“It’s your own fault. It was your idea to watch. I tried to warn you. You brought this on yourself, cowboy.”
He mimes plunging a knife into his chest and twisting. “Does your cruelty know no bounds?” he asks dramatically, throwing an arm over his eyes.
I can’t help but laugh. “I’m going to try on a few more if that’s okay. You can go in the other room if it’s too much.”
“Can I jerk off it’s too much?”
I sink onto the bed beside him and pull my knee up. “Colt…”
He stares at my knee, then sits up and grabs my leg, pulling it up onto the bed. “God Lord, woman, don’t you ever shave your legs?” he asks, running his hand along the bristles on my shin.
“It’s winter,” I protest, slapping his hand away. “And I’ve had a lot of shit going on this week. Keeping my legs silky smooth was near the bottom of my list of priorities.”
“Okay, Sasquatch,” he says, giving me a little shove. “Go get some more clothes. If I start popping a boner, I’ll just picture the natural disaster that’s probably growing on your Congo Basin right now, and I’ll be fine.”
I’m laughing too hard to be embarrassed as I step back into Mabel’s closet, ready to unearth some skeletons. Colt is already giving me so much, but I can’t walk away without getting what I can from him. He’s one of the only people I know who was there the whole time, when it all went down, after the Dolces arrived in Faulkner. He knows shit, insider information that might be exactly what Mr. D needs to take down the Dolces. And it’s not just Mr. D who wants to take them down. For a while, I was torn, feeling like a snitch for airing their dirty laundry to whoever is on the other end of the messenger app. I don’t feel guilty anymore.
Whoever Mr. D is, I’m with him one hundred percent. It’s time for the Dolces to taste their own medicine.
*
The Royal
The royal waits
Atop his throne
For his Brutus to show his face
For his court to turn their daggers on him
But he is not afraid
Neither they nor their daggers
Can defeat the monster
That lurks under his disguise
Or pierce a heart
That’s harder than their steel blades.