Page 9 of Nevermore (A Cruel Love #1)

SEVEN

REIGN

I always loved pools.

I know it’s dumb but there’s something about the act of floating on the water’s surface that’s so cool. And knowing how to swim? Even cooler. You’re literally submerged but somehow in control of your body. You’re completely surrounded but nothing is actually keeping you still.

Plus it’s peaceful. The few times I’ve ever gone swimming have been the nicest times.

Mama used to take me to the reservoir when I was younger and I’d spend all day in the water until my skin pruned and I got the sniffles.

Even though we’re close, she worked a lot, which meant I spent most of my days alone.

Reservoir days were the ones she’d manage to get off her two jobs to spend time with me.

They were special days. Special days in the water where I could float on my back and stare up at the passing finches and enjoy some sweet tea and biscuits afterwards.

I don’t think I like swimming anymore.

I trudge my way out of the pool, shaking despite the fact that it’s a warm June night.

I hold my hat against my chest and my ruined Wranglers slosh with every step I take up the pool stairs.

My head stays dipped down as I pass the snickering teenagers that didn’t offer to help me out or even wonder if I was okay.

They probably think I’m drunk and lost my footing or that the country hick just wanted to take a dip in a million-dollar pool.

Neither of those things are true.

I look over to where Santiago was and don’t see him. It shouldn’t be a surprise he wants nothing to do with me after embarrassing myself. Still, it hurts. For a split second, I thought maybe he would help me, to prove that he’s not as cold and unyielding as I thought him to be.

I guess I was wrong.

“Hey, cowboy!” Kingston slurs as he appears and thumps me on my back. “Enjoy your dip?”

Although I’m not typically someone who’s easily bothered by much, I find that I don’t want his hands anywhere fucking near me.

He thinks he’s funny? I’m not a goddamn idiot.

I know he intentionally tripped me so I would fall in.

Why? I have no idea. Maybe messing with the new kid is amusing for him.

Mama used to say bullies do what they do because they’re so unfulfilled with their own lives so they have to take it out on everyone else.

I’ve been raised to turn the other cheek and be the bigger person.

Doesn’t mean I don’t want to punch Kingston in his posh-fucking-face.

I grit my teeth, actually seething. I can’t remember the last time I was this pissed off.

I endured his teasing, his mockery, and he took it a step too far.

I’m all keyed up with rage that I actually shake.

I take a step forward but he doesn’t seem to take it as the threat it is.

But maybe it isn’t even really a threat.

Because I don’t do anything.

“Can’t take a joke?” he laughs as if it’s supposed to make it all better.

I’m two seconds away from disappointing Mama before a voice cuts through my furious fog.

“Jokes need to be funny, Kingston.”

Hudson comes up beside us with a thick towel. His narrowed eyes cut like steel through his glasses. Even though they’re friends, he stands toe-to-toe with Kingston as if he wants to fight him.

Kingston’s eyes widen with amusement as he takes him in. “Fuck off, man. I didn’t do shit.”

Hudson rolls his eyes and huffs. “Jesus fucking Christ you’re a child.” He turns to me and hands me the towel. “Come on, man. Let’s dry you off.”

Kingston just scoffs and shrugs. He raises his hands in surrender and saunters away, probably to go fuck with someone else for a change.

“Thanks for this,” I mutter as I begin drying myself. Turns out, I can’t really do that all too well while still in my clothes, but the gesture was nice.

“Not a big deal,” Hudson mumbles as he tips his head to the inside of the mansion.

“There’s a laundry room in there. We can get your clothes dry.

” Instead of walking away, he chews on the inside of his cheek as eyes full of pity stare at me.

“I’m sorry about the pool thing. Kingston gets bored easily and can be an asshole about it. ”

“Yeah,” I agree. “I think I just found that out.”

I’m skeptical to follow him into the house but don’t see any other option. I walk behind him with heavy steps. He takes me through the kitchen where even more people stare and we pass them all and head to what seems like a bougie laundry room.

