Page 6 of Go Luck Yourself (Royals and Romance #2)

I do not feel terrible when I wake up the next day. Mild headache, slight nausea, but overall not as shitty as I expected.

I shower in the room’s ensuite. The water scalds away most of my headache—until I see the paint on the back of my hand.

My eyes follow the lines of the multicolored strokes.

That whole thing last night had to have been a power play, and I was strung out enough to waltz right into it. He remembered I thought he was hot and used his… hotness against me. He was in his element, that painting studio; I fell into his hand. Literally.

Well, not today.

I’m halfway through pulling on my running gear—the schedule says to change here, not at the race, then meet in the foyer at eight—when I smell… breakfast? Bacon, for sure.

My slight nausea goes oh-ho, we are not so slight anymore and rampages up my throat.

I shove my fist against my mouth. For fuck’s sake, do not barf before a run.

I follow the noxious fumes to the door, open it, and find a breakfast tray on the threshold.

A quick glance tells me the hall is empty; it’s barely six thirty, and while I’d blame my sleeplessness on the time change, it’s entirely because I don’t really sleep anyway and more passed out in restless turmoil for a handful of hours last night.

I grab the tray, knock the door shut with my hip, and deposit the tray on the desk. It has a pitcher of water and, under a metal cloche, I discover a plate piled with thick-cut bacon, scrambled eggs, scorched tomatoes, mushrooms, and a giant scoop of baked beans.

The smell smashes into me like a battering ram.

I slam the cloche back down and rock over the desk with another gag. “Oh, no—”

There’s a note next to the pitcher.

Hangover Cure. DRINK ALL THE WATER.

In that curling, cursive script I recognize from the study room door.

Did he—

Did Loch make me breakfast ?

I swallow again. Hard.

Sending me this is diabolical.

I am not going to throw up. As long as I get out of this room. Like, right now. God, the smell.

Loch is the actual devil.

I’m the first one in the foyer by a long shot, having to escape my room and all, so I catch up with shit I missed on my phone.

A few texts from Coal, making sure I didn’t do anything dumb last night. No comment.

Messages from Wren too, updating me on today’s schedule and expectations.

More in the group chat between Coal and Iris, Coal saying how he’s started planning for his combined I am Santa now slash announcing the winter Holidays collective party. Iris jumps in with how her sister hasn’t finalized a date for the wedding that was supposed to happen weeks ago between her and the Valentine’s Day Prince, but Easter prep is swamping them all anyway, so whenever the Christmas party happens she’ll try to make an appearance.

Coal’s already responded that he’ll hold off on any parties until after Easter so Iris can not only be there, but also be mentally present.

I assure Wren I’m on top of things— I’m ready to go early, I’ll be on my best behavior; I’ll finish up the latest meeting talking points today too, what else can I do?

Then I fire off a few texts to Coal— do you need anything for the party; the missing joy hasn’t caused problems with the other leaders yet has it?

I click on the last of my notifications—

—and every hangover symptom intensifies in a sickening furor.

Mom texted me.

A sour tang burns the back of my tongue, head pounding angrily.

It’s a photo. The one Coal said he’d gotten from Dad before I left for Ireland, of him and Mom at a pool bar.

MOM

MOM

Kristopher, you obviously didn’t see this photo your father sent. If you had, I know you would have responded.

Your brother did not respond either.

Why haven’t you spoken to him yet?? You said you would get him to talk to me.

Your father is here. Nicholas is the only one who still refuses to move on. You know how much I love all of you, and you haven’t gotten through to him yet.

You are behaving petulantly!!

Why can’t you both be happy for me??

My hand shakes, and that shaking travels up my arm.

If I don’t acknowledge her, she’ll keep texting.

She’ll keep texting anyway.

I click on the response window.

Saw the pic. You look happy.

Well, Dad does. Mom looks annoyed, honestly. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her happy in my life.

I pocket my phone before I can see if my message is read, the ache of nausea churning now and my headache on a warpath.

A lifeline comes when footsteps precede someone entering the foyer. Something else to focus on, thank god—

I flick my eyes up too fast. The room rocks violently and I squeeze my eyes shut.

Goddamn headache. Goddamn nausea.

Goddamn texts.

“You have tattoos?” I hear Loch say.

Well. He’s a distraction, at least.

I tip my head and squint up at him. No pulse of nausea this time. Baby steps.

