Interesting enough, after that article came out, the Crownes started the biggest Native American college scholarship in the country. Now that’s all anyone talks about come Thanksgiving.
Through the massive arched entryway draped with autumn leaves, Story appeared. I dropped the turkey I’d taken, the glaze streaking the marble floor.
“Grayson? Are you okay?”
Maybe it was just in my mind, but I swear the room went hush as Story came through. Paparazzi snapped furious pictures. Lottie followed my line of sight, and a moment later she exhaled.
I looked away, but Story was burned in my retinas. Her bare shoulders. Her pushed-up breasts and cleavage for miles. Her long, slender neck. Everyone was going to look at her tonight. She stood out among the women wearing muted colors of gold and brown, the men in dark suits. For once, she allowed what I saw in her every minute to shine through.
Exquisite. Unique.
West and Story were clearly headed our way as Abigail passed by in a deep-red ballgown that would make my mother’s head spin.
“Abs. Abby. Hey.”
Abigail stopped, turning around. “I’m in the middle of something very important.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You have that look on your face.”
“What look?”
“The one that says you’re about to do something stupid.”
Her mouth dropped. “That’s—what—have you been talking to Theo?”
I threw an arm in Story’s direction. “What the fuck did you dress her in?”
“She looks hot, right? Vintage Chanel can do no wrong. It fits her well and brings out the color of her eyes.”
I glared. “I didn’t ask you to make her look hot. I said presentable.”
Theo stepped between us, dragging my sister back against his chest. “Chill, Gray. I’d hate to have to punch you in the face for making your sister cry.”
Her dog, Theo, wrapped his arm around her stomach possessively, eyes on me. I was about to make some comment to him about staying in his fucking place, but then Gemma and her fiancé, Horace, Story, and West joined us, and my attention went elsewhere. West, the idiot, wore a tall, traditional pilgrim’s hat.
“I’m not going to cry.” Abigail scoffed at Theo as Lottie wove her arm into mine.
“I see you’re getting fat with married life,” Gemma said to Abigail.
“I see you’re staying fat,” Abigail replied. Gemma rolled her eyes but smiled.
I can count on my hands the number of times my siblings and I have been together without disdain and fighting, and it was…nice. Odd, but nice.
A servant appeared, offering a silver tray of stuffed mushrooms. As everyone took one, Story’s face totally changed. She looked like she was going to hurl.
“Are you doing the wishbone with Horace later?” Abigail poked Gemma, obviously knowing how little Gemma wanted to kiss her fiancé. Horace, on his phone, raised his eyes at his name but went back moments later. Gemma made some comment to Abigail, but I kept my eyes on Story.
She stared at the floor, working her lower lip between her teeth.
Was she also sensitive to the smell of mushrooms?
“Story and I can’t wait to bone later,” West supplied.
I ignored West’s attempts to rile me up, focusing on Story, who looked about two seconds from vomiting. Without another thought, I smacked the mushrooms off the server’s plate. They went flying, a few spongy pieces sticking to the matte white walls.
Silence followed, everyone looking at me as Story quietly vomited into her napkin.
“What the fuck, Gray?” Gemma finally broke the silence.
I shrugged, sliding back into my chair. “I really hate stuffing.”
“Since when?”
Story’s and my eyes connected. I swear I saw thanks, but I wasn’t going to look into it.
STORY
* * *
Cross your legs, Remember to smile, Own the room, Wear your best, Never apologize, and Eat your vegetables.
“Are you wearing your CROWNE?”
I jumped, finding Gemma watching me, brow arched.
I rubbed my neck. “Possibly.”
She picked up a cranberry tart, pausing before her plump pink lips to say, “You forgot the most important one.”
I mentally went through the list again, panicking. Cross your legs, Remember to smile, Own the room, Wear your best, Never apologize, and Eat your vegetables.
Had I apologized?