“Here, let me take these,” he says, gesturing for my clothes. “We can throw them in here for a few minutes.”

My cheeks flush. I’ve never been naked in front of someone else and in the middle of a party filled with people I don’t know wouldn’t be my first choice. Plus, that awful skepticism in the goodness of mankind kicks in, and I feel like it may be a trick. “Um, I think I’ll manage.”

“I get it,” he says as he hops onto the dryer. “I wouldn’t want to either. Just know I’m actually trying to help.”

“And I appreciate that.” I shift on my feet, uncomfortably wet and agitated. “It’s been a hard day.”

He snorts in agreement. “I gathered. Living with Santiago can’t be easy.”

I shrug. “It’s not like he did this.”

“You make it too easy,” he says, almost in a sneer, as if personally offended. “I’m not trying to be a dick here, but it’s true.”

And I already knew that but it hits me in a way I wasn’t expecting.

I don’t have big dreams for my future. I liked the life I was living.

I liked lazy Monday nights in the trailer waiting for Mama to come home with Hustlin’ Harry’s famous chicken wing platter.

I was okay graduating with honors but deciding to not go to college.

I was fine with the way everything was turning out.

I was on board with the plan to continue the status quo.

I didn’t need anything better than that.

I came here tonight for Mama. For myself too, I guess.

I wanted to give this my best shot, to embrace my new reality, and to try and make the best of a shitty situation.

But, ironically enough, despite the trailer, the fast food job, and the secondhand clothes, I’ve never felt as small and belittled as I do now.

I was happy.

Was .

The door to the laundry room swings open and two tumbling figures crash into me. They mustn’t have been looking where they were going, too busy with their faces smashed against each other to notice this room was occupied. “Shit! Sorry?—”

My words are cut off when I realize that, of-fucking-course, Santiago is the one that interrupted us. He gives me a look of pure disdain as he roughly disentangles himself from his hook up. “Are you fucking following me?”

I open my mouth to tell him I absolutely wasn’t but no words come out. It’s like they’re stuck in my throat. I’m so goddamn tired, so fucking wet and uncomfortable, and I’ve met way too many people today. I’m just done .

Santiago’s eyes narrow in on Hudson still sitting atop the dryer and he snarls. “Get out.” He pushes the girl he was with out the door without breaking eye contact with his friend. When Hudson doesn’t move, he grits his teeth. “Did you not hear me? I said get out .”

Hudson shrugs and throws me a look I can see through the corner of my eyes as he leaves, but I can’t find it in me to look at him.

So done.

Now that it’s just the two of us, Santiago closes the door behind him and leans on it.

He doesn’t say anything as he takes me in.

Even a decent person would find some ounce of compassion for me.

Hell, even a horrible person would be showing me pity.

Santiago just stares. He’s utterly confusing to me.

One second he doesn’t care, the next I disgust him, and I’m ping ponging between his whims.

I close my eyes when I start to feel the shameful heat of tears. “Can we go home?”

“I wasn’t done,” he says simply, his voice leaving no room for argument. “Stay here if you want. I’ll find you when I’m ready.”

I sniffle and open my eyes. Before he can walk out, I latch onto his arm and pull him back to me. Fuck trying to preserve any ounce of dignity. I let him see it all. My tiredness, my shame, my humiliation. “Please, Santiago. Please take me home. I want to go.”

His dark eyes widen just a touch but not in surprise. He looks between my face and the hand on his arm, cocking his head in interest. “Are you begging, Reign?”

“Y-Yeah,” I stutter through a nod. No sense in trying to mask it as anything else.

He hesitates, looking over his shoulder as if he can see into the other room. He stretches this moment of mortification longer than it needs to be as he thinks. Finally, he shrugs himself out of my grip and opens the door. “Fine.”

He walks out without saying anything else and I let out a sigh of relief. I build up the nerve to go back out there, my only saving grace being that we’re leaving and going home. But then I realize it’s not my home. Not really.

And that’s what makes the first tear fall.