eight
Rumor Has It… A new queen will be crowned at prom! Will the usual blonde cheerleader type win, or will you be brave enough to step outside the box and dare to vote for a queen based on merit?
Colt Darling
“Dude, that’s you.”
Someone elbows me, bringing me out of my stupor. For a second, I don’t know where I am, why the lights are blinding me until I can hardly see. I think maybe I’m on the football field again, and I just took a hit, and I’m on my back with the Friday night lights shining and the crowd that will cheer when they help me up—even the opposing team’s side. But then Duke pushes me forward, and I know I’m not fortunate enough to be back to sophomore year, waking up to find this was all a nightmare. I’m on a stage, and I walk forward, even though I’m not sure why I’m here.
I definitely shouldn’t have taken that last pill. Or the three before that.
The headmaster shakes my hand, and I reach out to take my diploma, but it’s not there, and the crowd is all wrong, standing in a ballroom with ceilings painted pitch black with tiny piercing lights twinkling like stars. A convergence of them spells out “Under the Stars” and illuminates the crowd of shadowy faces below.
“You okay?” Gloria asks, and I turn to find my nemesis standing before me. But she doesn’t look like my nemesis anymore. She looks like my wet dream, in a short, filmy pink number that shows off a pair of legs that should be wrapped around my head and a low neckline that shows off a pair of tits that make me ten kinds of stupid. She always been hot, but now that she’s gained some w, her curves are lethal.
“Huh?” I manage, yanking my gaze from the smooth swell of her breasts that can only be described as breathtaking.
She smirks at me like she has every day since the first time I came into her work, like she knows she has me hooked—or knows she has something on me, something that could destroy me, and she’s biding her time until she uses it. After all, she has nothing to lose now, and I have everything.
She holds up a crown and raises her brow. “You gonna make me come to you, huh?” she asks, stepping close and going up on tiptoes to set it on my head. Her green apple shampoo invades my nostrils, and I’m back in the club, with my face buried in her neck and her cum slick on my cock as she grinds out climax after climax. Those tits brush my chest, and I wrestle not to pop a boner on stage in front of the whole school.
Shit. That’s right. I’m at prom.
I’m not sure if the drugs or the brain damage caused the lapse, but I must have blacked out for a while. It happens sometimes. I don’t think horniness alone can cause a blackout, but if it’s caused by Gloria Walton, it’s entirely possible.
The crowd is cheering, so I turn away from the demon queen who led me to temptation, and I smile and wave. It feels good to be up there again, with people cheering for me, even if my football career is as far removed as the middle finger on my left hand, and half of them spent the last two years spitting on my grave along with the temptress currently reading my girlfriend’s name into the microphone.
I expect Dixie to come storming over and punch Lo in the face after her close contact with me, but she’s too busy squealing and doing a happy dance in front of the other contestants, seemingly oblivious to their resigned smiles and fake cheers to cover their disappointment over not winning it themselves. She prances over to where I stand with Gloria and my aunt, who holds the crown on a velvet pillow.
Gloria lifts it in both hands and turns to Dixie. For one second, the entire hotel ballroom falls silent, every breath held as they wait to see if Gloria will get her revenge, if she’ll smash the spikes into the face of the girl who destroyed her so she could take her place. Gloria hesitates, then grins like she’s enjoying keeping them on their toes, relishing the tease the way she does at Infernal Vices, where she refuses to walk out of the Envy room with me no matter how tall the stack of hundreds along the stage grows.
At last, she nestles the sparkling crown of jewels into Dixie’s stiff updo.
“The rightful queen,” she says, with all the poise befitting the position she held for so long.
“That’s right,” Dixie hisses through a clenched smile. “Don’t you forget it, whore.”
Gloria cracks an ironic smile. “Such class.”
“Like you’d know anything about that,” Dixie snaps. “Shouldn’t you be in the hotel lobby trying to pick up a John with all the other hookers?”
“Not my style,” Gloria says with a shrug.
