Chapter Two
QUINN
“ I want to die.”
I kicked the apartment door shut behind me, hauling my stuff into the kitchen. Grabbing a seat at the table, I folded my arms and plopped my head down. My bag hit the ground with a thunk, spilling its contents onto the floor. I lifted my head and watched as my pencils slowly rolled away.
“Fuck my life,” I groaned.
“Why, hello to you, too.” Gia cocked a wooden spoon in my direction, greeting me from the stove. “Looks like someone’s working toward their Fine Arts degree in drama today.”
“You weren’t there, Gia. It was…” My cheeks heated with shame just thinking about it. “I’ve never been so mortified.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Worse than that time you got dia?—”
“No!” I said quickly. “You know nothing’s worse than that. And you swore you’d never bring that up again.”
She shrugged, turning back to the noodles in the pot. “Well, I feel better about your big entrance knowing you still have some perspective. Now, do you want to talk about it?”
Did I want to talk about how my ex-boyfriend plied me with tequila and convinced me to let him stick his finger in my butt?
Or how that ill-fated anniversary date at a Mexican restaurant started the slow crawl toward the end of our relationship?
Or how our breakup led to the worst night of my life? A life I then packed up and moved to a sleepy mountain town in North Carolina just so I could die of shame at the local pharmacy?
“No, thank you. Not ever, ever, ever again.” I grimaced, running my hand through my hair. My bracelet snagged on a few strands and yanked them out. Snapping my hand away, I pulled the hood of my sweatshirt over my head. “I’ll just die here, thanks.”
I tugged on the hoodie’s strings and cinched it up, hiding my face before dropping my head back onto the table.
But I couldn’t hide in my ex-boyfriend’s stolen hoodie forever. Fat load of good it did me anyway, since my best friend knew all my secrets.
Gia had been with me through it all. Virtually, ever since we met at dance camp when we were eleven, and physically since I’d transferred to her school last year to avoid being completely alone.
We shared an apartment off-campus and a vault’s worth of each other’s darkest secrets and most-embarrassing moments.
“I take it this recent trauma involved a hot guy?”
“What makes you say that?” Words muffled in my arms, and I feigned outrage even though she’d hit the nail on the head. “Not all my embarrassing moments involve a guy.”
They really did, though.
I huffed, sitting up and freeing my face from my self-imposed prison. “My card declined at the pharmacy today, trying to pick up my inhaler. Whatever my doctor prescribed isn’t covered by the school’s crappy student insurance policy. So, I have to pay for it out of pocket.”
“Yikes.” She balked. “How much?”
“Three hundred dollars!” The cost still made my blood boil. “Oh, plus the extra some odd dollars and like, eight cents. I don’t remember exactly. I blacked it out because it was outrageous.”
Gia grimaced. “Shit.”
She didn’t have to say anything else. We both knew I couldn’t afford anything close to that right now, not if I wanted to pay for anything else. Or, I don’t know, not starve.
“Yeah, I spent, like, twenty minutes going back and forth with the pharmacist over it. He checked for alternatives and coupon codes. But even with a coupon, I still would’ve been short. So, of course, I started freaking out.”
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes. Literally about to have a full-on asthma attack, all while the damn medication was on the other side of the counter. It was infuriating. And then, some guy comes out of nowhere, slaps his card on the counter, and pays for the whole thing.”
Taking a seat at the table with me, she covered my hands with hers. “Which I’m sure you appreciated, but it also made it worse?”
“Yup.” I resisted the urge to pull my hair out, stopping only because of her gentle grip. I nodded toward our hands. “Thanks.”
She shrugged. “You’re under a lot of stress. Just figured I’d save you a few strands.”
I turned my hand over and linked our fingers. “I’d probably be bald without you. Or on the streets. I promise. I’m going to find a way to get you the rent money on time.”
“I know you will.” She smiled, but all of my shit put stress on her, even if she tried to hide it. She got up and went back to the stove. “Did you end up applying for those jobs?”
“Every single one. No luck. All the hours interfere with our program, or they decided to fill the position with someone who had more flexibility.” I released a heavy breath and threw my hands in the air. “I’m a dance major, for crying out loud! I’m totally flexible.”
She laughed while I tugged my lower lip between my teeth. I chewed over the idea that I’d been going back and forth on. I was starting to think I didn’t have much of a choice.
When my dad died last semester, I’d lost more than my only remaining parent—the security I’d taken for granted had gone with him. And instead of going to the prestigious dance academy he’d signed me up for on the other side of the country, I joined Gia at D’Art U, a public university with a dance program, only a few states away.
But I’d woefully underestimated the cost of living, even with the help of student loans.
“I think I need to take next semester off and work full time.”
Her eyes snapped back to mine. “Quinn, no. We can figure something else out.”
“I’ve thought over everything else about a hundred times. And it’s not so bad. It only pushes back my graduation for a year. Tops.”
“But I can ask my parents?—”
“No way.” I shook my head adamantly. “They do more than enough by covering our utility bill and sending you extra money until I can pay you. That already saves us on late fees with the landlord. Not to mention the food you make us. It’s too much. I can’t accept anything else.”
