by Thorne, Leia
“Don’t be ashamed of that, either,” I say. “It’s a rare commodity.” I give her a wink before I back away.
She laughs lightly. “Right. Well, the thought of being with high school boys…”
“Oh, my god,” Palmer interjects. “I know. Most of them are just so clueless. Except for my Emry.” She beams.
“What about Gage and Rush?” I toss back at her. “Or is your boy toy the only dick that counts these days?”
Palmer laughs. “You’re so bad, Saw.” She winks at me, clued into my game. I want to gauge just how much interest Remi has in Gage already. No girl at Brighton has ever not had at least a fleeting crush on him.
Still standing before the mirror, Remi turns to face us. She’s already losing some of her shyness about her body. “Does Gage have an issue with me?”
I tilt my head. “Why would you think that?”
She shrugs. “I just get this sense around him. All he does is stare at me. I don’t think he’s ever spoken more than a few words to me.”
I snag the slip dress and carry it over to her. “The Gage stare,” I say. “It means he’s into you. Raise your arms.”
She lifts her hands in the air, and I slide the black dress over her head, letting it slip down her body the way it was designed to do. “Perfect,” I say.
Remi looks at herself in the mirror, and this time, she smiles. Having her body on display for a beat has dispelled any apprehension about her breasts outlined against the thin material.
“You should wear that to the kickback,” I say. “Gage will lose his shit.”
She bites her lip. “He seems…a bit intense.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. “You have no idea.” At her anxious expression, I add: “If it’s the virgin thing, don’t worry about it. Gage isn’t one to pressure.”
“Okay,” she says. “Sure. Thanks.”
“Also,” I say, not letting this topic die so easily. “You can always do what I did, if you just want to get it out of the way.”
Palmer perks up at this, and Remi looks curious.
“Take your own fucking virginity.” I smile brightly.
“What do you mean?” Remi asks. She starts to take the dress off, careful not to wrinkle the silk fabric.
“Buy a dildo online and pop your own cherry,” I say. “That way, when it comes time to have sex, you won’t be nervous or scared about the pain.”
Remi shakes her head. “Are you serious?”
I sigh. “Of course. Then you can actually enjoy your first sexual experience the way a guy does. Why should they have all the fun?”
Palmer touches my hand. “You’re like the sex Yoda.”
Remi laughs at this. “I have to admit, it makes sense.”
“So what is it?” I ask her. “Waiting for the right guy? Or love?”
She tucks her hair behind her ear. “I was close with this guy back home, but I don’t know.” She glances at her bare back in the mirror. “I guess you were right. I’m self-conscious.”
I wave her off. “Own your scars, girl. Don’t let them own you. There is no such thing as perfect. And who the fuck would want to be perfect, anyway? It’s boring.”
Her lips tip into a soft smile. “Got it. Tromp around nude and don’t give a fuck.”
Palmer laughs. “Works for me.”
“I’ve never met anyone like you guys,” Remi says, mystified. “Am I being pranked? Are you going to message a naked video of me to the whole school?”
I cross my arms, studying her. “You hail from a public school originally, right?”
She nods in answer.
“You’re in a whole other league now,” I tell her. “If someone wants to hurt you, they won’t go for a petty slap. They’ll go for the jugular.” I stand and collect my outfits. “And trust me, you want us around to distinguish the difference.”
I can see the indecision in her dark eyes, but she doesn’t have a choice. She’s off balance here. Whoever she was in her former life—whether she was smart, charming, witty, popular—doesn’t count here. And she knows it.
She has no choice but to listen to me if she wants to learn the rules.
Chapter 7
Gage
I cruise with the windows down, tasting the end of summer on my skin. While the girls are shopping, I’m heading to Kingsley Manor—to make sure things are in place for Friday night.
Sure, I could let events unfold on their own. Leave it all to chance. And I could still sweep Remi up in my spell. But God doesn’t play chance with his creation, and neither do I.
