No echoes of my screams.
I remember hanging there, so filled with terror that it knocked me over the edge. I went numb, not just my arms but my soul. I gave up. There was nothing left, not even hope.
But Preston doesn’t get to write this narrative. Because it didn’t end with him.
There was nothing for me here until Devlin walked in and brought meaning. When he stood in front of me and blocked me from their sight, I knew in that moment that he would protect me, that he wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me, no matter what Preston had said. That was the moment my heart beat again, the moment that hope bloomed in my soul again. When his hands touched me, I remembered that I could feel again, no matter how numb I’d been up until that moment. He hadn’t just proven that I was his in that moment. He’d proven that he was mine.
He had made a move that changed the whole game. He proved I could trust him. I didn’t just win some stupid, meaningless game. He truly cared. I used it against him, and he still cares. More than I even realized until this moment, when it sinks in all over again.
“Preston,” I say slowly, not moving away from him but tensing, ready for the other shoe to drop. “Why are you being nice to me?”
“Don’t sound so shocked,” he says, dropping his arm from around me. “I’m a nice guy.” Without waiting for an answer, he lets out a snort of laughter.
“What’s so funny?”
“I told you I’m not the liar. I can’t even keep a straight face to sell you that bullshit.”
“So?” I press. “Why are you suddenly being nice to me?”
He turns to me, his expression calm and his voice matter of fact. “Like I said, you’re Devlin’s girl now. Besides that, I respect you in your own right. I’ve got to hand it to you, Dolce. You played the game, and you played it well enough to hook my boy, and that’s not easily done.”
“And you’re not going to try to ruin my life to get back at me for that?”
He shrugs and says to me what Devlin always says. “All’s fair in love and war.”
“What about this?” I ask. “Is this part of the game? Part of the war?”
Preston shakes his head. “Nah. You did him wrong, but if he chose to forgive you, that’s between y’all. I got no beef with you, Honey Badger. As far as I’m concerned, you’re solid. You didn’t rat me out when you could have with the cops, and you didn’t just now. I won’t even ask for forgiveness, but at least I can tell you there won’t be anything else to forgive.”
“You don’t have to deserve forgiveness,” I say, turning to the Darling boy I know least, the one who scares me most. I force myself to let go of the fear that wants to sink its teeth into me when I meet his piercing gaze. He might not be a nice guy, but he did me a solid just now. “I can give it, anyway. That probably makes me the biggest fool in Faulkner, but I can’t hate you for something that brought me Devlin. Just like I can’t hate him for what he did to me. I get it. We came in here like a bunch of punks trying to tear down the kingdom you so meticulously built. Of course you defended your turf.”
Preston gives me a long, searching look before shaking his head.“Forgetting what any of us did would make you a fool. Forgiving it makes you a better person than anyone in either of our families deserves.”
“I don’t know about that,” I say, Royal’s haunted eyes flashing in my mind. He deserves better than me for a sister.
“I do,” Preston says. “Well, except maybe my uncle. God must have been picking the parental lottery winner the day that guy fucked Devlin’s mom.”
“Lovely image,” I say with a tight smile.I cross my arms and squint up at him. “So, are we friends now or something?”
“Don’t go getting all sentimental on me now, Dolce,” he says. “I don’t do friends. I got room for three things in my life. Family, football, and fucking. If you ain’t any of that, you ain’t shit to me.”
“What about Dolly?” I challenge.
For the briefest moment, a flash of a second, something crosses his eyes. It’s such a fleeting glimpse, like the one I saw when I called him his grampa’s little bitch. I may never figure this boy out, but I know when I hit a nerve.
“What about her?” he asks, crossing his arms to mirror my position, his head back while he looks down his nose at me in that superior asshole pose he likes so much. The one I like so much, too, damn it. He may be straight psycho, but he’s still hot as fuck, just like Devlin.
“Nothing,” I say, strolling toward the door.
Preston follows, and though my heart does an instinctual lurch against my ribcage at the sound of his footsteps behind me, I know he’s not going to hurt me now. Devlin told them I was his, and now the whole world knows it. Even my brother, after this morning.
I stop just outside the locker room door and hand back the knife. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” he says, closing his knife and pocketing it.
“Not just for the knife,” I say.
“I know what you’re thanking me for, Crystal,” he says. “Give me some fucking credit.”