by Rebel Hart
She expired, going limp against me. I leaned back in the chair, taking her with me, and did the best I could to catch my breath. I smoothed my hands over her skin, halfway afraid that she was going to disappear exactly as I’d feared, but she remained beneath my fingertips. She was soft, and warm, and real. If I had my way, we’d continue to stay that way forever.
We settled for a few more hours.
There wasn’t a piece of furniture in the room that we left unsoiled by our antics. We were insatiable, and even though I still didn’t understand how or why she was there, we never had enough of a moment to discuss it. We rolled into each other again and again, until it felt like we were going to start losing our ability to walk or talk.
Then we went into the shower and did it once more.
When we finally left the bathroom, I was exhausted but happy beyond measure. I wouldn’t let her more than a few inches from me, before pulling her back and kissing her more.
“I know,” she said. “I want more too, but we probably should show our faces to the others. Even if there’s no hiding what we’ve been up to anymore.”
“Others?” I said, tilting my head to the side.
She smiled. “Yeah. I only brought a couple with me, but I bet everyone’s arrived by now.” She grabbed my hand and led me out of the room.
We went down the stairs and I was immediately met with a murmur of voices. We walked into the kitchen and my heart jumped up into my throat. Felicity was standing in the kitchen, chatting away with a few women that I recognized as Nikita, Colette, and Avery from The Royal Court, and Alistair, Kyle, and Brayden were sitting at the kitchen table, chatting over a plate of pastries and coffee, but standing directly across from me, with smiles rising to their faces when they saw me, were two other people I’d missed more than I was willing to admit. My best friend Sicily…
…and my brother, Nathan.
24
Deon
When Cherri and I entered the kitchen, all eyes turned to us. Across from me, and much to my surprise, Nathan looked like he was on the brink of tears. Everyone’s glances bounced between us, and even as uncomfortable as it made me, I had to admit it was good to see him. He took a step forward and so did I. He shook his head with a little chuckle and held his arms out for a hug.
And then Sicily jumped in front of him and threw his arms around me.
“Deon!” he whined. “It’s really you! I’ve been dreaming of this day!” Even though there was damn near a foot between us, he squeezed me tightly. “I kept looking for you! Your best friend never gave up.”
“I heard,” I said, finally managing to wedge between us to push him back a few feet, but I set my hands on his shoulders. “Thank you. You took care of Cherri, you never gave up on me. You really are the best friend a guy could ask for.”
What I’d learned about Sicily in the limited time that we had to develop a friendship was that he didn’t do emotions very well. He was a natural jester, and when his feelings started to get the best of him, he did what any good jester did—he played it off with a joke. His feelings about being reunited with me must have gotten the best of him, because he started out kidding, but in the wake of my earnest statement, I watched all of his inner jokester fade away.
“Deon,” he said in his serious tone, an octave lower than his usual jubilant tone. “You’re like, the first real friend I ever had, and as much as I hated thinking you were out there in a ditch somewhere, if that hadn’t happened…” He looked past me to Cherri. “I wouldn’t have made the second real friend I ever had.”
Cherri stepped forward and slid between Sicily and me to pull him into a big hug. When she released him, I pulled her back so her back was against my stomach and put a hand on Sicily’s head. “You’re the first real friend I ever had too. When I went missing, you looked after the most important people in my life, my queen…” I looked across at Nathan. “And my brother.”
In an instant, Sicily turned back into the class clown, and his typical tone was back. “Oh! He called me his friend! Nathan did.” He looked back at him. “Tell him.”
Nathan nodded. “I did say that, and I’ve regretted it ever since.”
Everyone chuckled a little, then Cherri stepped aside and dragged Sicily with her. I finished crossing the kitchen, and doing something I honestly never thought I’d do, I pulled Nathan into a huge bear hug. I closed my eyes and breathed in the moment—actually bonding with a brother I hated. We had something that bonded us more than anything else ever could.
The manipulation of Connor Loche.