He’s outfitted for the run too. Black tights, his thumbs hooked in the sleeves of a form-fitting gray fleece hoodie, the color almost the exact shade as his eyes. His beanie is a bright, cheery green with a white shamrock.

I stare at his tights. His sleeves. I’ve got tights under loose running shorts, but my baggy tank suddenly seems like a dumb idea, given that the 5k is outside and it’s going to be cold. At least I thought to shove my hair up into my own beanie.

Mine is far superior. It has a T-rex in a Santa hat eating a small group of fleeing elves.

“Yeah?” I roll his words back through my head as I connect the way his rather severe stare is hopping from one of my shoulders to the other. “Oh. Yeah. A few.”

Ha, a few. I spend so much time at a tattoo parlor in Cambridge that I should have a plaque on the chair.

The tattoo on my left shoulder is an abstract swirl of black and gray tribal designs. It was my first one, and after I got it, Iris mocked me ruthlessly, saying how if I was going to get art permanently inked on my body, it should be meaningful and not the same base-ass tribal stuff most gym-rat dudebros get.

I wasn’t even able to argue, because my whole thought process with it had been Oh, tribal swirls, badass, do it.

So for my right half-sleeve, I asked Iris to help me with the design. That one has two pine trees set against snow-covered mountains with wrapping script woven through them. I’m half sure she worked her name into the mountain range somewhere, but I’ve never been able to find it.

Loch leans closer to my right side. “ Once more unto the breach? ” he reads.

Yeah, I should’ve worn sleeves.

My eyes shut again and I rub the skin over my nose. “The product of the year I started university and had way too much freedom and equally too many emotions about said freedom.”

Oh, talking is somehow as bad as looking up quickly.

I bend forward, elbows on my knees, breathing in through my nose, out through my mouth.

Maybe if I get Coal to respond to that photo, she’ll—

No. Stop. I don’t want him to have to deal with her.

This race is going to suck.

“You look ill,” Loch notes.

“Your pillow talk leaves something to be desired, darling.”

He kicks my chair and I choke down a heave.

“Fuck off,” I moan pathetically.

“Did you eat?”

My nausea now has far less to do with whatever alcohol I had last night, but that comment earns him a full, searing glare. “Hilarious.”

“You did na eat? Did you see the tray?”

“Oh, I saw the tray, and your joke was received. What do you want, a medal? You win that round. Now stop talking about food.”

“Christ, but you are a gobshite, aren’t you?”

“A what ?”

“A gobshite,” a new voice says. Finn, walking into the foyer, trailed by Siobhán. Neither are dressed to run, both bundled up in wool coats and scarves. “A fool. What’d he do now?”

“Canna handle his whiskey and thinks he can do this run on an empty stomach,” Loch says.

I cradle my head in my hands. “I’ll be fine. Let’s go. ”

“You won’t be fine. Colm!” Loch ducks out of the foyer.

A different presence hovers over me.

On a deep breath, I stand to face Siobhán.

“He’s na trying to hurt you,” she promises.

“Eh, maybe a wee bit,” Finn adds with a grin.

Loch saunters back in and slams something into my stomach.

My vision goes starry. “Oh my god. I hate you,” I choke out.

“Eat this,” he orders.

A granola bar, a bag of almonds.

Okay, better than baked beans, but—

“And here.” He adds a water bottle into my hands.

“All right, Mom. ”

“I’m serious, Kris. I’ll na have you puking in my car.”

My brain stutters.

On him saying my name.

And a second time, on car. “We’re driving to the race?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Why not use magic to travel there? It’s in Cork, isn’t it?”

“Mm.”

“That’s like a two-hour drive from here!”

“Hence the ungodly hour we’re up.” Finn accepts a travel mug of something steaming that Colm produces. He gives one to Siobhán as well, another to Loch; he has a last one that he tries to hand to me, but Loch snatches it.

“Ah-ah. Food and water first.”

One of my hands is outstretched for the coffee, the other holding the food and water bottle to my chest.

“You’re denying me caffeine,” I state, to be sure I’m understanding what will be put on the police report as my motive.

“Oh, I know how much you love your caffeine, Coffee Shop, but ya need to eat. Water too.”

Inch by inch, I lift my glare to Loch’s face. “Give me. That coffee.”

“Eat. Your food.” He holds my coffee back far enough that I’d have to basically wrestle him to get it.

Siobhán and Finn watch us like they’re at a tennis match. Or the Hunger Games, in Finn’s case.