Honestly, where’s the fun in that?
Bryce and Asher Kingsley are twins—identical—have more money than the Catholic church, and their kickback this weekend is the perfect setup to seduce Remi.
Cold and aloof works well to spark interest, but you need an inciting incident—a dramatic event—to hook your prey. That’s the moment Remi will not only be enamored, a love-sick school girl, but will learn to trust me.
I drive through the open wrought iron gates and pull into the half-circle driveway, parking in front of the double doors of the mansion. This house is a colossal embellishment even for Crescent Valley. You don’t have to have the most money or the most refined reputation to have the biggest house. Trying too hard is simply trying too hard.
The Kingsley tradition of showboating was passed right down to Asher and Bryce. They each drive flashy Ferraris—one black, one silver—and their parties are legendary at Brighton Saints.
But for every pearly white veneer, there’s a rotten tooth beneath.
And the Kingsley brothers have a few rotten skeletons in their closets.
I ring the doorbell and adjust my glasses, then give the butler (yes, they actually have an authentic British butler) a wide, toothy smile. “Are Masters Bryce and Asher home, sir?”
The butler has never taken to me; maybe it’s his wise British instinct, his years of servitude to families of old money, or his ability to sense bullshit—but he frowns at me as he widens the door. “Master Bryce is in his room and expecting you, Master Gage.”
I whip past him and bound up the spiral staircase. Bryce and Asher have the whole second floor landing to themselves. Bryce is seated on a large beanbag couch playing a multi gamer video game on his theater size TV.
The rest of the floor has similar, tasteless furnishings and indulgence.
Asher is on the lacrosse team with Emry, and Bryce is a wide receiver on the football team. Everyone thinks this is the only major difference between the twins, but I know better.
“How many practices do you think you can skip before you’re off the team?” I ask.
“Hold up.” Bryce finishes his level and pauses the game. “Coach won’t do that. Besides, I don’t see how it’s any of your business, Astor.”
I unbutton my trench coat and take a seat on the arm of an actual couch in the room. Bryce is none too happy that I pulled him away from his extracurricular activities. Video games wasn’t on his addenda this afternoon when I called him and told him we needed to talk.
“So what’s up?” he asks, kicking back in his beanbag.
“I need a favor.”
He nods. “Right. I figured as much. What is it this time?”
I smile knowingly. There’s only one thing that is more important to Bryce than showing off his money and status.
His secret life.
It’s amazing that he’s been able to keep his secret all this time, even from his own twin brother. But then, it’s usually the people closest to us that refuse to see the truth.
“Your kickback this Friday,” I say. “The new girl is coming. I need you to pull a Damsel in Distress from the playbook.”
He laughs mockingly. “I don’t think so. That shit is old hat, bro. Besides, the last time the chick nearly died. I don’t need that kind of stress right now.”
I stand and walk around the room, taking in the posters on the wall. Girls in bikinis; bands; lame shit you’d see in a dorm room
. “You’re attending Northeastern after you graduate, right?”
His parents tried to buy him and Asher into Harvard, but money can’t buy everyone everything; it can buy the select elite most things. There’s a key difference.
“Yeah, Astor. You know this.” He stands and faces me, crossing his arms over his broad chest. “Get to your point.”
“Good school,” I say, matching his stance. “Close to the city. Closer than the Valley…which should make your double life a little easier to live.”
His nostrils flare. “You’ve been threatening to expose me for two years, Gage. And here we are, senior year, and you haven’t yet.” He takes a step closer. “I don’t think you will.”
“That’s because we’ve never had a problem…yet.”
“Matter of fact,” he continues, “I think it’s not in your best interest to do so.”
I cock my head, studying him. He’s grown a pair this past year. Or he’s finally calling my bluff. Truthfully, I don’t want to have to expose his secret. It’s the kind of secret that makes Crescent Valley the height of tawdry gossip, and that serves no purpose for me.
