He never says a word, and I don’t push him to talk. He and the other kings saw me at my worst the night of Iris’s death—they brought me back from the brink of a dark, awful place. If that’s where Lincoln is now, the least I can do is sit with him, be there for him, bear witness to his pain until it passes.
After a while, his breathing evens out again. It’s almost midnight, and my eyelids are growing heavy. I try to loosen his grip so I can stand up, but he makes a noise almost like a growl in his throat and tightens his hold on me. Giving up that fight, I scoot backward a bit on the bed, bringing him with me, and end up lying on my back with his head resting on my stomach. My hands find his hair again, and I bury them in the thick strands as sleep drags me under.
I don’t know what time he wakes up in the middle of the night, but when I blink my eyes open the next morning, he’s gone.
Halloween falls on a Saturday, and even though I don’t feel like doing much of anything, I let Lauren and Andrea talk me into going to a costume party. Of course, as soon as they find out I’m going, Lincoln, Dax, Chase, and River all decide to go too. Despite their decision to let me in on their search for the masked man, and despite Lincoln’s strange visit to my room a few days ago, they obviously still have trust issues where I’m concerned.
It’s fucking frustrating. I don’t know what they expect me to do, or how to convince them I’m not going to do it.
One of the boxes my Mom swears she shouldn’t have packed contains several old costumes, so I steal one from that stash—a Cleopatra costume, complete with toga, wig, and headdress. It’s probably not as trendy or timely as most of the costumes girls will be wearing at the party, but it’s better than my alternate option, which is showing up in my street clothes and telling everyone I don’t give a shit.
Like I said. Not really feeling the holiday spirit.
The party is at a mansion on the west side of town, and Lincoln insists on driving me—surprise, surprise. I know people at school are starting to take notice of how often he and I show up to events together. There is the built-in explanation that I’m his maid and am living in his house, but that doesn’t explain why I’m seen so often with the other three guys too.
I half expect Savannah to take exception to me monopolizing the attention of four of the richest, hottest guys in school, but she hasn’t said anything… and as soon as we walk through the doors of the single-story, sprawling house, I realize why.
She and Trent stand near the wide doorway between the foyer and the living room, and he’s got her nearly bent in half backwards as he devours her mouth with a sloppy kiss.
I pull up suddenly, and Lincoln pauses behind me. When he sees what I’m gaping at, he snorts under his breath. “Oh, you didn’t know? That happened like a week ago.”
Ew. Ew because his tongue has to be somewhere past her esophagus by now, and also ew because I know he and Iris were some kind of something, even if no one at school really knew about it. Is this his way of processing his grief? He looked fucking wrecked that Monday after the news of her death broke.
I don’t know what exactly was going on between Iris and Trent, but from where I’m standing, it looks like he just moved from one cheerleader to another, never mind that one of them fucking died.
Savannah has continued to be over-the-top in her display of grief, using it as an excuse to do and say whatever she wants, to be an even bigger bitch to me than usual. She’s become so theatrical about it that it’s honestly gotten a little hard to tell how much of it is real and how much is fake.
Lincoln grunts again, tugging me in the opposite direction toward the other wing of the house. We find Dax and Chase surrounded by several girls—they tend to flock around the twins whether the boys encourage them or not, which they’re definitely not doing right now—and then the four of us migrate over to the corner River is lounging in.
It occurs to me that this is really all I wanted, that this is what makes me feel safe. I might’ve come to this party because Lauren and Andrea invited me, but the only people I really feel like hanging out with here are the four boys I’m with.
Wow. There’s something I never thought I’d say.
Dax and Chase settle on either side of me on a wide, plush couch. The floor plan of this house is open, so even though we’re in a completely different room, I can still see Trent and Savannah. They’ve stopped making out like sloppy drunks, but she’s still clinging to him like a leech, leaning up to whisper in his ear.
“You don’t think it was Savannah, do you?” I mutter before I can stop myself.
My voice was low, but River, who’s sitting across from me, narrows his eyes at me in surprise and leans closer. “What are you talking about?”
I sigh, glancing around. This isn’t the place to have this kind of conversation. I’m not sure there’s any good place, but this definitely isn’t it. “Nothing. It’s probably stupid. I just know they hated each other at least as much as they liked each other. And they spent weeks fighting over Trent.”
Dax shakes his head. “She’s not smart enough. And the person in that car was a guy. For sure.”
“Yeah. You’re right.” I shake my head, making the hair of my blunt black wig shimmy, and the
