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“You don’t need it,” Theo says, pulling her onto the giant bed. He pulls the electric blanket over her lower torso and tucks her into his side. “Pick a movie, Kitten.”

“While You Were Sleeping,” she says immediately, grinning as she sees the faces we make.

“What the fuck is that?” I ask, looking up the movie. “She pretends to be his fiancée?”

“It’s no different than being married,” she says.

“I’m not pretending,” I reply, getting the movie up on the screen and pulling off my shirt to change. I spend so much time here, Theo has a myriad of our shit in his closet.

I can feel her gaze on me as I undress. My boxers feel too fucking tight, so I pull those off as well as I search the closet for sweatpants and a tank top. I suddenly feel too warm as well.

Rachelle’s gasp as my cock bounces out of my boxers makes Elijah chuckle.

“You could poke someone’s eye out with that,” she says.

“I’m pretty sure he almost did once when he came without warning and it got in my eye,” Elijah says, making me snort as I come back out of the closet fully dressed.

“We were like fourteen and fucking around,” I remember, climbing into bed next to her.

“To be fair, we’d been messing around for awhile, but Elijah’s mouth felt so hot and wet.

Fuck, it was amazing. For some reason, I got weirded out about the thought of him swallowing, so I pulled out and shot my load in his face.

Since he wasn’t expecting it, most of it got in his eye. ”

“Ouch,” she says with a giggle.

“While Jared was cleaning me up, Ignacio walked into the room and fell over laughing. I bet my face looked like a frosted donut, and my eye was watering so badly,” Elijah howls. “It was hysterical.”

Rachelle has a soft smile on her face as I get comfortable beside her.

Hitting the play button for the projector, I lay my head down next to her. I can feel her thinking really hard, and as the credits roll, I ask with my lips against the shell of her ear, “I can feel the steam pouring out of your brain. What wheels are turning in there?”

“It doesn’t make sense if you’re not pretending,” she whispers. “I don’t know what to think.”

“That’s okay,” I murmur. “I’ll just keep showing up for you.”

“We all will,” Theo says.

Rachelle makes it about halfway through the movie before she falls asleep against Theo’s chest.

“Will you grab her laptop for me please?” he asks.

“She’s got a planner too with what’s due when,” Elijah adds.

Nodding, I get up with a last glance at Rachelle and go to her room to hunt down what Theo needs. Her phone is largely ignored, while we take ours everywhere. She’s still an almost dead girl adrift in the world, and I fucking hate that.

Pulling out my phone, I begin making a note of people who could help me in the Kings Society. I need to begin to put myself in a position where I can indebt them to me. One of these days, her secret won’t be able to remain as such, and it’s up to me to ensure she can safely return as herself.

Deep in my thoughts, I shove my phone away to pick up Rachelle’s laptop and planner. I know Mr. Reyes has to also be working on things, so I need to speak with him before I move too far into my plan. It may need to span months to make this happen.

I’m not beyond blackmailing people and inviting Kings Society to our club for the video tapes to do it with. However, a sex tape has never ruined anyone, unless they’re running for some type of government position.

Walking back to the room, I run into Calvin just outside of it.

“Is she alright?” he asks. He doesn’t even need to use her name. There’s only one person he could be asking about.

“She misses Ignacio and Liliana, and we are poor substitutions,” I grunt.

“You’ve had a very rough road,” he observes. Unfortunately, he pulled the full story out of me recently when I told him that Rachelle was moving in with us and that I was married to her now.

I’ve never seen him so disappointed in me, and he’s been with my family since I was a kid. I tend to fuck up often in private.

“We’re working on it,” I promise. “She’s asleep though. I’ll let you know if she gets hungry.”

Nodding, he makes himself scarce as I step into the room. Theo and I work together to roll Rachelle into my arms so he can work, and he begins to go through her emails, school portal, and documents alongside her planner.

“She’s completely caught up,” he mutters. “I’ll write up the resources for her on this last paper, but otherwise she’s begun to work ahead for assignments.”

“Rachelle has always busted her ass for school,” Elijah murmurs.

The movie is turned down so that the background noise will help keep her asleep, and I have to admit I’m kind of committed to see if this guy will wake up from a coma or not.

“If she has nothing else to do, it’s not a surprise that she’s overdoing it.

Do you think she may be ready to start working at the store again? ”

“What if we only do tarot card readings for a few hours?” I suggest. “Working a full shift feels like it could be exhausting. Just the trip to the school wiped her out.”

“I think that could work,” Theo says, his fingers moving across the screen as he formats the resources in the correct way for Rachelle’s paper. She had them loosely linked in another document so she wouldn’t forget anything, making it easy for Theo to do.

“I’m serious about making her understand that this is real,” I say, changing the subject. “We all lost our fucking minds when we lost her a second time to the hospital. We need to get her to understand that we’re all in.”

“I don’t know that I’ll ever get her to forgive me,” Elijah says.

“I didn’t tell you this, but Ignacio told Mr. Reyes what happened the night we buried her.

Rachelle knows it all too because her stepfather chose to tell her.

I was the one who fought the hardest about unburying her. It was so fucking stupid.”

“Your parents traumatized you,” I remind him. “We were fucking kids to begin with. The Kings Society preys on the children of Carlysle Prep to force us to think there’s no other way out of the obligations we’re born into. All of our parents are monsters. Lili’s father is fucking scary.”

“The difference is that we pushed Liliana over the edge to follow in her father’s footsteps so she could deal with Rachelle’s absence,” Theo grunts. “Everyone has a choice, or are forced into unsavory decisions due to circumstance. We aren’t special, but the Kings promised to make us gods.”

“I dressed Rachelle while on my knees, and I’ve never felt so powerful or vulnerable,” I rasp, my hand smoothing her short hair.

“I don’t need other people to worship me.

We can get what we need without it, with fancy lawyers and shit.

I need her to accept that we’re not going anywhere and we’re enough. ”

“Ain’t that the fucking truth,” Elijah says as Theo glances at us.

“Huh. I thought it was just me,” he mutters before going back to work.

Smirking, I play with Rachelle’s hair, allowing the tapping of the keyboard to lull me into a nap.