BULLY KING

by Huss, JA

  I think about how maybe it’s just time to admit that I can’t win.

  My father really does run this world and there is no hope for me.

  I am an utter and total failure.

  But that’s not even the worst part.

  The worst part is that I’m taking everyone down with me.

  I’m dreaming about the girl in the woods when my phone buzzes and wakes me up.

  “Yeah,” I say, still imagining Cadee Hunter.

  “I’m coming up to your room. I just didn’t want to scare you and make you scream.”

  “What?” I laugh and sit up. “Cadee?”

  “Are you expecting someone else?”

  “Did you just say—”

  “Knock, knock.” My bedroom door opens and there she is. My dream girl.

  “What are you doing here? Jesus Christ. Dante is going to lose his mind.”

  “Dante sent me.” She stalks towards me, taking her shirt off as she crosses my room. Then she pulls my covers back, takes a moment to admire my body in the moonlight, then straddles my legs and hovers her upper body over mine.

  “What the fuck is happening?” I laugh.

  “Cooper Valcourt. I would like to save you.”

  “What?”

  “Save you. But first, I would like to kiss you.” Then she leans down and presses her lips to mine.

  I’m so stunned, it takes me a moment to kiss her back. But once I do, I forget all about her offer to save me, and this fucked-up summer, and what might be waiting for me when my father finally gets home, and I just enjoy her.

  The kiss starts soft, our lips meshing together as I wrap my arms around her back and release the clasp on her bra. Our tongues doing a little dance as her hair sways across my bare chest. Our heartbeats picking up as she flicks the button of her shorts.

  I immediately start tugging them down her legs. And when I get them over her hips, she squirms and wiggles until she’s naked too. Then, breathless, she hovers over me once more, her heart pounding against mine. I smile up at her, dragging her hair behind her ear so I can see her face better. And I’m reminded of easier days. When she was younger. When we were both younger. And I would spy on her in the woods and she would pretend not to see me.

  I’m just getting ready to miss that girl—her innocence, because she’s not innocent anymore and that’s what bothers me most about what happened to her three years ago—but I stop myself. Because she’s still here and she’s strong now.

  I sit up, bring her with me, and then lay her back on the bed so I’m on top now. She giggles at me. And there it is. That innocence. It wasn’t lost. Just hidden. Waiting for the right opportunity to bring it back.

  Or the right person.

  And that right person is me. I vow it.

  I bend her legs and push her knees up to her chest as I kiss the inside of her thigh. She shivers with anticipation underneath me. My kisses travel upwards and then I place my fingers on either side of her pussy and gently open her up so my tongue can slide in and caress her sweet spot. She wriggles, her fingertip caressing a line from my neck to my shoulder, so softly that I shudder under her touch as I memorize her taste.

  “Please, Cooper,” she begs. “Now. Please.”

  I want to eat her out forever. Just lick her until she comes. But I don’t want to deny her anything either. I made a lot of mistakes with this girl. Enough for several lifetimes. And now… all I want to do is everything she tells me.

  She is tight when I enter her. And her back arches up, her fingernails no longer gentle as she digs them into my upper arms. Like she’s clinging to me. Like I am her lifeblood and we are meant to be together like this, always.

  It’s a slow fuck. With lots of kissing, and eye contact. I never want to stop looking into her eyes. We don’t talk. There’s a lot to say, but it can wait.

  We just move against each other, drawing our togetherness out in a way that makes me want to stop time and stay like this forever.

  But the climax is too tempting. The release necessary.

  And when it comes, everything feels new again.

  We didn’t sleep afterward. Just stayed still for a little bit. Then she got up and started ordering me around like a queen.

  No. Not just any queen.

  My queen.

  “Where are we going?” I didn’t want to go anywhere. Least of all to meet Dante. But Cadee insisted. And she promised I would be very happy by morning.

  “Will you just relax?” She’s got my hand and she’s dragging me across High Court College campus via the woods. We pass the old cottage that Lars, Ax, and I called home for the past three years. I can barely remember the anger inside me that day.