“Yeah, your style is more homewrecker,” Dixie says. “You should change your lock screen. You’re not Jackie Kennedy. You’re Monica Lewinsky.”
“I think it’s a Jackie or a Marilyn,” Gloria says. “Though I kind of like the idea of being a Monica. She rocks.” She gives Dixie a wink, ignoring my girlfriend’s furious, red face, and turns to blow kisses to the crowd of her former admirers-turned-bullies.
Her pink lips pucker in a way that leaves me wrestling a spontaneous erection again. She waves to a chorus of cheers and boos, then makes a flirty, mocking bow toward the crowd, a position that exposes the back of her thighs right up to the place where they meet, stopping just short of showing whatever panties she’s wearing under that tease of a dress. I know I won’t stop thinking about that all night, wondering what’s hidden under there, picturing my hands sliding them down her thighs and my cock plowing into her juicy little cunt from behind.
Gloria struts off stage in her baby pink heels to the echoing sound of boos, stopping just long enough to kiss her middle finger and hold it up toward the crowd.
Harper cups her hands around her mouth and whoops from her position near the front. “Bitches can suck it,” she yells, dragging Gloria into her arms in a gesture that can only mean she’s been drinking. Harper’s not the touchy-feely type without some alcohol in her system. She’s gone full bombshell in a tight, cherry red dress with a slit that shows her thigh tats, bright red lips, and a pair of red-bottom heels, no doubt funded by Royal Dolce, who pulls her into a possessive embrace when she’s gone hugging Lo.
“I’m so proud of you,” Precious says, bringing my attention back to the stage when she stands on tiptoes to kiss each of my cheeks. “You look so handsome tonight. And even more so with this crown on your head. You’re right where you belong.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I say, since that’s what I call her somewhat playfully, seeing as she should have been my mom. She was married to my dad when I was conceived, anyway. It strikes me then that my mother should be the one crowning me, and that’s another thing that’s just a part of the nostalgia of the past. Devlin’s parents are back in Faulkner now that he’s home, but my mom will never be back—at least not all of her.
“We did it,” Dixie crows, sliding her arm through mine.
“How does it feel to be king?” Duke asks, slapping my back.
“Good,” I lie, before turning to my girlfriend. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Wait,” Dixie says as the other couples start to leave the stage. She stands there in the lights, beautiful and sparkling, looking out over the crowd with a smile of triumph and a face that glows. In that moment, I’m happy for her. I step back and let her bask. Prom is a popularity contest, and she’s finally the most popular girl in school, with the badge of honor to prove it. She’s earned this. She deserves it.
I remember a fight in the car before we got here, and swallowing more pills along with the guilt of what I did with Gloria Walton. What I’ve been doing since that night, even though it hasn’t gone that far again. We’ve kept it confined to the Envy room, where she tempts and teases me to the point of madness and then throws the stack of hundreds back in my face before walking away every time. No matter how much money I try to give her, she won’t take it, and she won’t leave that place.
If her teasing doesn’t drive me out of my mind soon, knowing she does the same to other men will.
Dixie’s been raging at me ever since, as if she knows. But she won’t break up with me, and each time I try, she refuses to accept it. Maybe now that she’s gotten what she always wanted—to win prom, wear the crown, be the official queen of Willow Hs—I’ve outlived my usefulness and she’ll let me go. She keeps saying that we can’t break up before prom, that I have to let her have this, that I owe her this much.
And I do, even if I can never give her what she truly deserves.
So, I stand back and let her soak up the spotlight. Before he leaves the stage, Duke swoops in and picks up my girlfriend, spinning her around. She shrieks and kicks her black boots, hanging onto his neck and giggling. “Give it up for your queen,” he yells, pumping a fist in the air.
The crowd cheers, and Duke buries his face in her cleavage and makes a motorboating sound. Dixie howls a protest, going bright red again, and he sets her down, hooting with laughter. Then he runs in a circle around her, crouched down to fluff the edge of her puffy black dress as she swats at him, trying to keep her skirt down so he doesn’t expose her thighs. When he’s done clowning for the crowd, giving them something to cheer and laugh about, he claps and then bows, leading them in another round of ovation that’s for him as much as Dixie.
