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“And you belong in a boiling lake of lava somewhere in the pits of hell, and yet, here you are,” I said. “Sucks for both of us.”
“God, you’re insufferable,” she grumbled.
“Now, that can’t be true,” I said, offering her a lazy grin. “Seeing as how you’ve already suffered my company for a full minute, and sadly, you haven’t expired from my very presence.”
Someone ran past our hiding spot going in the other direction. I let my head fall back against the building, closing my eyes and waiting for them to go away. I didn’t care about winning the game, but I avoided contact with the Dolces whenever possible, especially when I’d had a few beers to loosen my lips.
I couldn’t afford to fuck up again. I’d already lost way too fucking much. Tonight was the last night of Bye Week, and I’d almost made it through unscathed. All I had to do was finish this fucking game that Duke insisted on playing even though he wasway too wasted to find any of us. I shouldn’t have agreed to play. I didn’t have to be here—no one would care if I’d left after the race. But anyone who showed had to fake it, and even though that wasn’t my thing, I did it for Dixie. She’d done a hell of a lot more for me than endure a night with the psychopaths who ran this town.
“Leave,” Gloria hissed.
“They’re still out there,” I said.
“So?” she said. “You’re already a loser. Who cares if you lose the game too?”
“No one,” I admitted. “But Dixie wants me to play, so I can’t just give up and let them find me. I have to play along. You must know a thing or two about that, seeing as how you’ve been faking your relationship with Royal for a year now.”
“I’m not faking,” she snapped. “Now get lost.”
I shrugged and shifted my position, pressing the toes of my sneakers against the rusty dumpster and my back to the wall. “Like I said, I’m here for Dixie. If I have to endure the demon queen’s forked tongue for a few minutes to prolong the game, that’s a sacrifice I’ll have to make.”
She crossed her arms and glared. “I’m not a demon queen. I’m very human, in fact, as Royal knows, since we’re in a veryrealrelationship.”
“Does he know that?” I asked. “Because even I know the Dolces don’t do relationships, and I barely count as a student at Willow Heights.”
“Yes, well, we don’t control each other,” she said. “We’re allowed our freedom to do what we want. Just because we’re not monogamous, that doesn’t mean we’re not committed to each other.”
“Mm,” I said. “Explains why he left to fuck Harper tonight and then looked like he was ready to burn down the world when she wouldn’t hang out with him afterwards.”
“Royal and I are in a very healthy, committed relationship,” she insisted, lifting her chin and glaring. “Something you wouldn’t know anything about.”
I frowned at her. “You better not be talking shit about Dixie.”
She snorted. “Dixie’s my friend. You, on the other hand, are a disease she can’t seem to shake. You’re like herpes. Even antibiotics can’t get rid of you.”
“I haven’t noticed her trying too hard,” I said with a grin. “And seeing as how I’ve been fucking her for two years, she’s had plenty of chances to get rid of me if that’s what she wanted.”
“See, that’s the problem,” Gloria said. “You’re just using her to get some sympathy play because she feels sorry for you and no one else will touch you. She could do so much better if you weren’t weighing her down like a puss-filled goiter.”
I raised a brow. “I’ve already moved up from herpes? Damn, my charms are impressive. You’re practically asking me out at this point.”
“I’d rather die,” she snarled.
“Is that even possible for the undead?” I asked. “I don’t have any wooden stakes, but I’m sure we could find a cross down at Thorncrown Chapel and test it out.”
“Let’s just sit in silence, shall we?” she asked in her frostiest bitch queen voice.
I may have joked about it, but her unwelcome truth bombs were hitting way too fucking close to home. I reassessed Royal’s little fuck toy from the corner of my eye. She was a bitch, but she wasn’t a dumb one.
Whether Dixie told her or she put it together herself, she wasn’t wrong. Dixie deserved more than to be hidden in the shadows, ignored all week at school and then fucked in the dark on the weekend.
To be fair, I’d tried to tell her. I’d cut her off on numerous occasions. I’d told her I wasn’t her boyfriend and never would be, that she shouldn’t want that after the way I’d treated her when I was popular. I pushed her away, not even eating lunch in the café at school because I didn’t want to take her from her friends, and no one else was allowed to sit with me. If I tried sitting alone, she’d sit with me, and she’d end up as outcast as me. So I told her we could see each other on weekends but she should have her own life at school.
And look what had fucking happened. She’d thrived. As Royal’s side piece pointed out, Dixie was fucking popular. I was the only thing holding her back.
I was about to get up and leave when racing footsteps headed our way again. I sighed and rubbed the back of my neck in irritation. “Why are you back here, anyway?” I demanded of Gloria. “Shouldn’t you be out in the open trying to be found, so you can get railed by one of your demon boyfriends?”
“Shouldn’t you?” she shot back.
