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I blinked stupidly at the sight, and when Leah reached out to tug my hand, I sank into the seat next to her, still watching the Princes with confusion.
“It’s weird, right?” she said loudly, her voice rising over the heavy bass. “Like seeing a pack of tigers host a tea party.”
I snorted a laugh at that, turning to face my three friends. “That’s one way to put it. Have they been doing that since you got here?”
Dan snorted. “You mean shaking everyone’s hand and laughing at everyone’s jokes like they’re running for public office? Yup.”
“What the fuck…?” I muttered, turning to stare at the four boys again.
They were all close together on the far side of the room, but they’d broken apart from their usual tight group as if they were trying to cover more ground—to reach more people. And Dan was right. They were working the crowd with practiced ease. Even Cole, who was normally so stoic and standoffish, was using his own version of cool charm on a group of sophomores who were clustered near a drink table.
“What are they doing?” Maggie asked, tapping her fingers against the side of her cup. “You think they’re trying to undo some of the damage from what Adena did? It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?
“Yeah.” I shook my head. “It is. And I don’t think that’s what this is about.”
Leah nudged me. “Your boyfriends are so fucking weird.”
A flush warmed my cheeks, and I dug my elbow into her ribs. She wriggled out of the way with a yelp as Maggie and Dan shared a look, smirking at each other.
Jesus. If that’s what my friends think, who even knows what other random students think of whatever’s going on between me and the Princes?
Not that it was anybody’s business but ours.
Nothing about our relationship was average or had followed a conventional path. None of it had been normal. A psychologist would probably have a lot to say about the fact that we were still so deeply in each other’s lives after everything in our shared pasts.
But they were under my skin now, in a way that I didn’t think would ever go away. Even if we went our separate ways after graduation and I never saw them again, they had altered me so irrevocably that it felt like all four of them were a part of my DNA now.
My heart clenched at the thought of graduation. It was starting to loom on the horizon, and although the guys hadn’t talked about it much, I knew they’d started getting their acceptance letters like everyone else at school.
Thinking about it made my chest feel tight, as if my ribs were squeezing against my lungs.
I couldn’t imagine that Adena would continue to come after me once we all graduated. Why would she? She’d be too busy off at some Ivy League school torturing the rest of the freshman class—trying to establish her dominance over them—to worry about me.
Which meant the Princes would no longer need to protect me or watch over me.
“Hey. I was just kidding.”
Leah bumped her shoulder against mine, gazing at me with concerned eyes as I jerked out of my thoughts.
“Oh!” I shook my head and grinned. “I know. I was just thinking about something else.”
“What a bitch Adena is?” she suggested.
I huffed a mirthless laugh. “Yeah, actually. Something like that.”
“Did you hear she got into Harvard?” Maggie asked, inserting herself into our conversation as she wrapped a strand of her long ponytail around her finger.
“Ugh. Did she?” Leah rolled her eyes. “I’m surprised I hadn’t heard, actually. I’m sure she was shouting it from the fucking rooftops as soon as she got the letter.”
“Yup.” Maggie shot me a glance. “She’s been gunning for that school since day one. Pretty much everything she’s done here has been to make sure she’s like their ideal candidate. Well, everything she’s officially done.” Her lip curled, an expression I’d rarely seen the sweet blonde girl wear. “I doubt jumping you behind Hammond Hall was something she put on her application.”
“No?” I deadpanned. “Not even under ‘extracurricular activities’?”
Leah shook her head, making her angled auburn bob shift. “God, she’s such a fucking bitch. She’s dead set on being prom queen too, and you know with the way she’s been climbing the fucking ranks around here, she’ll probably get it. It’s not because of damn popularity, I’ll tell you that much.”
The conversation around me shifted to other things as the Princes continued to work their way around the room, seeming determined to speak to every single person at the party.
It really wasn’t fucking fair. After what Adena had done to the Princes, what she’d done to me, she was still going to get everything she wanted. She would be handed the world on a silver platter, and knowing her, she’d just fling it across the room and demand a better one.