  Over what? A couch? A dorm? It makes no sense now, but it felt like the end of the world at the time.

  We pass through the wall and enter the prep side of campus. And we keep going. “Are we going to the inn?” I ask, trying to figure this out.

  “Trust me,” Cadee says, glancing sideways at me.

  “I trust you. Hell, it’s not every day a queen climbs up into the king’s tower offering to slay a dragon. You are gonna slay a dragon, right? I’m expecting something big like that. Something very cinematic. Is Dante the dragon? If so, I might slay him myself.”

  “Keep talking, tough guy.”

  “Seriously. We’re nearly to the parking lot. Where are we going?”

  “What do you usually find in a parking lot?”

  “I could’ve just stolen my father’s truck if you wanted to drive somewhere.”

  She drags me through the parking lot. There’s only one car out here. It’s two-thirty in the morning. And it’s a piece-of-shit blue Camaro that probably ran out of gas on the main road and coasted in here, because it’s parked all crooked.

  But it soon becomes clear that we are making our way towards this heap. And we’re about twenty feet away when the engine roars to life.

  “What the—Ax?” I laugh. “What the hell is happening?”

  He grins evilness. But it’s an evilness I recognize as happiness on my best friend. Then I see Lars in the passenger seat wearing mirrored sunglasses that glimmer from the street light overhead.

  Ax gives the Camaro some gas and it backfires, then roars with the threat of a V-8 engine.

  Ax winks at me. Then his door opens with a loud creaking squeak, and he works an ancient switch on the side of the seat to make it flip forward. “Like my new ride?” Then he nods to the back seat. “Get in. We got people to see.”

  Lars is out of the car too, and Cadee is sliding into the back.

  “I don’t think I can fit back there,” I say.

  “Pussy,” Lars says.

  “What the hell is happening? Where did you get this car? And where are we going? I’ve been at home for four days, not four years.”

  Ax claps me on the back. “A lot has happened in those four days.”

  I squeeze in the back and Ax slams the front seat back, hitting my knees. The space is so small—like what the hell were car makers thinking in the Seventies? Two-door cars that seat four has to be one of the dumbest ideas ever.

  Then he punches the gas as the car lurches forward. Lars laughs. “I think you just ate ten dollars’ worth of gas to do that, dumbass.”

  “Where did you get this car?” I ask again.

  “From me,” Cadee says.

  “What. The fuck. Is happening?”

  “I bought it with my million-dollar take-home from Dante.” Then she leans over and whispers, “I bought a house too!”

  “What?”

  “Well, it’s not a house. It’s the old Alumni Inn.”

  “Why the hell would you buy that piece of shit? That place went out of business ten years ago.”

  “Because it matches the car,” Ax laughs. Then he screeches the tires around a corner, slides the Camaro into the gravel driveway, and skids to a stop in front of an old rickety porch.

  Everyone from rush is waiting for us. Even Dante. And… “
Victor? I’m so lost.”

  “Jesus.” Cadee laughs. “You are really bad at surprises.”

  “I just don’t get it.”

  Ax cuts the engine and then he and Lars are both out, flipping the seats back so Cadee and I can get out.

  “OK. Someone want to explain what’s going on?”

  Mona comes forward and stands on the top step. Everyone else flanks her as she plants her hands on her hips and grins. “Welcome to the ruling class, Cooper Valcourt. You are about to be officially crowned the King of Nothing.”

  And then everyone is talking at once. And their plan—Dante’s plan—comes spilling out like a stroke of royal genius.

  With one exception.

  Dante is asking me for the truth.

  And it’s not my truth to tell.

  It’s Cadee’s.

  The six of us sit in the office of the old inn—me, Lars, Ax, Cadee, Dante, and Mona. I didn’t want Mona here, but she has agreed to stay on campus with Dante next year. So she needs the truth.

  “OK,” Lars says. “Do you want to explain why we’re all in here?”