And no, the big secret reveal isn’t that Bryce is gay. That’s been obvious to everyone since middle school, and really, who gives a shit anymore? There’s no big scandal in being homosexual. Hell, his parents are his biggest supporters.
No, that’s not what Bryce is so worried about. See, he’s a clean queer. The scholar student who—only on occasion—misses a football practice here and there. Otherwise he’s a model student. He dresses nice, drives nice cars, plays golf and sails his boat at the yacht club. He’s not effeminate, nor is he flaming. He has a refined boyfriend at Fair Haven Academy.
A real nice, clean-cut gay couple.
But on weekends, and sometimes afterschool when he cuts practice, Bryce drives his flashy Ferrari into Boston and parks it at a garage. He pays cash. He changes out of his academy uniform and dons grungy skinny jeans and ripped T-shirts, dirty old sneakers, and lines an alley with other little gay boys.
See, it’s one thing to be a wealthy, polished queer with cultivated taste and a penchant to indulge in the high life. It’s a whole other thing to have a sex fetish for older men and dirty, debasing sex…and to get paid for it.
How I obtained this strictly confidential information? One drunk night out on the golf course, a shared bottle of tequila between us, and a little flirting…and Bryce just had to confide in someone.
We all need a confessor. Otherwise, our secrets threaten to eat us alive.
Bryce doesn’t do it for the money. That’s just part of his alter ego—part of the thrill and danger. Prostituting himself to older men is salacious and oh, so filthy. He’s a bad, bad boy. And if the Kingsleys discovered his little side gig, they’d probably ship him off to a rehab facility, claiming it’s drugs. Drug addiction is terribly common these days, and it’s less scandalous than “our son is a gay prostitute.”
“You’re right,” I say to Bryce. “I don’t want to tell anyone. I’d hate to see what would become of one of my oldest and closest friends. But—” I close in, place my hands on his shoulders “—because we are such good friends, I have started to worry about you. The thought of what might happen to you out there on the street… Your parents would be so grateful to know, to be able to get you the help you need.”
“You’re a fiend,” he says, his hard glare cutting through me.
“You like the game.” I pat his shoulders before stepping back. “Now, let’s discuss Friday night. This is what I need.”
It’s easier when people know their place. Otherwise, we all just roam this world aimlessly. Bryce has a place—he’s a royal—and it’s beneath men like me. Literarily and figuratively.
With the plan in place, I feel easier going up against Sawyer. I’ve lost valuable time with Remi to her already. Now is the perfect time for Remi to meet her knight in shining armor.
Chapter 8
Remi
By the time Friday rolls around, I’ve immersed myself in the ways of Brighton Saints. There are rules. Not school rules; but the rules of this elite society.
No one talks about money. Everything revolves around it; you have to have it to just breathe the air here; but if you talk about it outright, you’re tacky.
You’re classed to your level of importance and status based on your parents. Their wealth, career, influence. If a parent makes a public blunder, you suffer their humiliation and exile right here in these halls.
The social hierarchy is similar to any other school. There are the nerds. The loners. The stoners. The jocks. The populars. The floaters. Then…there are the elites.
This group is the top tier. The most powerful families. The oldest money.
No one talks about this group outright, like the way rumors and jealous gossip flies about cheerleaders and the good-at-everythings. Instead, there is a whisper in the air, a current that flows through the gothic halls of Brighton, their names uttered in reverence and…fear.
There’s no other word to describe the hold they have on this place but fear—a kind of envious neurosis. Kids and teachers alike are in awe of them, and dread them at the same time. Dread their rejection and worse, what the leader of the pack may do if rubbed the wrong way.
And they accepted me the second day in.
This strange and rare phenomenon has garnered me a lot of curious stares and interest my first week here. But the only person who would speak up and actually explain any of it to me was Locker Guy.
I peek over at him, noticing the band stickers that line his locker door.
