Not able to contain my restless hands anymore, I wrap my arms around his shoulders and cradle him into me, kissing his hair as I speak into it.
“You are a lion, Kingston, as regal as the animals gracing the crest of the league you love so dearly. You are loyal and fiercely passionate about what you want to protect. But you also have a temper that gets you in trouble, and you don’t walk on anyone’s leash. You’re the ruler of your kingdom, and you’re unforgiving when someone wrongs you. These are the qualities I admire most in you. There is nothing wrong with guarding your heart with brute force.”
He stays tucked into me.
“I don’t want to guard my heart, at least not from you. What I’ve realized over the past few months is that you and me? We’re the same. Both victims of what this privileged, horrible, tragic world has done to us. But we rise above it. Watching you get up every day and go to work, despite what happened to you … it’s inspiring. I want to be better. You make me want to be better.”
“Together. You and I are better together.”
32
Kingston
Clavering hasn’t changed a bit.
As Jude winds his Maserati through the streets of the small town we attended football academy in, a sense of longing burns in my chest. While I loathed school, every part of it besides the football, this was my home for many, many years of my life.
It’s the place where I first walked onto the Rogue Academy campus, where I envisioned myself training to become one of the best football players in history. The Rogue Academy is where I met Jude and Vance for the first time, where we became brothers and had each other’s backs through it all.
Out of the passenger-side window, the spires of the academy come into view, and suddenly we’re upon it, winding through the old church-like buildings and straight up to our old dorm. Ah, how many girls did we sneak in here? How many pranks did we pull? Yes, I’d missed this place, and it is good to be back.
When Jude suggested we take a drive to the academy after coming back from New York, I didn’t hesitate. Vance hadn’t been able to come on the trip, and I felt bloody awful about that.
“Vance, brother!” I bound out of the car, scooping my most solemn friend up into a massive hug.
“Blimey, watch my back, King. I’ve been working dive saves all day and I feel like a bunch of broken glass,” Vance complains.
“How’d they go?” Jude asks, shaking his hand and clapping him on the shoulder.
“Smashing. Not that it matters. I’ll be stuck here until the end of time.” He says this as if it’s a fact.
I feel bloody awful for my friend. He is a brilliant keeper, but his position at RFC is a catch twenty-two. They won’t promote him to the first squad because Remus is incredible, just a hair better than Vance. But, the higher-ups won’t sell him because one, he’d be an amazing backup if Remus got injured. And two, when Remus does eventually retire, they’ll bring Vance up. It’s not fair to waste so many years of his talent, but this is the business of football.
“Mate, you won’t. You’re going to get your shot. Or you’ll end up in Narta, like Kingston.” Jude slaps him on the back, trying to make light of the situation.
Vance doesn’t smile, and I scowl. “Hey, I busted my arse to prove myself again.”
Jude makes a pshh sound as if what I’m saying is just codswallop.
“All right, so what are we pulling tonight?” I ask, rubbing my palms together.
We got into a lot of shenanigans when we all went to academy here, and now that we were back, I was feeling the urge to commit mischief.
“King, I still live here. Don’t shite where I sleep.” Vance rolls his eyes at me.
“We’re here to hang out. No mucking anything up.” Jude points his finger at me.
“I am still London’s greatest prankster. I wouldn’t be Kingston Phillips if we didn’t pull one over on someone. I might be new and improved, but come on, I still need my jokes from time to time.” I lay the charm on thick, trying to get Jude to budge.
His eyes are shifty and nervous, but I can see the moment he finally relents. “Okay, fine. But nothing dangerous, and only slightly illegal. I’m not jumping off the roof again or setting off fireworks in the parking lot!”
“Got it. I know just the thing.”
Headmaster Darnot is the reigning ruler of Rogue Football Academy, the place where we all grew up together. And he’s a daft wanker if I’ve ever seen one. Responsible for almost all the rubbish I’d been given by my parents as a boy, he had no sense of humor and even less of a tolerance for me than Poppy did in the beginning. Every prank I pulled, each stunt on the pitch or in the classroom, Darnot handed me my arse.
Well, I am all grown up now, and it’s time to get one last sweet piece of revenge.
* * *
“Where the hell did you get this idea? And how did you know how to rig it so quickly? Why do I feel like you’ve been planning this for a long time?” Vance asks, a confused look on his face.
We’re in Darnot’s office, where I’m stringing up the last of the prank and Jude and Vance survey my handiwork. My plan has come along quite nicely, and even I’m shocked that it’s worked as well as I thought it would.
“Have neither of you seen The Parent Trap? The one with Lindsay Lohan where one of her has a British accent? She’s quite good, almost sounds like a natural Londoner—”
“Kingston, focus. I don’t need to know about Disney movies for preteen girls.”
“Right, anyway, she pranks the rival cabin at her sleep away camp, and this is how she does it. Bloody brilliant, right? Of course, Vance, you’re going to have to get pictures for us somehow. This will only be a smash if I can have physical proof of Darnot with feathers and chocolate sauce all over his face.”
