The fourth rule
Make them pay
The fifth rule
Leave them broken on the floor
The sixth rule
Leave them wanting more
The seventh rule
Drive to the bridge
The eighth rule
Stand on the edge
The ninth rule
Watch your sister die
The tenth rule
Never, ever cry.
fifteen
Harper Apple
I gape at the computer screen, not quite believing people live like this. I tried to look up the Dolce house at home, but Mom didn’t pay the bill again, so we’re sans internet. But I had to know where they lived, so I did a quick search at the beginning of class. Risky, since after a little scheduling mishap where I had to have my classes shuffled around a little, I now have a Dolce boy in every single one of my classes. But I sit in the back corner, and though people are milling around me because the heat’s finally broken for a day and the windows are flung wide, no one is paying attention to me.
A quick search brings me what I need. A sprawling white Confederate mansion set back from the road, dual staircases curving up the front of the house to the second-floor veranda, which circles the entire house. It looks like something out of a movie. It’s not exactly what I expected, though. Stupid that my brain conjured a picture of a modern house just because they’re from a city, but so it goes. I pictured something with tons of glass and maybe some natural wood and stainless steel, something masculine and tasteful like their clothes.
I knew there was a rich area on the north end of Faulkner, but I’ve never been there. Seeing a house, even one that looks nothing like I imagined, makes it so much more real, just how far from my universe these boys live. Hell, until today, I didn’t even know there were schools whose windows could open. I’m used to the narrow, rectangular windows set high in the walls at FHS, like it’s a prison. I’ve stepped into someone else’s world, and I don’t know the rules, and seeing this house only makes me more aware of how carefully I need to tread.
Colt was wrong about them. They have a lot to lose.
Warm breath curls into my ear, sending a shiver racing through me. “Stalk much?”
I nearly jump out of my chair, my cheek colliding with Royal’s. He chuckles against my neck, and another shiver races through me, this one charged with electricity. I try to scoot back, but his hand is on the back of my chair. He slides into the seat next to me, even though it’s not where he sits. I can still feel the heat of his skin against my cheek, and it’s all I can do not to lift my hand and run my fingertips over my skin, see if it was real. I try to come up with an excuse for why I’m sitting here staring at a picture of his house, but nothing comes.
He doesn’t look pissed, though. He smirks at me instead. “It’s okay,” he says. “If you’re desperate enough to walk across town for a pity fuck, I’d slum it for a night. That room’s mine.” He points to a window on the top floor of the house.
“I thought you had a girlfriend in college,” I say, recovering myself.
His brows quirk. “Who told you that?”
“I don’t remember,” I admit. “Probably Dixie.”
A flicker of something slips over his expression, and then he gives me those hooded eyes, his chin raised just a bit so he can stare me down just a little better than he could from his usual six and a half feet. “And you think that would stop me from fucking a tight little piece of ass like you?”
I roll my eyes and repeat something I’ve heard one too many times. “A hole’s a hole, right?”
Quinn, who usually sits with me, hovers a few feet away until Royal sees her. He gives her an annoyed flick of his fingers, and she scurries off. Guess we’re sitting together and talking about fucking, then.
“Don’t believe everything you hear, sweetheart,” Royal drawls in his New York accent.