by Rebel Hart
“What?” Deon’s eyes were wide with rage. “Were you about to revenge fuck me?”
“No! You mean the world to me, and—”
“Not enough to break up with Nathan.”
“I’m gonna do it!”
He scoffed. “I’ve been listening to that for weeks, Cherri! I’ve told you a thousand times. I don’t like when people fucking use me.”
“I’m not using you!”
“Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. You are a part of The Royal Court. People are just resources to them.” He ran a hand through his hair, and with his tattoos sprawling out all over his torso and his arms bulging from his anger, I was battling a confusing mix of aroused and upset. “I said I wouldn’t share. I fucking meant that shit.”
“I know,” I said weakly. “I’m sorry. I’m gonna break up with him.”
“It’s not just about him anymore, Cherri. The court changed you. The woman I knew never would have done this shit to me.” He buttoned his pants and picked his jacket up off the floor. “As long as you’re associated with them, you can forget I exist.” He took one last disappointed and hurt look at me, then turned and stormed out.
Tears were in my eyes before I could stop them. I grabbed my phone from my nightstand and quickly dialed Avery’s number.
“Jesus, fuck, Cherri. I’ve been worried sick. Where the hell have you been?”
“Can you come over?” I whimpered out through tears.
“Yeah. What’s wrong?”
“Nathan’s cheating on me again,” I said, “and I fucked things up with Deon too.”
16
Cherri
After closing my locker, I pulled a pencil out of my pocket and held it out to Avery. “Here. Stab me with this.”
Avery took the pencil and slid it into one of the pockets on my backpack. “I will not.” I frowned and groaned as Avery linked her arm through mine. “Aw, honey. How long has it been, a month? Deon has to have calmed down some. You really should reach out and apologize. Explain things to him clearly and maybe you guys can start over.”
“You haven’t seen how he looks at me now,” I replied. “Maybe it has been a month since the great Cherri fuck-up of the year, but he still seems just as disappointed and angry as he was when it first happened.”
“But…” She sighed. “You guys are obviously meant to be together. Just finally end things with Nathan and then approach Deon with an honest, heartfelt apology. Tell him how you feel and that it’ll never happen again.”
I whined. “I sound like Nathan when you describe me like that.”
Avery bobbled her head. “Well, there’s not much I can do about that.” I whacked her arm. “Ow! There isn’t! You didn’t necessarily cheat on Deon, but he made it really clear that he didn’t want to do anything with you until you’d broken up with Nathan.”
I stopped moving where I was and looked at her through a half-lidded gaze. “No, please, keep going. I forgot how fucking dumb I was. Remind me.”
“Sorry,” Avery grumbled, pulling me to walk again. “It’s kind of where you’re at now, though.”
“No, I can make a different decision than Nathan,” I said. “I can be self-sacrificing enough to say that Deon deserves someone better than me. When you describe me in that way, I kind of get the feeling that with Nathan is exactly where I should be.”
“No,” Avery whined. “That’s not true. You made one little mistake. Nathan is an awful, terrible person. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel that way. You and Nathan are totally different, and Deon knows that. Really, I just think it’s worth…”
Avery’s voice faded away, so I looked over at her just in time to see Deon and Sicily walking out of the front office. Avery stopped us from moving any further just as Deon’s eyes landed on us.
“Hi, Deon. Hi, Sicily,” Avery greeted. “How are you guys?” Sicily opened his mouth to speak, but Avery held up her hand. “Why don’t you go second?” she asked, and then she turned an interested gaze to Deon.
Deon looked at Avery for a few seconds, and then his dark gaze fell on me. Behind the tough guy was nothing but disappointment and sadness. I’d almost feel better if he were just plain angry, but what I got instead was way worse. After looking at me for about thirty seconds, damn near causing me to break out into a sweat, he turned his back to us and walked toward the front door to the school and out of sight.