  “And not out there getting drunk, like everyone else?” Ax laughs.

  Dante already knows Cadee’s secret. She told me. So he’s just leaning against the back wall with his arms folded over his chest. Giving us space to do this our way.

  I look at Cadee. “You sure you want to do this?”

  “Do. What?” Lars is losing patience. “What are we doing?”

  “Lars, can you just stop talking?”

  He shoots me a dirty look. “If we’re having the conversation I think we’re having—”

  “We’re not.” I cut him off. “What you think happened never did.”

  “What?”

  I look over at Cadee. “Do you want me to tell it?”

  She takes a deep breath, then shakes her head no. “I can do it.”

  Ax walks over to her and bends down. Then he looks up at her with very soft eyes. “What’s going on, Cadee?”

  She takes another deep breath. “I know there’s a lot of rumors going around about me.” She glances at me. “And Cooper too. I did have an abortion three years ago. Cooper was the one who took me to the clinic. But it wasn’t his baby.” She looks over at Ax, then Lars. “It wasn’t yours, either. It happened before we… started doing any of that stuff.”

  “What’s that mean?” Lars asks. He looks at me. “What does that mean, Cooper?”

  Cadee sucks in a deep breath and I squeeze her hand to give her courage when she lets it out.

  But she doesn’t need my help.

  She’s always been stronger than me. Always.

  She puts up a hand and waits for silence and then she starts talking in a soft, low voice. “Cooper found me. By accident, actually. It was the first night my mom and I were living in the attic apartment, remember?”

  She looks at Ax and Lars. They nod. We were all together that New Year’s Eve. And it really did feel like a new beginning. We were laughing outside in the woods. Drinking a little. Not Cadee, she wasn’t drinking that night. But I was.

  And it was such a good night.

  We had fun that night.

  We kissed her, and made her laugh, and we laughed too.

  And I remember thinking… I think I could love this girl forever.

  And then it all went black.

  “But my mother was new to the catering team,” Cadee continues. “So she was busy with the party and wasn’t thinking about me. But I was thinking about her. I told you guys I wanted to go inside and find her so I could give her a kiss at midnight.” Cadee’s chin begins to quiver and then her eyes are filling up with tears. She wipes furiously at them as they ride down her cheeks. “I just wanted to give her a kiss at midnight. Because my father…” She pauses again. Shakes her head. “Was gone. So I went inside…”

  She stops and stares off at nothing. And I want to make her stop. I just want all the words to stop. I don’t want to hear what comes next.

  And it’s like she reads my mind, because she skips ahead.

  “Cooper came back. He was very drunk by then and…” She looks at me and her next words come out as a sigh. “I don’t really know. I don’t know why you came back. I’m just glad you did.”

  “I was looking for you. It was never an accident, Cadee. I felt so bad. I knew my father kicked you and your mom out of the cottage—“

  “He told me you wanted us to move out so you could have it for your lacrosse team.”

  “What?” Lars says. “We never used that cottage for lacrosse.”

  “So he lied,” Cadee says.

  “He lied,” I sigh.

  She frowns for a moment. Her brow furrowed. “It was all lies, wasn’t it?” She looks at me. “You were right. He never cared about me at all.”

  I squeeze her hand again, and this time I think she really needs that support.

  “OK,” Ax says. “But what’s that got to do with anything, Cooper?”

  “When I went inside to find my mom,” Cadee says. “I found Dane instead.”

  “What?” Lars asks.

  But Mona sees where this is going. Because she comes over to Cadee and sits down next to her. Pulling her into a hug. “Oh, Cadee.”

  And now Cadee is really crying. And it’s not just what happened with her and my evil asshole of a brother. It’s all of it.

  All the shitty fucking cards she has been dealt over the past three years finally catch up with this girl.

  “What the fuck is happening right now?” Ax asks. He stands up and starts his pacing. “Dane... what? What are you saying? He… raped you, Cadee? Is that what you’re trying to fucking say here?” Then he looks at me. “And you covered for him, didn’t you?”

