“No one found him here,” Baron says. “Devlin’s dad put him in their attic to hide him until he died. But they found him before he did.”
“Who found him?”
“Crystal and Devlin.”
I shudder harder. All I’ve ever heard from Colt and Dixie and even Royal is how great Crystal was—that everyone loved her, wanted her. She taught them so much. She was such a good, selfless person. But I haven’t heard this part.
“After his dad tried to kill Royal, she still chose Devlin over him?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Baron says. “Royal called her on it, too. He’s blunt as fuck. He thinks he did something wrong because of it, but she needed to hear it. And Royal’s never been afraid to hit those hard truths, y’know? He’ll say what everyone’s thinking, do the hard shit that no one else wants to do. He doesn’t let anything stand in his way. He gets shit done.”
I can practically hear Baron and Duke both swelling with pride every time they talk about Royal. It’s clear they worship him. But that doesn’t mean they always agree with Royal. This is the first time I’ve heard anyone paint Crystal as anything less than a saint.
I want to hear more, but I’m too fucking cold to ignore it. “Any chance someone left a jacket down here?” I ask. “Or a dry change of clothes?”
Baron’s hand finds mine in the dark. “Damn, you are cold,” he says, sitting up. He moves around, and a second later, his warm hoodie envelopes me in its cozy fabric and the scent of him, like boys and faint cologne or deodorant. I pull it down over me and huddle into it with such gratitude I might be tempted to fuck him again if he asked.
“Come here and put your head on me, and I’ll tell you both a bedtime story,” Baron says. “I’ve got an extra sucker you can eat while you listen. This is a little tale I like to call, The Fall of the Darlings. Don’t worry. It has a happy ending.”