Sicily winced. “Oh, hey, ya know. He’s just a little anti-social. Don’t let it bug ya. See ya, ladies,” With that, he turned and raced after Deon.
“Ouch.” I looked over my shoulder, and Colette was coming up to stand on my right.
“What was that about?” Alistair had walked up and was now on Avery’s left, holding her hand. “He didn’t look too happy.”
“Who knows?” Avery answered for me. “Come on. Let’s go get something to eat. I’m starving.”
“Me too,” Alistair added. “I’ve been wanting to try that new sushi place.”
“Hey!” Colette yelped. “They’re competitors, you know.”
“Obviously,” Alistair responded. “That’s why I want to try it so I can trash it and talk about how much better your family’s place is.”
“You’re a horrible liar, Ali,” Colette growled.
“So I’ve been told.” He pulled on Avery’s arm. “You in?” He looked up at me. “Cherri?”
I waved a hand forward. “Uh, you guys go ahead. I’ll catch up. I just wanna talk to Colette for a few minutes.”
Avery raised an eyebrow at me. “You sure?”
“Totally. Text me and let me know where you end up.”
Avery shook her head. “Okay,” she said, and she and Alistair walked out of the school hand in hand.
When they’d been gone for enough time, I linked my arm through Colette’s arm and started to walk toward the front door as well. Avery was my best friend, and she always gave me sound, logical advice about the right thing to do and the best way to do it. She was calm, cool, and collected, and sometimes, when you were specifically trying not to do the right thing, it was best to seek advice from someone like Colette, who made her legacy in being a little more self-serving.
“What’s up?” Colette asked. “I take it things aren’t going well with Mr. Prison?”
Side-stepping the insult, I pressed on. “No. I’m pretty sure I fucked that up for good, so it looks like I’m sticking it out with Nathan. I guess that’s what I’m hoping you can help me with.”
“Honey, I’m not into threesomes,” Colette said.
“No,” I replied. “Not help like that. I, just… How do you do it? How do you separate yourself from an emotional response to something and just view it for what it is? How do I make staying with Nathan make sense since, clearly, that’s what the rest of this year is going to look like for me?”
“Sweetheart, everything in life has a purpose, and if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that when it comes to relationships, the purpose is either true love, like what you would maybe have with Mr. Prison, or the purpose is everything else.”
“I don’t get it.” We walked through the parking lot and over to my car and stopped.
“Just view your relationship with Nathan like a business arrangement. Goods and services. Currency in exchange for product. You’re the currency. Having you around. You’re beautiful, smart, charismatic. I think very highly of myself, and even I know that you’re the total package. So in exchange for having you around, you get to partake in Nathan’s services. You have needs, so let him satisfy them. If you want something shiny, let Nathan buy it. If you need references for college, let Nathan’s court earn you notoriety. If he’s willing to spoil you in exchange for your presence, that’s not a bad deal.”
“Okay,” I said, starting to get it. “But what if Nathan is not satisfying, rarely buys me shiny things, and I can already get college references on my own?”
She chuckled. “You can walk most any place, but a car will get you there faster.”
That phrase washed over me like a muddy wave of enlightenment. “Reap the benefits?”
“Exactly, just ask for what you want.” She shrugged. “And maybe buy a vibrator.”
I sighed. Just getting close with Deon was the most excitement I’d ever experienced in the bedroom. I hated thinking that was behind me forever. “Yeah.” I pulled Colette in for a hug. “Okay. Thanks for the advice.”
She smiled. “Of course, cutie.” She winked at me. “I’m not going to that sushi place, so tell Avery and Alistair that I said I’ll see them tomorrow.”
“Will do,” I replied, waving as Colette walked off toward her own car.
Thinking of living life the way Colette described made me feel like I was laying a permanent coat of dirt over my skin, but regardless of that, I couldn’t deny the sense it made. I went to her for that sort of advice, after all, and nothing she said was false. Nathan wasn’t anyone’s prized possession, but if the weeks following his little outburst at the store had shown me anything, it was that his remorse was often paved with gold. If I was going to be stuck with him for the foreseeable future—things clearly weren’t going to work out with Deon—then what was the harm in getting some benefit out of the relationship?