“And how am I supposed to do that?” Vance scowls, the big guy growing more annoyed by the second.
“Figure it out! I’m going to be like a schoolgirl, almost wetting her knickers until you text me a photo.” I point a finger at him.
“I kind of have a little more than taking prank pictures on my plate. But thanks for asking.” He glares at me and then walks off down the hall, his footsteps echoing in the dark, empty corridor.
Jude and I exchange a look like we knew he was bound to blow up at any second. On the same breath, we both hightail it out of the office, being careful to shut and lock the door and then chase after our friend.
When we reach him, Vance is sitting on the floor with his back against a glass case of trophies. We take seats on the opposite wall, giving him some space.
“Vance, what is going on?” Jude asks him before I can zero in on the point that we’re actually here about.
Our broody friend blows out a breath. “How could you tell?”
“You’re acting like more of a scrooge than you normally do?” I suggest.
Jude hits me. “King, shut it.”
I shrug, as I was just trying to tell the truth.
“Blimey, well … where to start?” He’s quiet a second. “I don’t know.”
Now it’s my turn. I rub his shoulder in what I hope is a comforting gesture. “Mate, we know you don’t like to talk much. I talk enough for the three of us. But we’re here, asking you to tell us what’s bothering you. We can tell something isn’t right. We’re your family, and you’re stuck with us.”
He chuckles, low and sardonic-like. It’s a bit eerie. “Funny you should mention family. Do you remember I told you about the girl I was seeing back home for a while? Lara?”
I remember him going home a lot, on weekends or off days, in the year before Jude and I left for RFC. But he stayed at the academy for a while, probably six months, while we were still there waiting to be called up to London. I thought it had just fizzled out.
“I didn’t realize that was her name. Like we said, you don’t really talk about … well, anything.” Jude cocks his head to the side, as if this has just dawned on him.
Vance nods, his long black hair
almost down to his shoulders by now. “Yeah, I guess I should apologize about that. I just … I don’t like to talk. It feels … excessive. We don’t have to all unpack our feelings like a bunch of birds.”
“But now, something is wrong?” I guess, knowing that if he’s willing to talk, it must be bad.
He goes silent for a minute or two, looking down at his hands. And then, he looks straight at us. “Turns out, I got her pregnant. She had the baby and didn’t tell me. Kept it. And now she’s with some other bloke. Raising my baby.”
The way he says it all, so matter of fact, nearly bowls me over. So many bombs dropped in one sentence that I can’t even begin to compute. That’s Vance though, holding it all in until everything piles up and spills over.
“Wha … when …” Jude seems to be in more shock than I am, because he can’t even form a sentence.
“What did she have?” I ask, trying to start from the top of the question list running in my head.
Vance looks off, as if he’s seeing something neither of us can. “A little boy. His name is Mason.”
Mason. Vance has a son, and his name is Mason. “Blimey, you’re a dad. A father. You have a son.”
“One I’ve only met once, when I accidentally ran into her. The boy looks so much like me, I almost fainted on the spot.” Vance chuckles, but it’s a sad sound.
“She didn’t even tell you about him?” Jude starts in, and I can tell he’s in boss mode. He’s going to call a lawyer after this, I can just tell.
“No, like I said, I didn’t even know about the pregnancy. And now I wonder what I would have said if I had. Bloody hell, would I have wanted to be in his life given the chance? Would I have done something stupid, asked her to do something irreversible? And now she’s with someone else. She’s going to marry him.”
Vance buries his head in his hands, and I can feel the agony in his words. He’s in love with her. He wants to love his son.
“You love her.” Jude realizes it a second after I do.
His head still in his hands, he nods. “I didn’t mean to. She was just this girl from home, and it was a spur-of-the-moment thing. I’d fancied her for years, her parents live across the street from mine. It turned into more, and then one day she just stopped calling. She stopped answering my calls, and I thought it was for the best because I had to focus here and had other dreams. How could I let this happen?”
My heart breaks for my friend. He’s in an impossible situation, and I can’t even fathom having a child I wasn’t aware of. Hell, if someone told me I’d fathered a baby, I’d be shaking in my boots. But all Vance wants to do is know his son. He’s the best of us.
“What do you need us to do? What are you going to do?” Jude asks, gently laying a hand on his shoulder.
After a beat, Vance straightens up, his upper lip stiff. “I’m going to get them back.”
33
Kingston
I’m back in London just about a month when shite hits the fan.
“Would you be able to come home with me for my sister’s bridal shower?” Poppy asks.
I’m on my mobile, only sort of listening to her. “Uh … I’m not sure. Might have a match, or practice. Actually, I think I have a product shoot with Jude’s line next week, I should call his agent Barry to ask.”
My musings are met with silence, which I don’t realize until about five minutes later when I put down my mobile, and Poppy is staring at me like she’s been doing so for a long time. Her mouth is pursed, and there is hell to pay in her eyes.
“So, you don’t want to meet my family?”
