled off area in the far, far corner of the room. “Want to make sure you know where to find me anytime you need me.” He winked and despite myself I blushed.
The thought of being alone with Grayson in his room was more exciting than I wanted to admit.
“It was just easier that way,” Archer continued as he placed a call on his phone. “We would be in each other’s rooms all the time anyway, so might as well live together. We had them take down the walls up here and make this into one suite—yes, send it over now,” he switched to talking to the person on the phone.
“You can look around if you like,” Brett said from right next to my shoulder.
My head whipped around and the sensitive look in his eyes caught me off-guard. It was like he could read my mind. I wanted to explore this amazing space but felt too rude to actually do it.
“Uh, ok. Thanks,” I said and tentatively started wandering around.
“Pizzas will be here in ten minutes,” Archer called out to us.
I wandered around in absolute amazement of the place. I had thought Victoria’s suite was large, but this was huge. I went to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows and looked out, I could see the lights of the school building sparkling in the distance. Grayson came up next to me and looked too.
“You’re thinking that it looks so small from here, huh?”
“No, it doesn’t,” I laughed. “I think it looks massive from wherever you look at it.”
“What movie did you want to watch, Maddy?” Archer called over to me.
“I don’t know. What movies do you have?”
“Literally any movie,” Grayson said. “Literally.”
“But the school blocks most of the internet sites?” I asked.
Grayson laughed at that. “Only the scholarship kids use the school internet. Everyone else gets their own installed when they get here.”
“Do the staff know?” I couldn’t believe that yet again the only kids who actually followed the rules were the ones who “didn’t deserve to be here”.
“Well, most people do it in ‘secret’ but it’s a pretty open secret.”
Grayson and I walked back to the middle of the room where the movie theater section was. There were overstuffed couches and large beanbag chairs on the ground. Unlike the wooden floors throughout the rest of the space, the area was covered in a thick carpet. All the seating pointed at a large movie screen in the front.
“I don’t know.” I tried to think of a movie that I didn’t think the Kings would hate watching. “That new superhero movie?”
“Ok!” Grayson leaped over and grabbed the controls off a side table. “I thought you were going to say some boring romantic comedy.”
I scoffed. “Romantic comedy? That’s not really my style, is it?”
“No, that was never your style,” Brett said as he walked by me and took a seat on one of the couches.
Grayson went and sat down in a beanbag chair. He tapped the space next to him invitingly.
“Room for two, Sticky Fingers.”
I laughed despite myself. “Oh, shut up! I hate that nickname.”
“Sit anywhere you want, Maddy,” Brett told me.
I chose a seat on one of the couches by myself. Archer went to the elevator to press a button and a couple moments later someone was handing him a large stack of pizza boxes. He gave them what looked like a couple hundred-dollar bills and then they left. He brought the boxes over to us and placed them on a table.
“How did you get pizzas delivered all the way out here?” I asked in wonder.
“You have enough money and people will do anything you want. Anything,” Archer said, a touch of distaste in his voice.
We all grabbed our pizza slices and then settled back into our seats. Grayson pressed a couple buttons on the remote and suddenly walls were unfolding from a recessed area to cover the sides of the movie room, which had previously been open on both sides.
“Wow, you guys even have on demand walls?” I said in almost disbelief.
“We wanted to keep everything open, but it’s hard to watch movies during the day so we had these walls installed,” Archer explained.
“Wait,” I suddenly got nervous, I had let my guard down too much. “Are we going to be trapped in here without the remote?”
“No, there are doors in the walls. Don’t worry, Maddy, you’re always able to leave whenever you want,” Brett’s voice was comforting, and I relaxed a bit.
His demeanor was so different from how he’d been since I got to Crestmoore. He was reminding me of the Brett I used to know. The one who was always so protective of me—almost to a fault, he had beaten up other kids for things as small as calling me a name when I beat them on a test.
“So are you guys going to finally tell me why you couldn’t be friends with me before?” I asked pointedly.
I was waiting for them to bring it up, but since they hadn’t yet, I would have to be the one to do it. There was a long pause and then Archer started talking.
“When we found out you were coming, Victoria threatened to go to the Crown Society and report us if we were nice to you, if we didn’t treat you like a normal scholarship student.”
“What’s the Crown Society?”
“It’s made up of the Royalty from other schools as well as Royal alumni. They hold an insane amount of power in the world and we have to answer to them. No one is above their reach, not Victoria and not us.”
This all sounded so ridiculous. But was it anymore ridiculous than what had already happened to me at the school?
“Why would she care if you guys were nice to me?” I asked.
“Power. She wanted power over us. She knew that we all used to be so close and she wanted to hold that over our heads. That was why she was pretending to be friends with you, she wanted to keep you close,” Grayson answered.
“I tried to warn you,” Brett said quietly.
“So what changed?” I asked skeptically. “Why are you suddenly feeling comfortable enough to talk to me like a human being now instead of gum stuck on the bottom of your shoe?”
“Leverage.” Grayson said with a wink.
“Victoria fucked up when she let you into the Queens’ Court. Absolutely no one except Royalty is allowed in there. We threatened to tell on her to the Crown Society if she told on us for hanging out with you.”
“I want her to get in trouble,” I said vengefully.
“If she does, then so do we,” Archer said.
“I’m ok with that.” Despite what they were saying, I was still pissed.
“Look, we’re sorry about how we treated you before, it wasn’t right,” Brett added.
“We didn’t have
a choice,” Grayson said. “We had to keep our distance.”
They all sounded so sincere. The truth was that I wanted to believe them; I missed my old friends. And their explanation did explain why they had been so cruel to me when I arrived. The way they had behaved was not the guys I had known.
I decided that I would make nice for the time being to try to get close to them again. But I wasn’t letting my guard down, I was still suspicious.
“Ok… I tentatively forgive you guys.” I half-lied. “For now.”
I could hear them breathe out sighs of relief and it was like a lot of tension just evaporated from the room.
“But you can’t tell anyone about the Crown Society,” Archer added, suddenly getting very serious again. “No one outside the society is supposed to know about its existence.”
“Ok, I won’t.” But I wasn’t sure I would keep that promise. It was exciting to have a little bit of power back after being helpless for so long, no matter how little that amount of power actually was.
With that out of the way we moved on to eating pizza and watching the movie. We spent the next couple hours laughing together. It was weird that we just clicked again after all the years apart. It felt so natural, like we had always been friends. Then after the movie the guys walked me back to my room. After they left, I looked at my clock and it was exactly eight thirty.
It had been one of the weirdest nights I’d had in a long time, and the reason it was weird was the weirdest part of all—it was weird that it hadn’t felt weird. They had tormented me for months then suddenly I was eating pizza and laughing with them like none of it had happened. They had all seemed like such different guys than the ones they presented to the rest of the school. When they let down their walls, they became the guys I remembered. Grayson was playful, Archer was smart and sarcastic, Brett was protective.
Just from hanging out with them for a brief time you could tell that they all cared deeply about each other and would do anything for one another, but you could also see that they were competitive and antagonized one another. Sometimes when they disagreed on something, they almost seemed like they didn’t even like each other at all, but then the next second they’d be laughing and seem like brothers again. That was exactly like how I remembered them being when we were young.