When I climbed into my car, I noticed that I had a text from Avery, telling me where she and Alistair had gone, but I suddenly didn’t feel great. I responded with an apology, telling her that I no longer had much of an appetite.
17
Deon
“Hey, Deon, you know, ignoring members of The Royal Court to their faces never earned anyone any favors around here,” Sicily called after me as I made my way into the parking lot and toward my car.
I didn’t even turn around to face him. “I’ll let you know when I give a shit, Sicily.”
“All right, that’s it,” were the words that preceded the feeling of something hitting me in the side. It was more shocking than painful, but I stopped cold in my tracks and turned around. Sicily had his fists balled up. “Come on, wise guy. You been nasty like this for the last month, it feels like, and I’m sick of it. I’m gonna beat some sense back into ya.”
For a few seconds, I stood there, completely flabbergasted. Sicily weighed a hundred and twenty-five pounds soaking wet and was at least half a foot shorter than me, if not more. Still, he actually took a swing at me and faced me with his fists up, totally serious. A few snickers sputtered out of me first before I doubled over in complete laughter. It was less about the fact that Sicily wouldn’t stand a chance unless I was struck by lightning and more about the fact that he truly believed he could just punch me around a few times and have me back to whatever he considered normal.
“You think this is a game?” Sicily barked. “I’ll fight you. I know you’re a big guy, but I’m quick.” He started bouncing back and forth like a wrestler. “I’ll take ya down.”
“You have to stop. I can’t breathe,” I managed to get out. “I’m sorry. I give up. Uncle. Whatever, just stop fucking jumping around like that.”
Sicily stopped moving and nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. Everyone knows that when Sicily means business, he means business.”
I stood up straight and shook my head at him, “Yeah, you were terrifying,” I said flatly. “You realize I’d turn you into Sicily paste right?”
He shrugged. “I’d take it so that you could get some of your aggression out.”
My smile faded. “Wait, what?”
“What?” Sicily replied.
“You were going to fight me, knowing I’d kick your ass?”
He grinned. “Yeah, man. I don’t really know what you beefy types do to relieve some stress, but I imagine a punching bag can’t hurt.”
That sentiment ran through me like a poison-tipped arrow. He was going to turn himself into a human punching bag to try to help me? I’d never had a friend like that before. “Thanks, man,” I replied. “I don’t really have a good method for relieving stress, but I don’t want it to be beating the shit out of you, so don’t hit me again, please.”
Sicily chuckled. “I’ll make that deal if you explain what’s goin’ on with you lately. You’ve always been a brooding type of guy, but lately it feels like you’re a demon or something.”
Cherri was the only real friend I’d had growing up. I got along well with the other kids in our neighborhood, and it was the same with my blockmates behind bars, but I’d never really confided in someone before. I left prison with the thought that it would be more of the same, just Cherri and me, or nothing at all. I showed up to this school, covered in tatts with all eyes on me, and even if he had his own interests in mind when he approached me, Sicily was still willing to associate with such looming darkness without even knowing the story. In the few months that we’d been friends, I had never explained anything about my past, and it was only at that moment that I realized he never asked. He didn’t push, didn’t prod, just minded his own business. He let the current me be the me that he was worried about. Now the current me was breaking, and he wanted to know why. That was a damn fair ask.
“Yeah. I owe you an explanation. Let’s get outta here though. I don’t need anyone overhearing it,” I said.
“Follow me. I know a park nearby,” Sicily replied, then tapped my shoulder and passed me by to head to his own car.