  “It’s not like that, Ax.”

  And my heart fucking cracks in half when I realize Cadee is about to make excuses for me.

  “I did,” I whisper, talking to Ax.

  Total silence in the room.

  “Why?” Mona asks. “Why would you do that, Cooper? You don’t even like Dane. I’ve seen him kick your ass so many times over the years. So why would you cover for him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Fuck that!” Mona says. “Fuck you, Cooper!”

  “Today, I wouldn’t. I know better. But back then, I was just…”

  “You were just a fucking coward,” Mona says. Stating the truth.

  And what can I say? “Yeah.” I sigh. “I was just a fucking coward. A selfish fucking coward.”

  “So that’s why Cadee suddenly became important to you.” Lars is sneering at me, disgusted. “First semester she was a target. We bullied her, and messed around with her a little, and made her feel like shit. And then…” He pauses. “Then, after New Year’s, she was all you thought about. You were obsessed with her. Like… in love with her, almost. But it wasn’t love, was it, Cooper?”

  I look at Cadee and she’s squinting her eyes at me. I want to deny it. But it’s pointless now. “I wanted your secret, Cadee. I needed it. I needed something to hold over Dane so that when the time was right, I would have it in my back pocket and I could use it against him.”

  “Did you?” Ax asks.

  “No” I say. “No! I didn’t tell him. I didn’t tell anyone.”

  “That’s the fucking problem, Cooper,” Mona hisses.

  “So…” Lars is thinking things through. “That’s why we walked away from her at the end of senior year. You were done with her.”

  I can’t even answer. Because this is still only half the story.

  I glance at Cadee and find her frowning. Her eyes find mine for only a moment, then she looks down at her feet. “I knew I was pregnant almost immediately. I just felt it”

  Lars stands up. “Oh, my fucking God.” He looks at me. “It’s true. You made her get that abortion so you could keep the whole thing secret.”

  Lars!” Cadee says sharply. “You don’t get to have opinions about this. OK? You just don’t. You weren�
��t there.”

  “I was there!” he says. “All fucking semester.” He glares at me. Then he looks back at Cadee. “Why didn’t you come to me? I would never—“

  “That’s why,” Cadee says. “You would’ve let me make the decision. And you know what, Lars? I wasn’t able to do that at the time. I just wasn’t. I couldn’t think straight. So Cooper sat me down and started asking me questions. And when I said no, I do not want to have my rapist’s baby, and no I didn’t want to tell my mom and break her heart—again. Right after my dad died. He said, “Then you don’t really have any choices.””

  “That’s not what I said.” The words are out before I have a chance to think them through. And I’m glad. Because this is the only chance I’ll ever have to try and make this right. It is not the time to lie or omit the facts to save face.

  I deserve this.

  And Cadee deserves it too.

  “I said, “I think I can rectify the situation.””

  As if her problem at the time was a situation to be rectified.

  Ax just stares at me. But he doesn’t need to say anything.

  I know exactly what he would’ve done to Dane if he had found Cadee that night instead of me.

  He would’ve killed him.

  “I thought… I thought you guys really liked me. I don’t know. It was dumb, I guess. I thought being with you would make it all better. And it did.” She shrugs. “It did.”

  “I did like you, Cadee. I was just—” I look at Mona. “I was just a fucking coward. I wanted to skate through life. I wanted it to be easy. And then there you were. Like a gift. I had a secret and everything in our world runs on secrets. I felt rich. Like a fucking king.” I take my shirt off and point to the tattoo on my chest. “Because they tell us we are kings. They want us to believe it. And I did.”

  “And then”—Dante finally speaks—“you threw her away. You got what you needed out of her and you threw her away.”

  I want to hate him in this moment. I really do. But he’s not wrong.

  And I think I’m probably a little bit jealous of Dante. Because he always understood the game. He always knew how to play it. Like someone gave him a rule book. Like he was cheating.