Chapter 13 Sky #2
The only thing no one had touched with a ten-foot pole was me and the journey King and I were on.
I appreciated my friend’s sensitivity. These truths should come from me, and there was no better time than a cousin slumber party.
Since I’d lived here for a while myself, and sometimes stayed the night if Chance and I decided to split a bottle of wine or had margaritas on taco night, I had sleep clothes to change into.
Once Ego had put on a pair of sleep pants and a t-shirt, we’d come to his room to talk.
While he finished his giddy little dance, I shuffled through my brain trying to decide what to tell him and what to leave out.
He’d promised to play a benefit and had a few other responsibilities to attend to, so he’d be leaving Willowhope tomorrow.
I was sure he’d told me that before, and I felt like a jerk that I’d gotten so caught up in my own stuff that I’d forgotten.
At least we’d had tonight together. I’d have been gutted for him to go before we’d had this last sleepover.
He said he’d be back within a few weeks, but I knew the demands of his schedule.
His life wasn’t exactly set up for him to disappear to a small town like ours.
It was entirely possible that once one of his handlers got their hands on him, he wouldn’t be back until well after the mini-castle was completed.
Ego jumped onto the bed, body hopping twice on the mattress before he stared at me curiously. “What’s got you so pensive?”
Snorting, I shook my head and leaned back against the headboard. “What are you talking about? I was just watching you.”
He shook his head, and I was glad to see all the color back in his cheeks. He looked healthy again. Despite Buck’s and Stevie’s teasing hauntings, he also looked more rested than when he’d first arrived in town. Reaching out my hand, I gripped his wrist. “I’ve missed you.”
His fingers wrapped around my wrist in return. “Not as much as I’ve missed you.”
We sat in the silence like that for a minute. Letting our pasts and the secrets we held for each other settle between us. “You’ll come back soon, right?”
“A few weeks at the most. Maybe a month. I promise.” He smiled, letting me go and sitting with his back to the headboard.
Matching his pose, I bumped his arm with mine. “I’m sure you will. After all, ghosts.”
He chuckled huskily. “Right?”
Resting his head on my shoulder, he mumbled, “So tell me the rest. Whatever it was you were all being so careful not to tell me all night.”
I huffed. “That obvious, huh?”
“Not really, but I noticed that no one brought you or King up at all. Yet, I’ve seen you and Chance or you and Elyse have intense conversations, and King has mysteriously gone from hanging out at the pond in his free time to showing up here every morning for fencing lessons with Jetty. ” He giggled. “From YouTube.”
I snickered. “You can learn how to do anything with YouTube.”
“Mhm. You don’t have to tell me twice.”
Which was true. His heavenly voice, along with him watching hours and hours of tutorials and becoming an expert with facial designs and diva makeup had given him his original stage notoriety. Last I heard, even with his success, he still applied his own makeup for his shows and interviews.
He poked me in the stomach, making me think of how many times we’d been in this same position as little kids.
One of us giving the other a safe space.
How that had morphed into my relationship with Chance, doing the same thing.
How we were all here for each other, to talk, to listen, to bear each other’s burdens and rejoice for one another’s accomplishments.
Yeah, my cousin was just as much my champion as Chance was.
And I was his. Maybe I wouldn’t tell all of it tonight since I didn’t know what this Reign family line stuff was all about or what exactly had been weighing on King earlier, but the dreamwalking and the birthmarks and Patchy?
These were things Ego needed to know. Deserved to know.
So I told him. Laid it all out there.
By the time I was done, he sat next to me, clutching a pillow to his chest and watching me wide-eyed. “Holy shit, cuz. This is all…phew.” He shook his head. “And I thought ghosts being real was epic. You’re like a freakin’ super hero.”
I snickered. “More like King is.”
Ego dropped the pillow, crowding into my space and gripping both of my hands in his tightly. “No. The two of you together. Who knows how many people you’ll get to rescue? That’s so much cooler than what I do.”
It was my turn to get intense. “That’s not true. You help people every day.”
He pffted.
“I mean it, Ego. Your music touches people. Your lyrics mean something. Behind the glitz and glam, there’s so much depth. There’s strength, survival, hope. You have no idea how far your message goes.”
A tear slipped down his cheek. “You think so?”
“I know so.”
He sniffed, pushing back the moisture glistening on his eyelids, then shook his head. “A soulmate, huh?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows.
This was his way. When things got too heavy, when I got too close to the foundation of where his music came from, the heartbroken muse of his inner-child, he joked around.
It was okay. I got it. Besides, all this supernatural stuff was mind-blowing and intoxicating in its own right, but it was King that stole the show for me.
So pulling Ego back next to my side, I snuggled in for a giggly gossip session about my man—the one who made my heart skip a beat, the soulmate who’d been chosen for me at birth, the person who’d stolen my heart, and I hoped more than anything that he planned on keeping it.
We talked until dawn, knowing the new day would be long, but it was worth it for both of us. Then he did yoga with my found-family and me, which was incredible, having him and his energy there by my side. It felt right somehow.
When the car arrived to drive him back to NYC, I prayed that the next time I saw him I’d have even more revelations for him—like what it meant to be a Reign descendant.