“Eat your fucking vegetables.” She laughed, dropping the tart into her mouth. “Welcome to our royally dysfunctional family, I guess.”
“I’m not—I’m just…I’m…”
Gemma made a tsking sound. “You’re forgetting your O.”
Own the room.
Gemma wore a flowing gold gown with intricate leaves embroidered in the tulle, a color like many others in the room. Other than Abigail, I was the only one not in gold or brown. And I was the only one in green.
I didn’t blend in.
Anxiety made intricate knots in my chest.
Gemma lingered, not quite looking at me but not totally ignoring my presence either. It was weird. Gemma Crowne had laughed with me. Had acknowledged me. And now was standing next to me, around paparazzi, in a place where we could be photographed.
“So…how do you know Grim?”
Ah. Now it made sense.
Her clear blue eyes lingered on me.
I shrugged. “I just do.”
I knew him the way everyone who isn’t rich knows everyone in Crowne Point, the way I was learning everyone who was rich knew everyone. We were a small town. You’re involved in people’s business even if you wished you weren’t.
She looked like she wanted to press, when really I wanted to press how someone like Gemma Crowne knew Grim.
“Are you, um…” I swallowed, remembering the tattoo, but also stuck feeling like it still wasn’t my place. “Okay?”
She shrugged. “They have the best drugs.”
That made sense, more sense than a guy like Grim getting inked for a fucking Crowne, and a girl like Gemma taking that dark contract.
They’d have been bound together forever.
The Horsemen provided everyone with drugs, but a Crowne usually didn’t buy them themselves. I know, because I knew the servants who did.
“You haven’t told anyone you saw me there,” she said after a moment.
I arched a brow. “How do you know?”
“Because no one told me they saw me there.”
“I was trained to keep Crowne secrets. Old habits die hard. I’ll catch up, don’t worry.”
We laughed, but mine died in my throat as a servant passed. She offered me a plate of hors d’oeuvres similar to the one Gemma had received, but mine was clearly rotten, fungus spreading across the cheese. When I looked closer I saw…glass. Shards of it embedded in the cheese balls.
“They’re really good,” Gemma said, raising her own and lifting her chin at my deadly one.
I don’t know if I would ever dream of a day when Gemma Crowne talked to me like an equal, but if I did, it would make sense it would be like this. While she ate delicious food and I had to be careful not to swallow glass.
I had to bear this quietly. It wasn’t like I could turn to Tansy Crowne and say her servants were treating me poorly. No one believed I belonged here. They would simply shrug and say, Well dear, it’s not like they’re wrong.
Gemma placed her empty napkin on a tray and I put my balled-up, uneaten food next to hers as a different string rhythm started up, more hurried and excited.
“The dance is starting. At the end, we might even get a marriage proposal. Can you imagine?” She rolled her eyes at me.
Gemma Crowne was joking with me.
I’d watched this dance so many times, but I’d never participated. The Crownes had been doing it as far back as when they’d first immigrated to America. Back then, only women who’d come out in society danced, and only men looking fo
r a wife joined in. It was an elaborate proposal.
We all lined up, our partners opposite us.
West was in his ridiculous pilgrim hat, and he grinned and shimmied at me. I tried to hide my smile in my hand.
“What are you wearing?”
The voice stopped my smile cold.
“You’re not supposed to be on this side,” I hissed. “The men go over there.” Gray had lined up next to me, apparently completely ignoring the fact that all women were supposed to be on one side.
“What are you wearing?” he repeated as the song struck up a folksy dancing chord, and all the women, plus Gray, took our first step.
“A dress,” I said. I took a step forward with the rest, linking arms with West. Lottie was next to her brother, watching us carefully, and I made sure to keep my eyes on West. I had enough on my mind trying to do the dance anyway. It was a simple two-step dance. Step, link arms, spin. Step, switch partners, spin.
“I can see that,” Grayson growled as we spun. “Why does it show your shoulders and tits?”
I glared. Was he really doing this as we danced?