“So, you’re going to the kickback?” he asks me. His name is Roland Masters. He hates his last name, his family, and pretty much everything about Crescent Valley and Brighton Saints Academy.
Roland is a rare breed at Brighton; the one and only rebel.
“Yeah. I guess,” I say, as I pull my locker open. A card flutters to the floor. I push my hair back and pick it up. As I unfold the card, I read: You’re invited to Bryce and Asher Kingsley’s kickback.
I laugh. “This is so bazaar. A formal invitation to a party.”
Roland leans against his locker. “That’s what you think is bazaar here?” He cranes a dark eyebrow.
I slip the invite into a book and shoulder my back. There are so many other bazaar things happening around here…and I wanted to ask Sawyer about the girl I saw in the glass case, about why she committed suicide, but just couldn’t work up the nerve this week.
So I look at Roland now, using his rhetorical question to my advantage as a way in. “I’ve noticed other things.” I slide closer to him and lower my voice. “You said I look like her, remember? Were you talking about Lesley de Pont?”
He bites his lip ring, dark eyes assessing me. “How did you put that together?” he asks. “No one will even say her name.”
“I saw her picture near the cafeteria. What happened to her?”
“You should try to stay away from them,” he says abruptly. “And don’t bring her up.”
My eyebrows draw together. “Why? I mean, I get it. They’re almighty and gods here at school, but they’ve actually been nice to me.”
He crosses his arms over his broad chest, and I glimpse a tattoo peeking from beneath his blazer cuff. “She was a nice girl, too,” he says. “She was nice to me, a rarity here. Then they sank their fangs into her, and she changed.”
I frown. “Roland, that’s just high school. The politics are the same at any school.”
He mock laughs. “Really? You know what I saw when I stumbled into the locker room looking for a place to smoke? All of them, going at it, in some Eyes Wide Shut orgy fest. You’d think it’d be hot…but it was…” He shakes his head. “It was like some occult-type shit. And Lesley—” His voice breaks off at her name.
He had feelings for her, I realize suddenly. Maybe what he witnessed wasn’t at all the way he’s wanting to remember it, his wounded feelings masking the truth. “Was she intimat
e with one of them?”
His laugh darkens. “If that’s what you want to call it… Rush.” He pushes off the locker. “The brute force of their sick little secret society. The fucking Broken Saints.” He turns away, picks up his backpack. “Just be careful. I’m out.”
I watch him leave, my emotions a swirling vortex. Maybe Lesley wasn’t as nice as he thinks. Maybe she wanted—for whatever reason; whatever she might have been going through—the distraction that sex might bring. Everyone makes seemingly bad choices when they’re in pain.
We all have secrets.
I appreciate Roland’s attempt to protect me, but I’m not as naive and innocent as my fellow students seem to think.
I’m cautious.
I spin the lock on my locker, then head down the hallway. I told myself that coming to Brighton Saints, I wasn’t just getting a fresh start; I was burying the past.
And if being welcomed into a clique helps me achieve that—helps me not think of every damn painful memory—so be it. Roland can judge me if he wants. But when I’m with Sawyer and Palmer, it’s like I’ve entered a whole other world, one completely alien to me, and there’s no time to dwell on those memories.
I step into the afternoon sunshine, and a horn beeps. I look over to see Palmer waving at me from Sawyer’s new Lexus convertible.
I plaster on a smile as I weave aound milling students in the parking lot.
“Come on,” Sawyer says, flipping her large sunglasses into place over her eyes. “We have work to do.”
I climb into the backseat, not even asking what her plans are. It’s not that I trust her. I’ve learned not to trust anyone. It’s that I love how I feel when I’m with her—not myself. I’m some other version of myself, who is fun and carefree, and who likes the way Gage Astor notices her.
As she drives away from the school, my thoughts turn toward the invitation in my book, and Roland’s negative reaction to it. Maybe he’s jealous in some way. No matter if you choose to be a loner, deep down, human nature yearns for acceptance.
