“Didn’t you say everyone had to bow and scrape and kiss your ass?” I ask. “Well, here I am, all puckered up.”
“Leave,” Royal says flatly.
“No, no, wait,” Duke says, leaning across the table toward me. “I want to hear this. So, you’re ready to fall in line?”
“Already in line,” I say. “Straight and narrow, single file, all that shit.”
“You’re going to do what we want, when we want it?” he asks, positively leering at me.
“If I can be your little Dolce girl,” I say, batting my eyes at him.
“No.” Royal stares me down, his dark eyes seeing right through me, the way they always seem to. They all know I’m full of shit. I’m not hiding it. But he’s the only one who looks like he knows it’s more than that.
Duke sighs and reaches across the table, snagging my plate and spinning it toward himself. “Thanks for bringing me my lunch,” he says.
I reach toward him, but his hand clamps on mine, his grip crushing even though his mouth is still smiling. “I’m not your servant,” I snap.
“Now you are,” he says. “The next time you put something in your mouth in this school, it’ll be my dick.”
“Remember that next time you come begging for crumbs,” Baron says. “Now leave, before you piss off the important people.”
“But I’m one of your little concubines now,” I say. “Don’t they all sit here so they can fan you and feed you grapes?”
“That’s not how it works,” Royal says. “Now if you know what’s good for you, you’ll walk away and don’t look back.”
“And remember what I said,” Duke says, casually adjusting himself in case I’ve forgotten about his dick already.
I stare back at Royal, still sitting there with his arms crossed, his shoulders filling out his buttoned shirt so well I can see the definition in his shoulders, his chest, his biceps.
For a long minute, neither of us move. At last, he stands. Everyone at the table stands a second later, and as one, they turn and walk away. They descend on another table, and the few people sitting there scatter to find other seats so their royalty can take their place. I sit frozen, suddenly aware of every eye in the cafeteria on me. I don’t move, hardly dare to breathe. I don’t even have food to occupy me. I am alone, exposed for the pariah I am.
Suddenly, my throat is tight, and it’s all I can do not to get up and run out. I won’t give them the satisfaction, though. I blink hard, forcing away the stinging in my eyes, glad my back is to the room so no one can see how close to tears I am. I sit, emptyhanded, not daring to move a muscle and break the careful, fragile control I have on myself right now.
All around the room, I hear the whispers. Then the conversations. Laughter. Giggling.
I don’t turn to see what they’re laughing about. I don’t want to see who’s still looking, who pities me, who thinks I’m pathetic, and who thinks I’m as repulsive as the Dolces make me out to be.
They don’t matter. The laughing people. The scornful ones. The ones with friends. The guys who won’t date me now, the girls who won’t be my friends. Everyone who sits by quietly, not wanting to draw the wrath of the town’s most powerful bullies, and the ones who gleefully participate in their sickest schemes. None of them matter.
I matter. Getting out of this town matters. What I tell Mr. D matters.
I’ve never been so relieved to hear the scrape of chairs when people start getting up to return their plates. I stand, my legs feeling wooden as I walk out the door without looking back. As soon as I reach the hall, I start walking faster, determined to make it to safety before I cry. When I think of going to my next class, though, I know I won’t make it. Instead of going to my locker, I veer off, pushing out the door and heading for the football field.
I’m not even halfway there when I see Colt emerge from the shadows. He stops when he sees me, though, leaning on one of the supports and watching me approach. When I reach him, he holds out a pack of cigarettes. Without a word, he takes one out and sets it between his lips, lighting up before handing me the lighter.
Neither of us speak for a few minutes. At last, I realize I’m still holding his lighter, and I hand it back. “Thanks.”
He slides the lighter in his pocket and keeps his hand there. “Dolce drama?” he asks.
“How’d you guess?”
He raises a brow while he takes a drag. “I didn’t,” he says, grinning and letting smoke drift out of his smile like some ghoulish Halloween mask. “It’s already on the blog.”
“You read Dixie’s blog,” I say. It’s not even a question. Everyone reads it. She told me the name of it, but I haven’t looked because I don’t really want to see what’s on there. I probably should, but considering my infamous dick-slap is probably front page news, I’m going to skip that one. I’ll have to get gossip the good, old-fashioned way.
“Everybody reads Dixie’s blog,” Colt says.
Still, I didn’t really expect my tatted up, fight-ring ready, new friend to read a gossip blog.