“Because it’s not 1802,” I hissed on a spin. “I’m also showing some ankle, Father Gray.”
West spun, and then I realized in horror as we switched partners, and almost everyone went to a same-sex dancer, that it wouldn’t be the case for me. My arms linked with Gray’s.
My eyes were wide.
His were triumphant.
I looked over my shoulder at Lottie and West.
“If you stop now, it will be a bigger deal.”
I ground my jaw, going along with the dance. I stared anywhere other than his chiseled jaw, his pouty pink lips. The face I’d been deprived of, the heady smell I was getting drunk off. My mind spinning with Grayson, Grayson, Grayson as we did the final steps.
“What are you even doing dancing?” he growled. “You’re pregnant.”
“I’m pregnant, not dying. I can dance at a party. You don’t get to tell me what to do anymore, Grayson Crowne.”
“That’s my baby inside you.”
“Is it?” I smiled at West, acting as if Grayson and I were only talking as friends would.
He was supposed to let me go, supposed to let me spin into West for the final dance, but he held on, pulled me closer.
“You really need to stop saying that,” he growled.
I looked over my shoulder at a waiting West.
My eyes collided with Grayson’s. “Or what?”
His grip tightened, bunching the fabric at my waist before he let me go.
I spun into West, finishing the dance.
“Did he propose?” West quirked a brow, tilting his chin at Grayson.
“I don’t know, did Lottie?”
“She did,” West said. “It’s gonna be a weird Christmas.”
My lips quirked. It was getting harder and harder not to laugh and smile around West. He was always so carefree, and I needed that. Grayson was opposite me, jaw clenched so tight I bet the muscles screamed.
When the dance finished, everyone clapped like some Victorian mating ritual had finished and then went to go watch the turkey be carved. West walked a few paces ahead of me, and I lifted up my skirts to walk down the stairs.
Suddenly, Grayson was at my side, linking arms with me, helping me down the stairs.
“What are you doing? People are staring.”
“Let them stare. I’m not leaving you. You’re pregnant.”
“How many times do I have to tell you I can use the stairs?” I shoved him off just as we reached the floor.
I linked arms with West, anything to get away from the look in Grayson’s eyes. A few seconds later, Mrs. du Lac and Tansy joined us. I could still feel Grayson’s stare on my neck, hot as the sun. What was wrong with him? We were in public.
“Are you wearing vintage Chanel?” Mrs. du Lac asked. “That’s very beautiful,” she continued. “I think I recall Tansy wearing something similar, years ago.”
I chewed the corner of my lip, heat rushing up my neck as I felt Tansy eyeing my dress. Abigail swore she wouldn’t notice so long as it wasn’t one of the dresses from the glass cases.
“It…” I coughed. “It was a gift.”
“That’s a very kind gift,” Tansy said.
“Yup.”
I just said yup to Tansy Crowne and Lynette du Lac, perhaps the most elegant women in existence. I opened my mouth to come up with something better, but instead ended up looking like a fish.
“Would you like some wine?” Mrs. du Lac held out a glass of wine, and I searched for a reasonable reason to decline it.
“I…”
Grayson snatched it out of her hand. “I’d love some, thank you.”
Mrs. du Lac smiled at me and Grayson. “You’re very welcome, Grayson…Well, good thing we have the second glass. You really have to try it, Story. It’s the best vintage. Tansy really outdid herself.” She reached for a second glass, handing it to me.
Something felt really, really off with the way she watched me.
Once again, I was out of excuses to say no.
Grayson snatched the second glass, as he drank the first in one gulp. “You’re right, Lynette. This shit is dope.”
Lottie’s audible inhale was the only sound; she grasped Grayson’s forearm, mouth parted.
“Are you unwell?” Tansy asked Grayson. Crowne code for: Are you high?
I saw Mrs. du Lac reach for yet another wine glass and quickly said, “If you’ll excuse me, I need to go…pee.”