I wait for Dixie to show her fury that he took the attention off her and hogged the spotlight, but she’s looking at him like she’d jump on his dick if given half a chance. I shake my head and frown at him, but he just gives me a wide grin, challenging me to do something about it. Then he struts off stage and is immediately swarmed by a dozen Dolce girls hoping he’ll grant them their greatest wish and let them warm his bed for the night. Prom night is meaningful in our circles, so whoever ends up on his dick will elevate her own position at school. Even if he’s not prom king, he’s still a respected member of the elite, and factoring in his charisma and tragic family history, his status is hardly suffering this semester.
Dixie retreats from the spotlight at last, looking a bit awkward at having stood up there so long. “Are you mad?” she whispers as we descend the stairs.
“Why would I be mad?”
“Because Duke touched my boobs,” she hisses.
“Duke’s touched everybody’s tits,” I point out.
“Oh,” she says, looking disappointed that I’m not going to go all caveman on her like Royal Dolce would. “You’re not jealous?”
I shrug. “No.”
“Dixie,” squeals Susanna, running over with her cousin and a couple other girls she sat with in her pre-queen days. “Congratulations! I knew you were going to win. Remember, I said that on the first day of school. We all voted for you. We’ve always got your back, even if we don’t hang out anymore.”
“Oh, thanks,” Dixie says, giving her former friends an apologetic smile as the Walton twins pull her away to fawn over her.
“Come dance with us,” Harper says to me, dragging me onto the floor as the DJ starts back up. “Unless you’re too high and mighty to mix with commoners now, King Colt.”
“Too good for you? Never,” I say, relaxing for the first time since I emerged from my stupor on stage. “Not to mention you’d probably kick my ass if I tried that shit.”
She grins up at me with her painted red lips, looking hot as hell and somehow edgy, despite her polished wardrobe. “I have been known to put kings on their knees,” she says, balling her hands into fists and giving my shoulder a quick jab.
“Whoa, watch where you throw those things, Appleteeny,” I say, raising my hands and grinning back at her. “You can’t be waving a deadly weapon around in the middle of prom like that.”
“Aww, my bad,” she says. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You know I’m a lover, not a fighter.”
“Go love on someone else,” Royal says, pulling Harper into his arms and glowering at me. She links her hands behind his neck and starts to move against him, and he holds her tiny waist in his huge hands. They gaze into each other’s eyes and immediately disappear into their own world, everyone around them forgotten.
Which leaves me with Gloria Walton, who’s swaying to the music with her eyes closed, one hand toying with the edge of her skirt while the fingers of the other rest in the hollow at the base of her throat. She no longer looks like the sassy, sexy pinup girl she did on stage, when she was putting on a show for the audience, performing like she did all through high school.
She looks beautiful and tragic dancing by herself, the fallen queen now abandoned and bullied, shamed for her existence and the things she did to survive the cruel world of the elite.
I step closer, not wanting to interrupt whatever bittersweet memory grips her in its teeth in this moment. I watch her swaying alone, the swirling lights overhead caressing her smooth cheek, her long lashes, those pink lips that can bring a man to his knees with a single smirk.
When the song finally ends, I slip my hands around her waist, pulling her in before some other guy notices that she’s the hottest thing here by a mile, that her strong thighs are bare and achingly touchable, that her tits are fucking phenomenal in that dress. That she’s on her own, here for the taking, vulnerable enough for some opportunistic asshole like Maverick to slide in and snatch her up.
“You’re going to get us in trouble,” she says, but she doesn’t pull away.
“Way too fucking late for that.”
“I told you to stop coming to the club.”
“And I told you I can’t.”
“Can’t?” she asks, quirking a brow. “Or won’t?”
“I’ll stop coming if you stop dancing.”
“Gotta make that coin.”
“Says the girl who threw ten thousand dollars back in my lap last time I came in.”
