When I’ve changed, I fold Mabel’s clothes, but even seeing them doesn’t bring me down to reality. I’m high, intoxicated by Royal’s power, his danger. My insides are full of quivering, fluttering butterflies, and my mouth won’t stop smiling even though I’m as scared as I am exhilarated.
My hands are shaking and my stomach feels funny, like the time when I was a kid and I picked up a plate off the coffee table, and I thought my mom and her boyfriend had eaten something with powdered sugar, so I licked it. Mom and the guy came running when I screamed, and they laughed their asses off for the next fifteen minutes while I freaked right the fuck out because I couldn’t feel my throat and thought I was smothering.
As disturbing as that situation was in retrospect, this one feels equally fucked up.
I step out of the locker room and find Royal surrounded by four girls in basketball uniforms all staring up at him like he’s the lovechild of an ice cream sundae and Brody Villines. They all burst into a squeal of giddy laughter at something he says, though his expression is somewhere between bored and annoyed. I swallow my ugly thoughts and start toward him, determined to keep myself under control.
I’m not some starry-eyed little fangirl going to hover around giggling at his every word, though I understand the rush they must feel when he gives them attention, and I have to admit, it’s a bit tempting to join them. Instead, I set the clothes into his hands and head for the door. I don’t need a fucking escort, and I don’t like myself very much right now. Too many unwelcome feelings bubbling up inside me.
“Harper,” he calls after me, but I don’t turn.
Fuck him. I did what he wanted.
He catches me halfway out the gym door and spins me around to face him. “As much as I enjoy looking at your ass, don’t walk away from me when I’m talking to you.”
“Fine. Then say what you need to say. I’m missing class.”
He examines my face for a second, then smirks down at me. “You’re jealous.”
“Not even a little.”
We stare at each other a long moment, my foot already out the door, the damp air sweeping into the gym where all the girls are standing around just watching us, like they have nothing better to do than gape at the girl in the blowjob video and the guy they all worship. By the end of the day, the rumors will probably say he made me change because I had cum on my clothes.
“You said you were wearing a bra,” he says at last.
“I am.”
“I can see your nipples.”
I look down. “Yep, it’s winter and I’m in a t-shirt,” I say. “Good thing I have my own little thermometers on my chest to remind me when it’s cold.”
The bra hides the color of my nipples so they don’t show through the white tee, but there’s not much I can do about the rest. You’d think guys would get over the fact that girls have nipples, since they have them too, but I guess it’s a big fucking deal.
Royal considers for a minute and then nods. “Don’t fight this, and I’ll go easy on you this week,” he says, shrugging out of his letterman jacket. Twin instincts to preen and recoil tug at my body from opposite directions. He swings it around my shoulders, and the smell of him engulf me like a mixture of warm grass in the sun and his iron grip pulling me down into the depths of the icy river.
I hear the rush of whispers in the gym behind him, the hiss echoing up into the ceiling above. Something about the moment feels so surreal, I detach from my body for a second.
“What are you doing?” I growl through clenched teeth. For a second, all I can think about is how they said they let Colt keep his letter jacket. I wonder where it is now, if he burned it like I would have if I had a constant reminder that I’d been part of a team, something I loved, and that I’d never be able to play again.
An ironic smile tugs at the corner of Royal’s lips, not making it to his eyes. “Didn’t you know, everything I do and say is scrutinized and psychoanalyzed until everyone’s sure I’m making point whether I want to or not.”
“I wondered if that bothered you.”
“Why would it bother me?” he asks. “I fucking love it. Look, it’s that guy who was kidnapped and rose from the grave like a demon to rule the whole shitty-ass little town, like that’s an actual accomplishment. I wonder what he’ll do next. Let’s lock him up, not in jail but in a cage at the zoo so we can come by and stare any time we want. Maybe stick a needle in his brain and poke around in there, too. I bet he’s super fucked up.”
“Are you?” I ask, sliding my arms into the sleeves of his jacket. “Or do you just do all that shit to shock people because you’re pissed that they treat you that way?”
“Everyone wants a ticket to the Royal show,” he says, pushing open the door and ushering me out with a hand on my lower back. “Gotta give the fans what they want, keep ‘em coming back for more. Empty seats don’t line pockets, and unlined pockets don’t grease wheels.”
I hear the soft chime of the bell, and Royal shoots me a grin. It’s not the bitter one or an authentic one, but an unhinged kind of smile that reminds me of one of his brothers. “Watch this.”