Sicily led us to a park a little outside of Postings Proper with a playground and a few picnic benches surrounding it. He walked over to one of the vending machines situated near the building that housed the bathrooms and grabbed a couple of bottles of soda and a couple of bags of chips. Then we walked over to the bench that was furthest from the playground and sat down. It was getting cold outside—November in Maine could borderline be considered the beginning of winter—but it didn’t bother me much, and Sicily didn’t seem to mind either. We each tucked into our drinks and chips before I finally started my story.
“All right, I’m about to give you a whole lot of pretty sensitive information for me, so I think it goes without saying that if you tell anyone this shit, I will have to kill you.”
Sicily’s nose turned up like he smelled something terrible. “Who am I gonna tell, Dee? You’re my only friend.”
I snickered. “If it makes you feel any better, you’re my only friend.”
“I don’t know. The Royal Court seems to like you,” he replied.
“Yeah, well, that’s what I have to tell you.” When my tone dropped, Sicily leaned in. “I actually…know a few members of The Royal Court from a long time ago. Kyle and Nikita, I guess you could say we were friends coming up. Only for about a year, though.”
“You were friends with ‘em? How’d you even run in the same circle?” he asked.
I took a deep breath in, held it, counted to ten in my head, and then let it out. “I spent a year living in South Postings with my brother, dad, and step-mom.”
Sicily’s jaw dropped. “Get the fuck outta here. Your dad is one of them rich, hoity-toity types?”
I looked him straight in the eyes. “My dad is Connor Loche.”
Sicily’s eyes went so wide that it looked like they were going to pop. He sat there staring at me as though I’d just spoken a foreign language to him. “Y-your dad…is Connor Loche. As in Nathan’s dad, Connor Loche?”
“Yep,” I said, nodding. “He hired the cleaning company my mom worked for back in the day and met her. They were”—I winced—“involved until she realized he was both married and having affairs with several women. She called it off, but not before she got pregnant.”
“Holy shit,” Sicily huffed. “So Nathan’s your brother?”
I fake gagged. “It sounds even worse hearing it from someone else.”
“Jesus,” he said. “Is that why you’re so interested in his girlfriend?”
“Actually, that story should be told the other way around. Cherri was mine first,” I said. “We grew up in the same neighborhood, and we were attached at the hip. On our first date, we saw this guy. I don’t really know. He k
illed himself? His body just dropped on the ground in front of us. The cops thought we had something to do with it, and I got caught. Four years behind bars, and I come out to see the love of my life has moved from the Northside to the Southside and has been dating my brother.”
Sicily held up his hands. “You have officially earned your right to have an attitude problem.”
“Yeah, so they don’t really like me. They just know me. I mean, Cherri and I, I thought that may go somewhere again, but she tried to sleep with me while she was still with Nathan, so…”
“Does she know that you two are brothers?” Sicily asked.
“No, but that doesn’t change the fact that I told her I wouldn’t share with him. I’m not about to be someone’s fucking side-dude, not even for her.”
“No, hey, I get it, man. You’re not wrong.”
“I really only had Cherri as a friend from my old neighborhood, and the friends I made from that year in South Postings stayed back with Nathan when I left, so when I say I don’t have any friends other than you, I mean it,” I finished.
Sicily gasped. “So wait!” He stabbed a finger out at me. “You telling me you’ve never had a sleepover before?”
My jaw dropped. “That’s what you took away from all this shit?”
“It’s a fucking right of passage, buddy!” He slammed his hand down on the table. “Come to my place tonight. My mom thinks I’m a loser, so she’ll be happy when I bring a friend over.” I thought of my own mom and related to the feeling. “I have a lot of siblings, like, a fuck ton, but they’ll leave us alone mostly. Except my immediate younger sister, Annika, but she’s only a couple years younger than me, so we get along all right.”
“I…” I hesitated for a moment, unsure of how I felt about mixing myself into someone’s family, but then I thought about everything I’d just told Sicily and how it didn’t shake for a moment the fact that we were friends. He was someone I wanted to hang on to, for sure. “Yeah, man. That sounds fun.”