“I’m not a whore.” Her eyes grow hard, and she glares up at me even as her body moves closer, teasing me with its warmth, sending shivers down my spine.
“I know that,” I say quietly, pulling her in until we’re pressed together.
“Then give me a reason that’s not cash.”
Our gazes lock, and for a minute, we dance without speaking, our bodies flush against each other but not the way they are in the privacy of the Envy room. Here, they whisper instead of roaring.
I’m too fucked up to figure out what she means right now, since she’s told me over and over that the reason she’s dancing there is for money. Now she’s telling me to give her something else. I’ll work it out later, when I’m sober—if I remember this conversation at all. I try to replay her words a few times to lock them into my mind, but I know the pills have taken as many memories as the head injury by now.
“I’m surprised you showed up,” I say after a minute, deciding to change the subject to something I don’t have to memorize for later.
“The admin said that as last year’s prom queen, I was required to pass along the crown, and I’m on thin ice already, so I didn’t want to risk one more mark on my record.”
“And you didn’t wear a leather jacket and combat boots in protest?”
“Sometimes it’s nice to feel like a girl.”
“You always feel like a girl to me,” I say, tightening my hands on her hips and pulling her tighter against me.
“Excuse me.”
The blade of Dixie’s sharp voice slices me from my slurry haze, and I look up to find her standing with feet planted, arms crossed, glaring death rays at us. The elite squad stands behind her like an army, one Walton twin on either side of her. I release Gloria’s soft body, my heart hammering as I stare at them, realizing what I did, the danger I put her in.
And suddenly, in a single, bright flash of understanding, I know why she did what she did, why she lied all that time. I know, and I forgive her, because the thought of them grabbing her and doing what they did to her in the basement that day as punishment for stepping out of line makes a murderous rage rise inside me like I’ve never felt before. I may be a lover, but fuck with the wrong girl, and I’ll fight to my last, dying breath.
“Are you really all over my man in the middle of prom?” Dixie asks. “Talk about trash.”
“Yeah, let’s talk about it,” Gloria says, tossing back her blonde hair that she wears loose now, tonight styled into soft waves instead of the usual straight curtain. She squares her shoulders and faces off against the entire group like she’s not one bit intimidated by the handful of huge athletes in tuxes and the hateful girls hovering around them like flies on shit.
“He’s my date,” Dixie points out. “I’m the queen, and he’s my king. You just can’t resist ruining my one night, can you?”
Gloria snorts. “One night? You’re always the queen. You always were. Even when I wore the crown, you were the one with the power, untouchable even to the Dolces. You should have been at their table all along, not me.”
“That’s true,” Dixie says. “You were always trash. So get your nasty ass away from my man. He belongs at my side.”
“Don’t you mean under your thumb?” Gloria asks. “That’s where you’ve kept him all this time. Maybe if he knew the truth about you, he’d finally escape.”
Dixie’s gaze flies to me for one split second, and I catch the alarm in it before she turns it back on Gloria, her eyes narrowing into slits. “Why are you still here? Isn’t the trash supposed to take itself out?”
“You might want to stop throwing that word around,” Harper says, stepping up beside Gloria. “Since I identify as trash, and I take offense to you using it as an insult.”
“Don’t,” Gloria hisses, but Harper ignores her and stands tall, which isn’t easy for a girl who barely clears five feet. Now Gloria’s not alone in the middle of the circle on the dancefloor where everyone has stepped back to watch, though.
Harper stares Dixie down with cool resentment, refusing to bow to the queen or buy into the status quo as usual. “Go on,” she says. “You’re the cleverest girl in school, aren’t you? So why don’t you use that big brain to think of something to call her that won’t get my back up too.”
“And mine,” I say, stepping up on Gloria’s other side.
There’s a murmur through the crowd, and more people push in, always eager to witness drama among the elite.
“You’re taking her side?” Dixie asks, her eyes wide, her lip trembling.
“I don’t need anyone on my side,” Gloria says, stepping forward so she’s alone again. “And I don’t need to fight for a man.”