“Fuck you. Fuck you so much. ” I rip open the granola bar and tear off a bite and chew, and gag, and keep chewing until I swallow. The bite miraculously stays down. I unscrew the water bottle and take a few gulps.

I hate that my stomach does feel a little better. “Have I earned my coffee?”

Loch relinquishes it to me, and I’m so desperate for it that I almost miss the way his voice serrates over the words “Good boy.”

My body jolts.

A spurt of coffee launches out of the mug’s mouthpiece and hits my wrist. The sting of pain from the hot liquid is about a thousand degrees cooler than the gush of napalm that chutes from the base of my skull to my tailbone.

I gape at Loch. “What did you—”

“You do na know how to fight a hangover?” He cuts in like he said nothing of importance, and maybe he didn’t; maybe I misheard boyo. But the scalding of my nerve endings doesn’t think I did. “And you call yourself a Cambridge lad.”

My throat is desert-dry.

I take a long drink of coffee. It doesn’t help.

“I—I know how to treat hangovers,” I stammer.

“Clearly. You seemed to be doing so well for yourself. Did na you ask me to get you a proper cure?”

“I—” No? Not really. I asked him to tell me where Colm was and that was a cover for—

I didn’t even find the St. Patrick’s Day joy meter last night.

FUCK ALL OF THIS.

I clamp my hand around the coffee mug, all that napalm bubbling into anger. I need to move, I need to run, I need to sweat and ache and push myself to dangerous physical limits.

“Can we leave now?” I ask Siobhán. She’s literally the only person in this family I can stand.

Her eyes flash between me and her brother.

And she gets a look on her face. Like she’s connecting something.

But it’s Loch who says, “We’re off.”

He shoves past me to march for the door, his arm bumping my mug.

Another spurt of coffee hits my shirt.

I stand there, glaring into the middle space.

I’m going to commit a murder at a charity 5k family fun run.

That is not how I thought I’d ruin my life. But I’m good with it.

I don’t understand anything about St. Patrick’s Day.

Loch drives us from Castle Patrick to Cork. Loch drives us. Not a staff member. No magic used. The oddness drops into all the other oddities, their empty castle, their lone butler, their absent king.

What is going on?

We ride the long two hours in silence, me in the back with Siobhán, Finn up front with Loch. The two of them talk, and Siobhán chimes in occasionally, but I sit there and eat my almonds and keep my gaze everywhere except on the rearview mirror, the way Loch always seems to know when my eyes land there, because his crash into mine.

The Irish countryside rolls around us, tiny two-lane roads swapping for highways, framed by potent, wet greenery and a rising blue sky that swells to neon and vivid by the time we get to Cork.

Hills descend us into a city split by waterways, the lowering tiers sprinkled with multicolored cottages and buildings in red, peach, fuchsia, and blue. Flags and streamers and pennants wave from everywhere, a veritable assault of St. Patrick’s Day festivity, that green, white, and orange flag plastered to walls and windows, cars and streets. We weave through town, cross a bridge, and follow a stream of people that grows and grows.

Loch parks in a garage and we pour out. It’s freezing, but I’m too much of a stubborn ass to admit I fucked up with my choice of shirt, so I blow into my hands and actively suppress my shivers as we take stairs out of the garage.

I twist alongside Loch in the stairwell. “I thought the point of all these events was to be seen by the Holiday press.”

Loch arches an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“So why the private drive? Are you trying to avoid them?”

“Oh, they’ll find us, no problem.”

“Then… I’m confused.”

“That’s na even a wee bit surprising, boyo.”

“Screw you.”

We hit the ground level and a park opens around us, foliage lush and ripe even in the dead of March. It’s like all the plant life surges back to riotous emerald for this. Did the King use some of St. Patrick’s Day’s magic for it?

Tents and booths are speckled throughout the park, more vibrant punches of orange and teal and pink. Signs are wedged into the grass, dozens of them, all advertising Green Hills Distillery. Why does that sound—

That’s the distillery King Malachy owns.

I frown. The prevalence of the signage makes it look more like a festival for Green Hills rather than a St. Patrick’s Day charity race.

Finn pushes between me and Loch. “I’ll be in the speaker’s tent. I assume you’re gonna miss my speech?”

“Always, lovey.” Loch gives an insolent smile.

She flips him off over her shoulder as she weaves into the crowd.

“Speech?” I ask.