She held back from voicing her protests, having been down this road with me many times before.
I hated being a charity case. Everyone already looked at me with pity when they found out about the accident and my dad. And I didn’t need or want anyone’s sympathy.
I didn’t deserve it.
Trying to put Gia’s mind at ease, I shrugged it off like it was no big deal. “Hey, it might be the only way to get my asthma under control and finish the program anyway. Not much of a silver lining, but look, I’m making lemon drops.”
She frowned, not buying it for a second. But she didn’t call me on it. “If you’re sure…”
“I’ll talk to my financial advisor about it tomorrow. But I might not have much choice. It’s either take a break and work full time or start stripping. And I’m not quite ready to go down that path with my dancing. Not yet.”
Gia snorted. “Yeah, you might as well apply for The Quest first.”
She uncovered the pot on the stove and checked the pasta, laughing off the idea. I wanted to laugh with her, but something stopped me.
When she’d first told me about The Quest, the idea seemed ludicrous. But now, as medical bills piled up, I couldn’t brush it off as easily.
I toyed with the charms on my bracelet, wondering what my parents would’ve thought about me joining The Quest. They were probably rolling over in their graves.
Except they’d always said being a feminist was about empowering women to make their own choices. Not limiting their opportunities based on gender. They supported me in whatever I wanted to do with my life as long as it was my choice.
If I wanted to paint naked in the backyard under the light of the full moon? My mom bought me the art supplies while my dad hung up privacy curtains in our backyard.
And if I wanted to be a dancer, even though my chances for a secure future were harder to come by and my asthma posed a problem? So be it.
Mom made all of my sparkly costumes and did up my hair with an obscene array of ribbons and bows for each performance. Dad even learned to French braid. They’d driven me to every dance practice and cheered me on at every recital and competition.
Right up until the one before my twelfth birthday. The last one my mom got to see.
But she’d been proud of me. They both had been—not because I won and got my name and picture in the local newspaper—because I was happy. Doing something I chose and loved.
Wouldn’t the same apply to this?
Although, I planned to leave love out of it.
“What else do you know about The Quest?” I asked Gia, my sudden interest halting her wooden spoon mid-stir. “I mean, if I’m going to consider dropping a semester, I should probably weigh every option that doesn’t force me to, right?”
“I suppose…” She shut the burner on the stove off, carrying the pot of noodles to the strainer in the sink. “I don’t know much more than I told you. But some of the guys from Camelot Court are in one of my classes. They all huddle together in the back of the room, but I could sit a little closer next class. See what I can find out?”
“What do you know about them?”
Steam billowed up as she dumped the hot water and noodles. She scrunched her face and chuckled to herself. “Ironically, they’re all steamy hot. And they’re all from super rich legacy families. The D’Arthurs, obviously. But there’s also the Scotts, the Léons…Those two are in my class, but there are twelve guys total. Well, thirteen with Kingston D’Arthur. He’s pretty hard to get a read on, from what I hear. Then, Landon Scott is, like, his second or right hand or whatever—even though technically, I don’t think they have ranks.” She shrugged. “Super broody, that one.”
“Who’s the other one?”
Her eyebrows rose, oh-so-innocently. “What?”
“You said three families, but only two guys.”
A deep blush colored her cheeks, warming her tanned skin. “Oh, um, right. That’s Tristan Léon.” She caught sight of my eyebrows, raised expectantly for her to go on, and sighed. “He’s like an excitable puppy. If puppies were hot as fuck. It’s ridiculous.”
She kept going on about him, as expected, since that blush was a dead giveaway she had a thing for the hot puppy.
I oohed and aahed at all the appropriate spots. But when she started describing his abs in detail, my mind circled back to one of the first things she’d said.
I slapped my hand on the table, making Gia jump.
“No freaking way.”
Diving for my bag, I snagged the strap and yanked it toward me. I searched through the spilled contents, finding the slip of paper still carefully folded in one of the pockets.
I flattened it on the table in front of me. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”
“What is it?”
Gia came up beside me, peering over my shoulder at the receipt I’d saved from the pharmacy. I figured I could use it to find the stranger who’d helped me and pay him back. Even if that wasn’t going to be possible any time soon, I didn’t throw it away.
Now, keeping it felt like a sign.
Gia gasped. “No freaking way.”
I nodded, rereading the credit card information on the receipt. The numbers were concealed, but it listed the cardholder right there in black and white.
“All hail the Knights of the Round Table,” Gia quipped.
“Yeah,” I said slowly, staring at his name and marveling at the chances. “And long live the King.”
It couldn’t be another lemon. This strange twist of fate pointing me in one direction, and maybe even showing me the path I needed to take? As much as I wanted to laugh at the absurdity of that thought, I couldn’t ignore the pull in my gut.
Because the name of my kind stranger—the gorgeous guy who’d covered the cost of my medicine, saving me when I didn’t want to be saved and hurling himself into a panic attack of his own—I held it right there in my hands.
Kingston D’Arthur.
The King of Camelot Court.