“So,” Nathan said, pulling away. “How about that dad of ours?”
I shrugged. “I don’t see him as my dad.”
Nathan nodded. “Oh good, I don’t either.”
Colette raised her hand. “Don’t you have to acknowledge that he’s your dad to some extent? Otherwise you wouldn’t be brothers.”
“No,” Nathan and I said in unison, and it brought that concept to an end in a flash.
“He’s done all he needed to do in making us brothers by spreading his seed,” Nathan said.
I nodded. “And now it’s time to stop him so he can’t bring that level of harm to anyone else.”
Cherri and I were understandably hungry given our torrent for the past few hours, so after Felicity made us a full breakfast each, despite it being nearly lunch time, we all adjourned to the much roomier living room. I took my normal armchair, and when Cherri tried to sit on the floor in front of me, I pulled her down in my lap instead. Nathan, Nikita, Colette, and Jaxon all squeezed on one couch, while Kyle and Brayden sat next to one another on the other, with Felicity in her regular spot at the end of that one. Sicily sat on the floor and Avery and Alistair joined him, though they quickly curled into each other as expected, and I noticed how close everyone else seemed.
“So, everyone’s paired off then?” I said.
Kyle looked around nervously, “Well—”
“Yeah,” Brayden said. “Everyone’s paired off.”
Kyle looked at Brayden with glowing eyes and it brought a smile to my face. I never suspected that Kyle was into guys, but it also didn’t shock me. He was never the kind of guy who seemed to give a shit about stuff like that when it came to who he chose to spend his time with. The fact that he was into Brayden as an individual was a little more surprising, but it seemed Brayden had mellowed out at least.
“Is that an admittance?” Avery asked, leaning in. “Is that what that means?”
“No,” Colette said quickly, then looked at Brayden. “No, right?”
Brayden shrugged. “It doesn’t have a title or anything, but…”
Avery clapped her hands. “Yes! Yes!” She stabbed a finger out at Colette. “Suck it, Bentley!”
Colette crossed her arms. “Fine. I owe you $50.”
“Did you bet on us?” Kyle said with his nose wrinkled up. “That’s pretty shitty.”
Colette sat up straight. “Oh no! We didn’t bet on your success or anything. We all knew that was happening. It was more a matter of how long it would take you to come out and say it.” She put a hand on her chest. “I’m the better friend, because I wasn’t going to rush you into anything.”
“You are not. You said they’d keep flip-flopping between who would be willing to say it,” Avery said.
“Rude,” Colette snapped. “That was supposed to just be between us.”
“Technically, that’s what happened,” Alistair said. “I mean it was Brayden who confirmed it just now, not Kyle.”
Avery turned around and looked at Alistair. “Whose side are you on?”
Alistair shrugged. “What? I’m just saying—”
“WAIT!” Sicily screamed, bringing all the attention to him. “You two are together?!”
Colette looked over at Avery with a grin. “Ooh, I do believe that brings us back to even.”
“Goddammit, Sicily,” Avery hissed. “Did you really not know?”
“No,” Sicily whimpered, deflating. �
��Dang it. So I really am the only single one? No love for ol’ Sis?”
“You’ll find someone, Sicily. You’re so wonderful,” Cherri said.
“You really are,” Avery tacked on. “I meant what I said at the beginning of the summer.”
That seemed to light Sicily up. “Really?”
“Wait,” Alistair said. “What’d you say?”
“Yeah,” Avery replied, totally ignoring Alistair. “You’re a catch.”
Alistair poked Avery in the back. “Avery, what’d you say?”
“Oh! Do you mean when you said you’d put him on your list?” Nikita asked.
“Nikki!” Avery yelped.
Nikita slumped further into the couch. “Oh… is that not what we’re talking about?”
“List?” I asked.
“A list of people other than your partner than you can sleep with, but it’s usually celebrities that you’d never meet,” Cherri explained quietly to me before looking at Avery. “Did you really say that? I thought you were talking about when you said if it wasn’t for Alistair—”
“Oh my god! Both of you shut your fucking mouths!” Avery hissed.
