“I thought you didn’t need my help.”
“I do,” I admit, my pulse fluttering in my throat. “I need you more than anyone.”
Royal slides his arms all the way around me, pulling me flush against him. He nuzzles into my neck, and I slide my hands over his broad shoulders and close my eyes, laying my head on his strong chest. I do need him, and not just to heal the town. But that’s true, too. More than anyone, this town needs him to make things right. The only question is, how can I get him to want to heal this town rather than destroy it?
Preston gave me the answer to that question last night. If I want him to stop destroying this town, I need to figure out how to healhim. That’s what people do for the people they love. Maybe I don’t love Preston enough to do the same for him in return when he does those things for me, but my job isn’t to heal Preston. My job is to heal myself. And maybe, if I love him enough, I can heal Royal, too.
After all, he’s the one who helped me heal when I was broken beyond repair. He didn’t just give me a safe place to heal. He actively made it happen. He said he moved the world for me, and it’s true. And I haven’t done anything in return.
I’m not the one who broke him, but that doesn’t mean I can’t help him heal. It doesn’t matter who inflicted those wounds. I don’t want to see him suffer anymore. Not from what happened in his past, and not from the consequences of his own retaliations. The revenge he keeps raining down on this town adds to his own suffering as much as those he’s hurt. I need to find a way to end it, to make him stop. I don’t want anyone to hurt the man I love, not even himself.
“Royal,” I say, pulling back and looking up at him. “I need to tell you something.”
He watches me, his dark eyes searching mine as we sway to the music around us.
“I asked Preston if he knew what happened when you were kidnapped, and he said he found out later,” I say. “He wasn’t there. He didn’t do anything to you. Neither did Colt. It was the older Swans and some of the new recruits that year. That was their… Gauntlet.”
Royal’s lips press together, and for a second, I wonder if he already knew. DeShaun said Royal made the Midnight Swans into a joke. It used to be an organization that tried to keep order but also do good, but obviously it was corrupted at some point, maybe by Grandpa Darling himself. The school officially disbanded it after Royal’s kidnapping, but Royal brought it back. And then he destroyed the Midnight Swans image by making it into a giant frat party.
“Why are you talking about me to Preston Darling?” Royal asks, his hands tightening on my waist.
“Because we’re friends,” I say, refusing to flinch as I look into his eyes. “And he’s helping me heal.”
“I’mhelping you heal,” Royal growls.
“You’re right,” I say. “But he’s my friend, and I just wanted you to know that, in case it helps you stop wanting to murder him.”
“I want to murder him more for being your friend,” Royal says. “Do you really think I give a shit what he says he did or didn’t do? I don’t trust a word that comes out of his mouth.”
“Then trust me,” I say, laying a palm on his cheek. The bruises on his face are mostly gone, leaving only the ones around his nose, now faded green and yellow.
“I don’t trust you, either,” he says, turning his face away.
His words steal my breath. I didn’t know how much he could still hurt me until he said them. That’s the problem with feeling again, with letting myself go back to who I am instead of being Preston’s doll. When you can feel, things don’t just feel good. They fucking hurt.
“Royal,” I say, trying to turn his face back to me. “If I can trust you again after what you did, you can trust me.”
He steps back, dropping his hands from around me. My body cries out in protest, instantly cold at being abandoned by his touch. When I see the look in his eyes, I’m gripped in the heaviness of anguish that radiates from him. “I fucked up, and I admitted it,” he says quietly. “I can’t erase what happened, but I did everything I could to make it right. I’m not saying you’re to blame for what I did, and I won’t pretend there’s any comparison between what you did and what I did. But you fucked me over, too, Harper, and you haven’t done one fucking thing to make it right, or apologize, or even admit it.”
“I did apologize,” I say, my throat suddenly tight and my eyes aching. “I’m sorry, Royal.”
He holds up a hand. “I don’t care. I’m not asking for anything from you because I don’t need anything. I already have you. You’re mine, and you always will be. Nothing will ever change that. It doesn’t matter what you did. But don’t fucking stand here and ask me to trust you, and then fake hurt when I don’t.”
“I’m not faking,” I say, my eyes filling with tears.
“I’m done with your lame-ass dance,” Royal says, and he pushes past me and through the crowd, disappearing toward the door.
seven
Harper Apple
I look around, blinking back the tears and hoping no one noticed our fight. My friends are still dancing around me, the DJ having gone back to something with a dance beat. The Dolce twins are dancing with the Walton twins. I don’t see Gloria, the girl most likely to care about drama between me and Royal. She’s probably off reconciling with Rylan and fussing over his arm, which is in a sling after the fight. Magnolia’s friends are doing the fourteen-year-old white girl version of twerking, though Magnolia herself has wandered off somewhere. Dixie and Gideon are grinding on each other but making funny faces at each other to keep it from getting awkward.
I turn and slip out through the crowd, heading for the exit. My car is still in the lot, so at least he didn’t leave me stranded. I stand there in the cold for about five seconds, wondering if he walked somewhere, forgetting that I’m still stranded even if I have my car, since he has the key. Then I realize I’m being stupid, thinking with my heart and not my head.
I know Royal Dolce, and I know exactly where he’d go.
I turn and step back inside, head past the café and down the hall. When I reach the library, I can see a sliver of light from under the door to the basement, and I know I was right. I pull away the section of bookshelf and start down the stairs.