Siobhán loops her arm with Loch’s, her nose already pink in the chill air. “Finn always gives a wee talk. She’s on the charity’s board.”

“And every year, she manages to make a worthy cause sound dull as old scissors,” Loch says.

“Be nice,” Siobhán counters. “ I’m gonna support my only sister.”

“That’s why I have two of you. So I do na have to be so loyal.”

She smacks the back of his head. “Keep on with that attitude, Lochlann, and I will na be at the finish line to cheer you. I’ll be there for Kris.”

Loch raises his eyebrows. “Pardon?”

I smirk.

“Oh, maybe I should do that anyway.” Siobhán’s smile is toying. “I might hit a shop and make up a big lovely banner with his name just to see ya get that crease in your forehead. Oh, yeah, that’s the one.”

My smirk blows into a wide grin.

Loch shoves her. “Get off, maggot.”

She skips away, hands in the pockets of her deep green coat, blonde hair a splash of light as she vanishes into the festival.

I lean towards Loch. “So, in case there’s any confusion, I like her best.”

I say it to egg him on, as per usual, but something retracts in his eyes. Or hardens, maybe? It’s a shocking enough change that I pull back and feel like I should apologize.

Which is annoying.

“Donna be goin’ after my sister,” he barks. His accent churns so thick that I almost think he’s speaking in Irish.

“I… had no plans to.”

“Well. That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said this whole trip.”

“Your accent is almost unintelligible when you’re really angry.”

The skin along his cheekbones goes as red as his beard. “I am not angry,” he enunciates.

“Okay, that’s worse.”

“What’s worse?”

“You not having any accent at all.”

He rolls his eyes. “Let’s get signed in.”

The race tent is set up not far into the park, and other runners are queued in front of it, waiting for bibs. We join them, and more oddness cracks through—we’re standing in a line. I get that there are tons of normal people around, but shouldn’t there be an area for the St. Patrick’s Day ruling families? No one’s even calling out in greeting to Loch. Not that that’s too unusual, this being such a big event, but surely someone here knows the Crown Prince of St. Patrick’s Day?

And there’s so many signs for Green Hills Distillery. A massive one hangs on the back wall of this sign-in booth, the logo an illustration of gently sloping emerald fields. The slogan is written around it in bold, square font: Tradition. Heritage. Legacy.

My nose curls. Those words all basically mean the same thing?

“What is with your uncle’s distillery?” I ask.

Loch shifts on his feet, glaring at the sign ahead of us. “The King sponsors this event. Kind of him, eh?”

“I thought he was only going to be at the Dublin parade. Is he coming to this event too?”

Loch laughs. It’s as cold as the wind.

“Are you going to expand on that?” I step with him when the line moves. “Why your uncle’s so absent? Why we drove here instead of”—I cut a glance at all the normal people—“instead of using other methods ? Why your castle’s so damn empty?”

Loch folds his arms over his chest and stares off into the festival, expression shuttering.

I grunt. “Fine. I’m sure Siobhán will tell me.”

That yanks his focus back to me so assertively my back seizes, shooting me upright, at attention.

“Don’t fuck my sister,” he snarls.

I balk. “We went from me maybe flirting with her to fucking her? Again, I have no plans to. Flirt or fuck. But shouldn’t Siobhán be the one to have a say in this?”

“Not if her say is choosing a pompous pretty boy arsehole who struts around like he’s god’s gift.”

I don’t miss a beat. “Aw, you think I’m pretty?”

He doesn’t either. “Do you still think I’m hot?”

That shuts me up. Briefly. “Do you want me to, if I was flirting with your sister?”

His jaw tenses. Silence falls again, and the line moves forward, carrying us with it. But that silence lengthens, grows heavier, pushing in an uncomfortable knot against my chest.

“She’s not my type, anyway,” I add.

Loch cuts a look at me, one brow cocked. “What is your type, then?” he asks slowly. Then adds, “Since my sister is na good enough for you.”

“You’re mad I’m not interested in her now? And you said I’m infuriating.”

“Bet you go for the upper crust Cambridge sort. Trust funds and their da’s credit card. Is that what you thought I was?”

“Yep. You caught me. I’m superficial to the max. A materialistic douche, inside and out. But you’re assuming I was interested in you.”

“It was na an assumption. You told me so.”

My cheeks heat. “As an artist, you should know the difference between appreciating an aesthetic and actual interest.”