“No, no. Please continue,” Alistair said with a stone-serious face.
Avery looked back at her boyfriend. “Honey, I meant like, if I wasn’t madly in love with you.”
“Deon, your friends are funny,” Felicity said, petting Concrete and enjoying the show.
Alistair was leaning away from Avery and wouldn’t even look in her direction. Avery tried to give him a couple of kisses on the cheek to help, but he couldn’t be swayed for the time being. Avery turned and gave Cherri and Nikita each a death glare. “Great. Thank you both for this.”
“Huh,” Brayden said. “It’s rare that I’m not causing the fighting.” He smiled at Kyle. “It’s nice.”
Kyle wrapped an arm around Brayden and pulled him close, and I simply laughed. “Damn. The Royal Court has changed quite a bit. I don’t even recognize you.” Nathan was leaning his head against his hand on the arm of the couch. “You aren’t gonna do your weird king thing and simmer ‘em down?”
“I no longer have control of this train. I just have the prestige honor of sitting in the driver’s seat so that I’m the first one to hit the wall when we crash,” Nathan said flatly.
“Damn,” I said again. “I was about to ask what I missed, but I’m not entirely sure I want to know.”
“I’ll tell you what you missed,” Sicily said. “Avery would put me on her list.” He winked at Avery and smacked a kiss in her direction and Alistair shifted immediately. Sicily scrambled away with a yelp and sat next to the couch where Felicity and Concrete were. “It was a joke. Just lightening the mood.”
“Getting back to your question Deon,” Felicity said. “It sounds to me like your friends have been on quite the hunt for you. Some of the tactics they tried, I hate that I didn’t think of them first.”
“Really?” I asked. “All of you?”
Sicily nodded. “Colette has been my little tech monster. The rest of them have helped, but she and I have been checking pings off your unknown number for weeks trying to track you down.”
“And Brayden has put in a ton of work trying to find Connor,” Cherri added in. “Everyone is doing their part though. We’ve been working nonstop, it feels like.”
I looked at Colette and Brayden, the two people I might have previously considered the snobbiest, shallowest members of The Royal Court, and they were looking back at me with nothing but smiles. In fact, I could see it in all of them, they were happy to see me. The Royal Court had not been my group of friends before everything went ass up. I had Cherri, and through Cherri I’d begun developing something of a friendship with Avery and Alistair, but other than that, I thought very poorly of all of them, Nathan included.
In just that one day, the one where everything changed, I realized that my understanding of The Royal Court wasn’t just skewed, it was totally off. When push came to shove, they dropped everything to rush to Nathan’s aid. Even Cherri, who had just had a horrible experience with Nathan, was committed to finding and saving him within 24 hours. These people, whether they realized it or not, were committed to each other in a way most people never found.
The fact that they extended that commitment to me when they barely knew me was a true tell of the wonderful people that they were. “Well, I’m appreciative,” I said. Squeezing Cherri around the waist, I smiled. “You guys kept my girl safe, you kept my brother safe, my best friend. You’ve been trying to stop my shithead sperm donor, and you’ve been looking out for one another. I couldn’t thank you as much as I wanted if I tried. How did you eventually find me?”
“That was a combo effort between Sicily and Nathan,” Cherri said. “Nathan had a couple of Connor’s goons being held by some people he knew and they were able to swipe their phones. Sicily was able to break in and compare the info in their phones to the info he and Colette had gotten from the pings off the number you were calling Nathan and I from, and we realized you’d been near the prison. Once we realized you hadn’t gone back to prison, we guessed you must have visited and both Sicily and I remembered you mentioning Venom, so I went and spoke to him. He gave me Felicity’s address and here we are.”
“You met my dad?” I asked. “What’d you think?”
“He’s pretty great,” Cherri said. “He was super helpful and really nice. He loves you a lot, Deon.”
It gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling in my stomach knowing that Cherri and Venom had the chance to meet.
