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“Any of you guys know why she did it?” Smoke pulled from Shakira’s lips. She’d lit a joint right outside of the church.
Kiki smacked her hand. “Girl, you can’t smoke that here, now.”
“Girl, I can’t not smoke this here. You saw t
hat shit.” Shakira shook her head, taking another drag. “Just tragic.”
Agreeing, the joint got passed around. We made sure to do it out of the fray and to the side of the church, but we were still technically on the front lawn. I didn’t think any of us cared at that point, and even I took a hit, which got me a look from a few old people lingering outside. They should probably respect how others decided to deal with this stuff. I would if I saw them doing the same.
I folded my arms. “No idea why. But she didn’t exactly seem like she had everything together.”
In saying that, I thought about those last moments I’d had with her. She’d been seriously on one hundred when she freaked out on me and maybe wherever all that came from just got the best of her.
The joint made it over to Birdie. She tipped her chin. “You don’t think it’s because of you, right?”
Her saying that honestly left me gobsmacked. My jaw dropped. “What?”
“I just mean…” And in the next seconds, her gaze flitted over to Royal and crew. The guys were all still talking, in their own little world. I noticed not completely though. Royal and even Knight, Jax, and LJ were definitely keeping tabs on me. They were a part of their conversation with the other boys of the Court, yes, but their eyes definitely escaped in my direction quite a few times. As I was doing the same with them, I didn’t make much of it. I needed to know where they were, and they obviously felt the same.
“Yeah.” A finger came out, Kiki’s, when she pointed toward my neck. “Is that his ring? We saw you sitting with Royal. At the assembly?”
“Mm-hmm, and Birdie tells us you guys are together?” Shakira’s eyebrows rose. “Is that his ring around your neck?”
Having forgotten about the token, I placed my fingers to the very ring resting on my chest. Royal gave it to me the day we got back together, moments before everything changed once again.
“This doesn’t mean you belong to me… It means you’re a part of me, a part of all this. I don’t own you because you can’t be owned.”
He’d said I couldn’t be owned, but he was still owning me. I rubbed the ring. “Her taking her life can’t be because of me.”
Birdie shrugged, holding the weed out to Shakira. “We’re not saying it really was, but you are with her man now.”
“Okay, you guys are seriously overstepping. God—” I started to walk away, but was grabbed, Birdie.
She placed her hands on my shoulders, then pushed them around me, a strong hug. “We’re sorry,” she said, pulling away. “We’re just trying to make sense of this. This is all super weird.”
I agreed, very weird. Mira was angry, but she was also very sure of herself, both arrogant and confident. In a lot of ways, she was the yin to Royal’s yang. She could have been the queen to his king, and that wasn’t lost on me.
“Sorry again,” Birdie said. I got another hug before the other girls joined in too. I was in the middle of a bear hug, the extended limbs of Amazon-sized women around me. The whole thing ultimately made me laugh, and I couldn’t be mad at my friends anymore.
I embraced them. “I guess you’re all forgiven,” I said, getting some breath back in when they allowed me to pull away. Soon enough, the rest of the other basketball girls and guys joined us. I noticed very quickly a certain someone wasn’t with them, and thinking back, I hadn’t seen Ramses inside either.
“Ramses?” I asked the girls. They were all starting to get themselves together and leave, all deciding to go meet at a local diner to get something to eat instead of the stress of the burial. I think it was all just too much, too weird.
Birdie shoved her hands in her coat, the weather still a little chilly in the Midwest. “I didn’t expect him today. Actually, I didn’t even see him on assembly day. I texted him, but I guess his parents took him out of town.”
Why hadn’t I noticed? Clearly, a shitty friend. My new obsession with Royal Prinze had something to do with that, I was sure, and coming in for another hug, I told the girls I’d talk to them later. They left, and I got out my phone, trying to correct past wrongs.
Me: Hey, stranger. You all good? Didn’t see you at the funeral. Mira’s?
I hadn’t seen him at the assembly either, obviously since he wasn’t there. I just should have noticed.
God, you’re so self-involved.
The bubble came up from Ramses’s text, and as I waited, I noticed Royal, Jax, Knight, and LJ talking to Sheriff Ashford. I hadn’t seen the sheriff since the assembly, but what’s peculiar was, he was just as much of a mess now as he was that day. Royal himself was actually holding him up a little, the man crying. The sheriff had a fist over his mouth; from the looks of it, it was all he could do to keep himself together.
Ramses: Dude, I know. Crazy, right? Mira? And yeah, I’m good. I meant to text. Dad took me out of town. Some weird bonding thing.
I gazed away from the text as I watched another join the boys and Sheriff Ashford, Mr. Prinze. The middle-aged man looked like an older version of Royal himself, tall, dark, and maybe handsome if he didn’t freak the shit out of me. He wore a black pea coat, relieving Royal when he reached a hand out and put it on the sheriff’s back. He guided him away from Royal and his friends, talking quietly to the man. Eventually, Sheriff Ashford nodded his head and allowed himself to be detoured away. Heads together, Sheriff Ashford listened while Royal’s dad talked, the pair putting distance between themselves and Royal and the other boys.