Loch snorts. “You did na answer the question.”

The line shifts forward.

What is your type, then?

“The fuck if I know,” I mutter.

“You do na know?”

I grimace at him. He holds, showing what could be sincerity.

He really gives a shit? Why?

“I have a friend I thought I was in love with,” I say, and immediately hate myself for telling him this at all. But I’m supposed to be bonding with him, right? Luring him into something like friendship. “And it was a whole years-long pining fiasco. It’d been… it’d been something that was supposed to work. We’re both Holiday royals, prince and princess happy ever after shit.”

Loch scratches the back of his neck. “Do I know her?”

“Iris Lentora. Easter.”

“Ah. I’ve heard of her.”

“Anyway. I got drunk. Confessed my feelings. Realized halfway through that I was in love with the idea of a fairy tale ending, but I wasn’t in love with her. So that’s my type, I guess. Fantasies.”

All those fantasies have someone else in them, though. But I have no clue what type of person I want them to be—I only know what type of person they should be. Someone kind and calm because I’m such a mess, and I need that balance. Iris was the blueprint; I think I was interested in my other two exes because they reminded me of her, and she was who I was supposed to want, so I went after them for that familiarity. But I don’t remember being upset when it ended with them, and even this mess with Iris—I miss her friendship, which we’re repairing, but I was never brokenhearted. Just humiliated and ashamed.

Have I ever been interested in any of the people I’ve been with? Or did they… fit a mold?

I refuse to keep talking about myself in this capacity so, distantly, down a long, echoing tunnel, I ask, “And what’s Prince Lochlann’s type? Snobbish and endless credit cards?”

We’re next in line, the group in front of us arguing over who gets what bib number.

Loch chuckles. “Dead on. Spoiled Cambridge lads with trust fund money to burn.”

“I don’t buy that for a second.”

His eyebrows go up.

“Because you think I’m spoiled and stuck up,” I explain, “and you treat me like you want to strangle me with my own intestines half the time—”

“Lovely image, that.”

“—so I honest to god cannot imagine you giving the time of day to a guy who’s spoiled and superficial. I think the stress of being in a relationship with someone like that would give you an ulcer.”

“I’m Irish, boyo. Talking shite is how we flirt.”

“What kind of guy are you into, then? For real? What kind of man would sweep Prince Lochlann off his feet?”

There’s a pause. Long enough that I know I don’t imagine it. It drags across that spot on the back of my hand.

But his humor slides away in an abrupt rush. “Certainly not hopeless romantics like your sorry arse. That’s what you are? A hopeless romantic?”

“I guess—”

“So you will stay away from Siobhán.”

I recoil. “Jesus, the more you order me around like that, the more it makes me want to woo her to piss you off.”

Loch doesn’t say anything. He sure as hell looks like he wants to, like there are a hundred threats rolling through his head and he can’t decide on one.

The group in front of us leaves and Loch shoots forward to accept a clipboard from a race attendant. I reach for one too, but he smacks my hand away and scribbles out a form for me.

“What is your problem?” I snap.

He attaches one bib to his sweater and slams another against my chest, arching over me as he presses the paper to my thin tank top.

“Cover up that coffee stain on your shirt, again, ya clumsy arse.”

“ You bumped me this time—”

“I have a job to do. Stay away from me ’til the race.”

And he cuts off into the crowd. Leaving me there, holding that bib, scowling after him.

Is he seriously mad about me and Siobhán?

There is no me and Siobhán.

Jesus motherfucking Christ in a shithole.

I stick the bib to my tank—Malachy’s distillery has a logo on this too, god, overkill—and dive after him.

As I elbow my way into the crowd, I spot the first group of Holiday reporters clustered in with regular ones. I recognize some from the events they covered in Christmas. A guy from Holiday Herald; a reporter and a photographer from 24 Hour Fête. They’re hanging back like they do when we’re all in public, which is a relieving buffer, that they can’t be all up in my face without arousing suspicion and breaking the keep our worlds separate and private rules.

But they spot me, and they spot Loch ahead of me, and I watch them take shots of us as I follow him.

The path he takes weaves deeper into the festival, behind the race registration tent and away from the gaggle of reporters. When I get about two yards behind him, we’re lost among normal people and I’m close enough to call out to him, but he slows his pace. Here is where the festival goers congregate, kids darting between legs and people milling around booths that sell food and hot drinks. Signs for Green Hills Distillery are rampant, and there’s a giant tent farther down hawking bottles of its whiskey.