“Did you get anywhere with Connor?” Felicity asked.
“Not far,” Nathan said. “Like Cherri said, Brayden sort of broke his back trying to sort out his connection to Connor, but it led to a totally cleaned out warehouse in North Postings.”
Both Felicity and I sat up a little straighter. “A place Connor had been before?” Felicity asked.
“Yeah, but he’d completely cleared it out, even tore the walls down, by the time we got there,” Cherri said.
I looked across at Felicity. “Would this be helpful to Nico?”
She nodded. “Definitely. If he knows a specific place, he could find the guy.”
“Who?” Kyle asked.
I looked straight at Nathan. “Felicity and Venom know a guy that has about as many connections as Connor does. We currently have him hot on Connor’s trail, and he’s getting close. Knowing an actual warehouse that Connor had used though. That’s golden information.”
“Can you write down the address for me?” Felicity asked. Nathan immediately pulled out his phone and started flicking through it. When he found the info, Felicity gave him her number and he sent the info over. She smiled up at me. “As soon as we’re done, I’ll go tell Nico.”
That was when it hit me. These were my friends and the brother I was so desperate to get back to. They’d managed to stay out of Connor’s clutches up to that point, and even if they hadn’t, adding me to the mix wasn’t going to make them any more of a target—they already had Nathan.
“Done,” I said quietly, then looked at Felicity. Cherri was in my lap, and I knew I couldn’t be separated from her again. Nathan was there, and I was excited to be back around him again. “I’ll be going back with them, won’t I?”
Felicity nodded. “I’ve been talking to them about everything. How safe they’ve managed to stay and the fact that they’re taking Connor head on, and I think that would be best. You’ve been wanting to go back to Cherri and Nathan this entire time, now you finally get to.” For some reason, that left a knot in the pit of my stomach. Cherri must have noticed it, because she started to rub my back and rested her head on top of mine. Tears slowly rose to Felicity’s eyes and I had to bite back my own emotion. “Dammit, Deon. I cried in the bathroom about this for like twenty minutes this morning just so I’d be okay. Don’t look so sad, it’s heartbreaking.”
“I am sad though,” I said. Concrete was snoozing in Felicity’s lap despite the loudness in the ro
om, and Felicity looked so normal in her spot on the couch. “I liked this life too.”
“Getting shot aside?” Felicity asked.
“What?” Cherri and Nathan yelped at the same time.
Felicity looked at them both and then groaned at me. “Sorry.”
“That’s okay. I’ll explain all of that to them later.” I tapped Cherri’s leg and she climbed out of the chair so that I could stand up. Felicity moved Concrete’s head out of her lap and stood up as well and we walked to meet each other in the middle of the room. I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her tightly. “I’ve loved being here with you for the past few months.”
Felicity sniffed against my chest. “I’ve loved having you. Promise me you’ll visit soon.”
“Oh I’ll be back. We’ve still got a man to break out,” I joked.
Felicity finally pulled herself away, her eyes drenched, and said, “I’ll go back your stuff,” before fluttering out of the room. Ordinarily, I’d fight her on something like that, but I knew she’d need a minute.
“You okay?” Cherri asked, wrapping her arms around me from the back.
I rubbed her arms, loving that she was that close again. “I will be. Felicity’s become like a mom to me. I’m gonna miss her.” I walked over and knelt in front of Concrete and rubbed his ears. “I’m going to miss you too, you big oaf.”
Concrete slobbered a lick up my face, and I scratched his favorite spot behind his ear. “These two are my family now and their lives have been just as affected by Connor as ours have.”
“How so?” Nathan said.
“Like I said, I’ve got a lot to explain to you, but not here. If we don’t leave soon, I may never leave.”
The rest of The Royal Court went ahead of us, leaving only Cherri, me, and Nathan behind. Felicity eventually brought down the bags of things I’d amassed since living with her—all the things I only had because she loved me like a mother and bought them for me.
“Your weights,” she said weakly.