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I eyed him, kind of worried now. “Is that true? Any of it?”
“Possibly.”
“Which part?”
He bunched thick curls, sighing a little. He’d taken his jacket off, really casual with his sleeves bunched up. “I suppose he’s right.”
“What? How so?”
“About the bully thing?” He shrugged a little. “I was a product of this place, I guess. Thought I was shit because I played a little ball and had a lot of friends. It also didn’t help I was the mayor’s kid, so yeah, I thought I was the shit. It happened, but I was eventually humbled the hell up when I lost everything, my friends, my rep, all of it when I crossed the Court. Turned out for the best, though, as far as I was concerned.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “I was an asshole and needed to be taken down a peg. Probably made Prinze’s life really ‘fun’ a time or two. Minor stuff, jostling him and giving him a hard time. Whatever. It is what it is, and I’m really not proud of it. I suppose he gave me my just desserts in the end, though.”
“How?”
His eyes lifted. “You really don’t want to hear about all that.”
“Actually, I do. Actually, I want to know why you guys are at each other and what you could have possibly done to have him and all them raging at you.” From what I knew, it really didn’t take much with the Court boys, but Ramses had to have done something, something to make Royal come at me the way he did.
Long fingers drew down Ramses’ jawline, thoughts behind his dark eyes. He definitely looked like he didn’t want to tell me, but I had asked.
“I wouldn’t do their haze,” he said.
“Haze?” My eyes narrowed. “Like the stuff college guys do to get into fraternities? I thought that kind of stuff was banned.”
“Well, this is high school,” he stated, frowning. “And Maywood Heights. Anything here, as far as the Court, goes as long as no one talks about it apparently.”
“What did they make you do? Or what did they try to make you do or whatever?”
He stared at me; long and hard, he stared at me. His jaw pierced skin as it worked. “I can’t legally go into it. They make us sign NDAs just before, but let’s just say, all those years of giving Royal a hard time caught up with me. He humbled me the fuck up, and I flat-out refused to do what he and the other Court guys were asking me to do in order to get in. It was nothing like what they had to do, swiping something from the corner store or streaking through a public park. It was crazy and I’d be crazy to do it, so I didn’t.”
“Wow.”
His lips closed as he leaned on his arm. “Needless to say, people weren’t happy. The Court’s everything to these people. It gives you a lot of power, not just here but on the outside.”
I knew that, had heard that. “So they blackballed you?”
“In so many words. I thought it was shit, and I let my dad know exactly what they wanted me to do.” His tone changed, eyes almost sad. “He didn’t stand up for me. Like I said, shipped me off.”
And so here we were, Ramses against the Court world.
“Thank you for telling me,” I said, honest about that. “With Royal, it’s like pulling teeth sometimes just to get him to tell me anything I want to know. I think he’s got a lot of trust issues or something.” In fact, I knew he did. Loyalty seemed to be a really big thing for him, something he called even me out on once before. I’d broken that trust with him, something he hadn’t been happy about at all.
Ramses’ look surprisingly shifted toward sympathetic. “He’s not my favorite, but I know he’s been through stuff. He lost half his family real young.”
My ears perked up. “His mom and sister?” And when Ramses looked at me, I raised a shoulder. “I overheard him and his dad talking about it. Do you know what happened to them?”
“From what I remember, a car accident,” he said, making my heart hurt. I really didn’t want to care, but I couldn’t help it. My heart did move for Royal, as much as I didn’t want it to, and even if it didn’t, anyone would deserve compassion if something like that happened to them. Ramses sighed. “It happened when we were in elementary school. Royal took it real hard, though. Out of school for what seemed like weeks, and when he came back he was real different.”
“Different how?”
“It was like the guy couldn’t see anything anymore. He was just a body, vacant, you know?”
I did. “I lost my mom young too. I get it.”
His smile was sad. “I’m sorry to hear that, couldn’t imagine and then your sister…”
