Fate of a Royal (Lords of Rathe, #1)(9)
Tossing my house keys into the small fruit bowl near the entrance, I kick off my shoes and bypass the kitchen, heading straight for the stairs and to my bedroom. Ben and I decided to room together the second we knew coed dorms existed. There are not many people I allow into my space, but Ben kind of forced his way into it and told me to go fuck myself. I love him for that.
I kick my bedroom door closed, skipping the shower or even changing, and belly flop onto the bed. I need sleep. I need something to get his face out of my head.
The sky is the villain to every story I’ve ever read. The wind is cold as it whisks over my skin and uncontrollable shivers break out over me.
Where the fuck am I?
I stare down at my feet, seeing them soiled with mud and dirt. I bring my hands up to my face to see grime stuck between the cracks of my nails. Panic grips me around my throat and I stumble backward, falling with a thud on my ass as gravel bites into the soft flesh of my palms.
I wince. Seriously, where the fuck am I? That’s when I feel it.
The heat rises within the coolness of the wind and fire erupts through the sky, burning the stars to a crisp. Fog starts to blanket my legs and I quickly push myself back to my feet, when a large figure materializes in front of me. A bridge with massive metal carvings and a pathway made of gold. The fog thickens and the sky rumbles like a warning, just enough to feel the bite of its rage down my spine.
I take another step, desperate to see the bridge. How could something so light and crisp exist among such darkness and gloom? I want to reach out and touch it. Stabbing pain shoots through the soles of my feet as whatever it is that covers the ground crunches. I don’t care. I want the bridge. I need the bridge. Happiness fills my insides as I get closer, but I fall to the ground with my hands out. So close. So close.
My palm slaps the cool gold and my brain erupts with a horrifying scream so intense my ears bleed.
Make it stop.
Make it stop.
Pain rips through me as I fly backward, a hooded figure lifting me from the ground and tossing me to the side. I scream again, this time it tears my vocal cords apart as I fall…and fall…
Five
London
I’ve been drunk a lot in my days. And when I say a lot, I mean a—loooottt. So much so that Ben has had to shower me, tits in his face, legs in the air, and then stay up all night to make sure I didn’t die. Around that time was when I realized that he probably was a great friend and I had nothing to worry about. I’ve known him all of my life, and people try to say he has a crush on me, including Trevor, and even though I know deep in my bones he doesn’t, those nights really drove it home for me that this man, after having my bits in places where they shouldn’t be with your best friend, will not ever like me that way.
Sometimes I wonder if he wishes I was more modest, but since he has seen me naked, I find wearing clothes when I don’t have to as an unnecessary evil. I just can’t get behind it, especially when I know he’ll love me either way.
Not that last night resulted in a drunken peep show, but I’m pretty damn sure I was one Solo cup away from living out some stripper fantasies. Again.
Now here I am, forced to function when the light feels like it has a personal vendetta against me.
It doesn’t help that I don’t care much for school. Ben would say that it has to do with the fact that I can’t make up my mind on what I want to major in, but I’m not so sure. I mean, I know that is a big part, sure, but I can’t help but feel like everything is pointless. Like in five years from now, I won’t be using anything I’ve studied.
“So how is your head?” Ben asks, tossing a french fry at my lap from across the table. It’s only mid-day and I’m ready to curl back under my bed covers for the week. My head feels like a balloon and it won’t stop throbbing, and I’m pretty sure the muscles in my legs have seized up . The previous night is a blur. I remember the game. I remember dropping a Molly in the bathroom after Trevor and I had a massive fight.
“That guy you were making out with was hot!” Letty sucks ketchup off her finger. She can’t hide the smirk if she tried, which she doesn’t.
And I remember him.
“He was…” My tongue glides over my teeth when I think about how his felt inside my mouth. With an impulsive decision to piss off Trevor, I grabbed the poor dude for a quick tongue fuck. He was—blue eyes flash in front of me, a single touch against my cheek, the way his mouth curved up in a smirk—Jesus. “Yes. Very hot.”
Ben chuckles at me from across the table. I know that later on, it’s going to call for one thousand questions like always. For a straight guy, he sure as fuck is always interested in the dick I’m sucking. “You and I both know that you should have just walked away from Trevor. You can’t fix that man.”
Guilt wriggles its ugly claws inside of me and he knows he’s hit a nerve. It’s not that I try, or even want, to fix Trevor. It’s that I still feel like I owe him. Ben calls it a trauma bond. I hate the word bond and don’t think Trevor deserves it.
I have no fucking idea why I feel that way. It’s not like I’m the one who cheated, but maybe it has something to do with the fact that I was purely with him out of boredom and my healthy, sadly insatiable appetite for solid playtime.
Trevor , unfortunately, wasn’t what I would call a prime dick option; in fact, I was left to the good graces of my trusting fingers more often than not, but he was fun when he wasn’t a complete fucking annoyance, and he was always down for a quickie in the hidden corners of campus.