Hold on, what? “I never said that—”
“No, it’s fine. You’re just too busy. Or maybe you just don’t want me to take you home. That’s not your scene, right?”
Um, has an alien invaded my girlfriend’s body and turned her into a psycho bird? Or did I just miss a third of this conversation? Perhaps I’m going deaf because I have absolutely no idea what’s going on.
“I knew it. All along, I knew not to get involved with you. That you didn’t have the bollocks to commit to anything. That you wouldn’t be man enough to actually be monogamous with me. Instead, I’m given some shite, flowery veil being pulled over my eyes. Did you really think that would work? That I wouldn’t see right through your wishy-washy excuses?”
My brain is in panic mode, my heart beats wildly against my ribcage. “No, Poppy, listen, I’m not giving you excuses at all. It’s just that there is a lot on my plate right now—”
“This is because I won’t shag you, isn’t it?” she demands, going from zero to a hundred in a second flat.
“What? Are you mad?”
“Oh, Kingston, just stop it. I’m as busy as you are, if not more. I travel more frequently, I keep later hours than you, my work schedule can change on a dime. The only difference is that I actually have some mature bones in my body. You can’t seem to grasp that you’re an adult now, that the decisions, or non-decisions, you make shape exactly the way you choose to live. Except this time, your hesitation doesn’t just affect you. Put off being the champion football player we all know you can be, squander your talent, I don’t care. That doesn’t hurt anyone but you. But this? Your inability to be honest with me, to have an adult conversation about what we are to each other? It’s pathetic and shows me exactly where I stand with you. Which apparently, is some muddled middle ground, just like everything else in your life.”
Her opinion of me stings, and I wonder if she isn’t so much talking out of anger as she really does think those things about me.
“That’s not true and you know it. I’ve been with no one else. I’ve spent every spare moment with you. You know how I feel about you, how much I admire and respect you. If you really feel that way, I’m not sure why you’re even with me.”
Now I’m the one who’s getting irrational.
“Is it because we haven’t shagged yet? Is that what you need, to be inside me to commit to me fully? I apologize for being too slow on that front, perhaps it’s too much to put up with dating a rape victim.”
And in an instant, I’m irate. “Don’t you even dare. I have never pressured you. I never even think about it. I haven’t had sex in months, Poppy, and I have no feelings about it at all. I love being with you, however fast or slow you want to take things has never, ever crossed my mind. When you told me your truth, I took that burden on my own shoulders, too. Your pain is my pain. I’m fully committed. Where is this even coming from?”
And then, out of nowhere, Poppy bursts into tears.
I’m shaken to the core and rooted to the spot for a moment. For as much as she’s dealt with in her life, Poppy has never seemed anything but tough as nails to me. Even when she told me about her rape, even when we had tender moments or those intense, silent conversations we’ve had with our eyes in bed.
“Come here, come here.” I cradle her to my chest; loud, angry jolts of emotion shaking her entire body.
My heart breaks with each sound, and my mind is still on high alert because I have no idea what caused this outburst.
She clings to me, crying her pain into my T-shirt, for a few minutes while I rub her back. All I can do is try to comfort her, hold her, let her know from my embrace that I’m not going to let her fall.
After a few moments, when her breathing slows and her sobs turns into hiccups, she looks up at me with red-rimmed eyes.
“Going home … it’s got me all wonky. My family isn’t the most supportive about my career, they’re very religious you see. It’s not exactly a welcoming committee when I show up. And especially not now. A while back, my dad cheated on my mum. My upstanding, preaching father was having an affair with a local woman at our church, right under my mother’s nose. I just … after what happened with Nicolai, I have a very hard time trusting men. Or thinking highly of them in any way. Look how long it took me to let you in. And then I find out about my father doing that to my mother. It’s just … it’s unbearable at times. The one man who is suppo
sed to be holy and righteous, and even he can’t resist being an arsehole. Sometimes I wish I could have a lobotomy, so that I didn’t have to remember these things.”
I smooth a few strands of her chocolate-colored hair, kissing the side of her temple. “I’m so sorry, love. I can’t imagine the kind of hell you’ve been through. You should have no reason to trust men at all. And yet, it’s part of the reason I admire you most. In New York, you told me you admire the qualities I look at as vulnerabilities in myself. I’m telling you the same. The fact that you’re willing to trust me, to let me in, to cry on my shoulder after all you’ve gone through … it is remarkable. I thank my lucky stars every day that you’ve given me chance after chance. That you allowed me in.”
Poppy begins to cry again, and I have a feeling this has been a long time coming.
I hoist her up, carrying her as she sobs into my chest into her bedroom. I may be a daft male at times, but I know this breakdown is about much more than traveling back to her hometown or my involvement in her trip. I have a feeling that Poppy hasn’t let anyone in her life close enough in a very long time. I’ve spent months with her now, and I guess I should have seen it earlier. She doesn’t have friends, she doesn’t call her mum to chat, she rarely goes out with girlfriends …
The Lion Heart: Rogue Academy, Book Two Page 17
