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Neither of us spoke for a long while. It was all ruined, the one good memory I had since Devlin died.
That night was burned into my brain forever, more than losing my virginity or learning there was no Santa Claus. That was the last night Ibelieved. The last time I thought I was still royalty, that life was fair, that it could be good again, the way it was before the Dolces.
Yeah, they had fucked up Preston’s face, and when they lost their sister, they’d avenged her death by targeting mine. Naïve little dumbass that I was, I thought it was over then, at the end of my sophomore year. Everyone still knew me as a football player, a popular jock. So I went to the kick-off party at Cotton’s house my junior year with Dixie, who was all excited about getting some good stuff for her new gossip blog.
I was ready to put the nightmare of my sophomore year behind me. For one night, I did. I was hopeful. I thought the worst was over. The dust would settle. The Dolces were satisfied with the revenge they’d taken. Maybe we’d never be friends, but we’d come to terms with each other, coexisting peacefully because we all wanted to play football on the same team. Girls would still want to crawl in my bed.
That’s how fucking innocent I was.
I didn’t know it would be my last party. That the Dolces were just getting started. That they weren’t nearly done withmy family, and they wouldn’t be done until they’d completely destroyed us all.
And this bitch helped them.
“I’m dead,” she moaned from the passenger seat, her forehead on the dash again. “I’m going to be sick. Royal’s going to murder me.”
“Royal’s fucked my sloppy seconds before,” I said. “You’re not that special, Gloria.”
“Oh god,” she said, grabbing her head in her hands. “I never wanted to know who it was. I made a point not to look. Now I have to walk around school and see you, and know…”
“Are you fucking kidding?” I asked. “I’ve been walking around for a year looking at every girl I don’t know, wondering if it was her.”
“Well, now you fucking know,” she snapped, straightening in her seat. “It was me. So you can stop saying my vagina is a toxic, because I seem to recall you literally begging for a repeat.”
“And I remember you saying you wouldn’t tell me who you were because I’d never give you the time of day if I knew,” I said. “You were damn right about that.”
“Just take me home,” she said, slumping in defeat. “Maybe I can sleep this off and pretend it was a dream when I wake up.”
I started the car, and we sat there listening to the sexy chatter of the engine for a minute. It soothed me out of my anger at her for ruining the last good night of my life.
“You know, no one knows,” I pointed out. “Just because we figured it out, no one else will ever know. It’s been a year, and no one else even remembers it except Dixie.”
“Oh god, that was Dixie,” she said, pressing a fist to her forehead. “I’m her friend. She’d hate me.”
“Yeah, but she won’t do anything about it,” I pointed out.
“She could ruin me with her blog.”
“And your boyfriend could murder me.”
“You’re right,” she said, giving me a calculating look. “I’m not the one they’d kill.”
“Great,” I said. “Now you’re going to tell them I fucked their girlfriend. Let me guess, you’ll say I forced you so they don’t blame you for it, and they really will chop my dick off.”
“I’d never do that,” she protested, looking honestly offended.
I shook my head and pulled back onto the road. We were quiet as the sleek car clacked over the wooden planks on the one-lane bridge.
“I won’t tell anyone,” she said when we bounced onto the dirt road beyond.
“Why?” I asked. “You could get rid of the last Darling standing. They’d worship the ground you walk on for a prize like that.”
“Shocking as it may be, that wasn’t my proudest moment, either.”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “That’s true. If you told, people would know that their queen once bowed at the foot of the leper.”
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter, anyway. I have Royal now, and you have Dixie.”
“You sure you have Royal?”