But the booth Loch ducks into displays rich maroon wood carved into sea creatures. He goes right up to an older guy and they exchange friendly hugs before talking animatedly, hands waving, all smiles.

I stop a few paces outside the tent, too far to hear what’s being said, and I’m unsure of why I even care to catch up with him.

But I stand there. Watching like a creep as they chat, then Loch nods goodbye and heads to the next tent, this one selling watercolors.

The process repeats: he greets a person, I’m guessing the artist; they talk and laugh; then he heads to the next tent, and so on.

Coal can often be found bouncing from person to person at our events. He knows absolutely everyone’s names and random facts about their lives. So this could be that, and these people could be linked to Loch’s court somehow.

Something doesn’t sit right, though.

Why isn’t Loch making sure reporters see him interact with people? My whole apology was to prove that he isn’t the irresponsible, scandalous prince the headlines say, but he didn’t even stop to let the Holiday press get any shots of us at the race tent, and he hasn’t once glanced around to see if they’re nearby now. They aren’t.

I let him pull ahead in the crowd, losing him in the people and noise.

My sternum tightens and I rub it absently.

I could ask one of the people he’s talked to what he’s doing. But what if they aren’t part of the Holiday world? Then I’m the weirdo stalking this guy for no good reason.

Or, here’s an idea: I could ask Loch himself.

Psh. Hell no.

I angle for the speaker’s tent to find Siobhán and see if she’ll give me answers, but an announcer calls all racers to the starting line.

Later, then.

The race begins on a blocked-off road that runs parallel to a wide river, its water a flat, still mirror for the swath of blue sky. The opposite bank shows the descending tiers of hills that wove us down into Cork, and the route ahead is lined with ivy-wrapped trees that cut halos of shadow through the piercing sun.

I fall in with the other racers, stretching and jogging in place. It helps warm me where I’m still freezing, but I don’t feel it as much.

I do, however, feel him come up next to me and begin stretching too.

I don’t say anything.

Siobhán and Finn are off to the side with the spectators. Siobhán gives me a thumbs-up; Finn sees it and elbows her to stop.

A starting gun pops.

“Don’t trip, boyo,” Loch says and takes off.

I bolt after him.

It’s a 5k; it’s absolutely idiotic to lead at a dead sprint.

He isn’t being idiotic.

Until I jog up alongside him.

He increases his pace.

So I do, too.

We bob through the other runners, who throw us confused looks as we gain speed.

First him a little.

Then me a little more.

He passes me, so I push faster, and soon we’re well ahead of the other racers, and I’m definitely no longer cold, sweating sheets in the thick, chill air.

The river path bends to the right, snaking through a cluster of buildings so damn quaint I forget I’m supposed to be kicking his ass and he gains a few yards on me.

I shove on, lungs burning, and fuck, I am going to hate myself tomorrow. Seems to be a reoccurring pattern in Ireland.

The road inclines and I can’t stop my gasping, winded moan.

Loch glances over at me. He’s sweat-slicked too, just as winded, but his smirk is cutting. “Struggling?”

“You wish.” Oh god this hill can screw itself.

“First whiskey,” Loch pants, “then hangovers. Now running. What can you handle?”

Oh-ho. Ooohhhhh , that’s it.

I break into a sprint and we’re not even halfway through the race yet. Loch huffs at my burst of speed and matches me, and we crest the hill as it finally levels out. Rowhouses blow past us, the river on our left at the base of an ivy-covered hill, and we run like we’re being chased by something, like we’re both absolute morons.

The path curves and a castle pops up on our left. Looks like it’d normally be a tourist stop, but a water table is set up in front of its closed gates with a few race volunteers already holding paper cups out for us.

“Blackrock Castle,” Loch wheezes as he snatches one, downs it, and nods his thanks.

I bypass the water. “You sound tired.”

“Just getting started.” Loch cuts an accusatory look at me. “You didn’t drink, boyo.”

“You can take”—I have to break to gasp—“each time you call me boyo ”—smack talk while sprinting, all of this is a bad idea—“and choke on them.”

Loch laughs.

It’s bright and shattering and real, not weighed down by the weirdness of our fight earlier, and as we leave the castle to glide down into a parking lot, the path drops. I see it descend, but that information doesn’t make it to my brain, sticking against the dam of his laugh.

I trip head over ass and go crashing down the road.