I turned, lifting up my skirt, and quickly heading toward the bathroom.
Goddamn it.
How hard is it to say powder my nose or something—
“How are you enjoying the party, dear?”
I froze at Tansy Crowne’s voice. She’d followed me? I slowly turned to face her. The bathroom was only a few feet from me, its dark oak door taunting.
I slowly turned around. “It’s…fine.”
She worked her diamond pendant between her fingers, watching the party. “You should have taken the money and left.”
“I don’t want your money.”
“Hmm…” She rubbed her throat. “You know, he promised me he would never talk to you again. What promises has he made you?”
My heart fractured, but I wouldn’t let her see. “He doesn’t…we don’t—”
“Lilian!” Tansy turned from me on a smile, waving at a woman with hair like a beehive, leaving me in the dust.
Tears were hot in my eyes.
Stinging.
I don’t know why I was even surprised. It was exactly the thing Grayson Crowne would do, but I could feel it. Hot and itchy in my lids, scratching up my throat. I was going to cry.
So then it happened.
The worst possible thing at the worst possible time.
Grayson Crowne.
“Snitch.”
“Go away,” I snapped, refusing to turn.
Grayson gripped my elbow before I could run away, spinning me to him.
“Let me go.”
I needed to get out of here, to the bathroom, and lock myself in until I could get control of my face. I never cried in public.
What the fuck is happening to me?
“I need to talk to you. You need to tell me what the hell you’re going through. I’ve had to look like an idiot, like, three times today!”
“This is my first time being pregnant!” I snapped. “I don’t know what the fuck to expect!”
I shoved him off, but he wouldn’t let me go.
And so the tears fell.
GRAY
* * *
Tears welled in her eyes, big fat ones that rushed down her pretty hazel cheeks. Alarm rushed through me. Story Hale didn’t cry. She might get watery eyes, but she quickly wiped them away.
“I am fine!” Her face scrunched in anger. “Don’t think because I’m crying you control any of the situation.” She circled the air around us with her finger as more tears
blurred her eyes. “What the fuck is happening to me?” She dragged her hands down her face.
Story’s hands barely muffled her sobs, her shoulders racked up and down. I couldn’t just sit here and watch this. I dragged her to me by one shoulder, anchoring her to me with my arm.
This was fine.
This was barely a hug.
“What are you doing?” She tried to shove me off.
I held on tighter, forcing her face into my white dress shirt. “Just let me do this.”
It was nothing. Friends hug. They comfort each other. Story and I might be in a weird, no-man’s-land of hate and love, but we could do this.
Eventually she stopped resisting, melting into me, into the hug. Her tears wetted my shirt, until she stopped crying.
I pulled back, one hand lightly on her shoulder.
I swiped her cheeks clean with both thumbs, her jaw clenched tight.
“Why are you crying, Story?”
“Why can’t you keep your promises, Grayson?” she rasped.
I paused, her words hitting me like a fucking arrow I wasn’t prepared for.
“I’m trying,” I said. “Really fucking trying.”
Her brow furrowed, and I dragged my thumbs down until I touched the corners of her pretty plump lips, wondering if I could taste the salt on them if I kissed her right now.
“You’re kind of cute when you cry,” I said, voice grating like sandpaper.
Her glare slashed to me, but it was soft, vulnerable. “Shut up.”
I bit my tongue to keep from smiling. “You’ve been away too long. You forgot. You can’t talk to me that way, Snitch.”
“Someone needs to call you out on your shit…”
“And that’s you?” I dragged my thumb a millimeter to the right, tracing her bottom lip—
“There you both are.” Mrs. du Lac’s voice cut into the moment, and we spun. She stared at both of us, an unreadable expression on her wrinkleless hazelnut face.
“It’s time for the lucky kiss.”
We followed her back to the ballroom, where all the guests were lined up to break bones for our morbid tradition.
I wondered if Snitch’s heart pounded as hard as mine did.
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