“Clearly you do,” Dixie says. “Since you can’t get a man of your own.”
Gloria’s sisters and a few of their friends snicker, and Gloria falters.
Dixie’s eyes light with a predatory gleam as she senses victory. In that moment, I wonder how I ever wanted her, how I ever thought she was anything but a conniving, evil snake. She looks like a killer going in for the death blow—and getting off on it.
“That’s why you had to come after mine,” Dixie goes on. “You couldn’t even get that lowlife dirtbag from the tattoo place to stay interested. I heard he dumped you.”
“We weren’t dating,” Gloria grits out.
“Oh my god, so you were faking it for show?” Dixie asks through an incredulous giggle. “I’ve never heard something so pathetic in my life. Imagine thinking you could save face by flaunting Maverick .”
The Walton twins laugh scornfully at their sister, like they weren’t gagging over Maverick’s dick on New Years. But their interest in a rough gangster from the other side of the tracks is forgotten as they tighten ranks in solidarity with their new queen.
“I’m not flaunting anyone,” Gloria says. “That’s more your style. If I was going to be with a man, it would be one who wanted to flaunt me. ”
“Then get off mine,” Dixie shouts, stamping her foot.
“Take him,” Gloria says with a shrug. “I don’t fight for men. If he wanted to, he would.”
“And he wants me,” Dixie says smugly, stepping forward and grabbing my arm. She drags me across the space to her, wrapping both arms around me and giving Gloria a gloating smile.
“Cool,” Gloria says. “Glad we established that. Colt’s a big boy. He can make his own decisions, and he chose you. You win. So get out of my face. I don’t have time for your petty bullshit.”
“Why?” Dixie asks. “You got somewhere to be? Is a John waiting upstairs in one of the rooms? How much do you make, anyway? I’m surprised anyone would pay for something so gross and used, but then, I guess guys with diseases must be desperate.”
“I’m sure you’d know,” Gloria says. “Seeing as how you’re the queen of desperate.”
“That’s rich, coming from a girl who’s so desperate for dick she let guys run trains on her.”
“At least I was never so desperate that I let a guy put a bag over my head because he was so disgusted by my face he couldn’t get it up.”
Dixie lets out a shriek of rage and lunges at Gloria, slapping her across the face so hard that her head whips around, her hair flying. “You think being blonde makes you better than me?” she snarls with even greater ferocity. “I’m the queen. You’re nothing! You’re not popular. You don’t have a boyfriend. You don’t have friends. You’re not even skinny anymore.”
“Oh, damn,” Duke crows, and he starts laughing, covering his mouth like he’s trying to hide it. After a second, everyone else joins in, like they were just waiting for the signal.
Gloria stands there looking stunned for a second, her hand covering the cheek Dixie just slapped. Then she spins on her heel and shoves through the laughing, taunting crowd and storms out.
“I can’t believe you took her side,” Dixie says, wheeling on me, apparently ready to start in on her next victim now that she’s gotten rid of the competition.
“Someone had to.”
“You’re really going to choose your bully over the girl who’s stood by you all these years? Who sat by your bed and nursed you back to health when you were in the hospital, at your lowest? How could you do that? I’m your girlfriend, Colt.”
“You’re a bitch.”
She draws back, her eyes wide with shock. Then they narrow, her nostrils flaring with fury. “You’ll be sorry,” she swears. “With the way she’s let herself go, she’ll be as fat and ugly as me by graduation. And then where will you be? Beauty is fleeting. The loyalty I have, that lasts forever.”
“Beauty isn’t just what you look like,” I say. “It’s what you do. Pretending it’s purely physical is just an excuse for being a shitty, selfish person who sells out the people you claim to care about the moment you see an advantage in it for yourself. That’s not loyalty. It’s duplicitousness. You’ll always be ugly because you’re ugly inside, Dixie.”
I turn and push my way through the crowd, searching for Gloria as I go. I step into the hallway and glance in either direction. No sign of her.
She’s gone.