Page 113 of Gilded Fake

I grit my teeth and I glare at him, but he only answers with an arrogant arch of a brow.

“Are you going to lead me to the front desk of the motel wearing a collar and leash? So everyone thinks we’re freaks, and that you own me?”

“Everyone already knows that.”

Heat throbs between my legs when I reach up and wrap it around my neck, my face flushed with humiliation and arousal.

Colt smirks like he knows how wet this is making me, and how mad it makes me that it does. Then he pats my knee in the most infuriating, condescending way. “Atta girl.”

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epilogue

GRADUATION

Duke Dolce

Royal adjusts the black gown, making sure it sits squarely on my shoulders, then stands back and looks me over. “If Dad was here, he’d be proud of you.”

“Not you?” I ask, cracking a grin so I don’t bust out crying or do some other pussy shit. I shouldn’t be sad anyway. It’s a happy occasion, cause for celebration. The Dolce Dumbass made it through high school.

“I’m proud too,” he says gruffly. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was about to get choked up. Royal doesn’t do that, though. The men in my family are men. Emotions are for the girls and the gays. That’s what Dad always said. When I showed too much of them for his liking, well, he had ways to rid me of the urge.

“Thanks, bro,” I say, holding out a hand to Royal, like it doesn’t matter that someone is proud of me for probably the first time in my entire fucking life. That’s what happens when you’re the family fuck-up, and all the good ones already made it out, so there’s no one left to be proud of but you. “And Dad’s here, even if we can’t see him.”

I feel him. Lingering on, looking over my shoulder, judging. Finding me lacking, as he always did. The family disappointment—that’s my legacy.

I rode with Royal, but I linger a minute, feeling the emptiness all around us where the shapes of those missing shimmer like cut-out mirages in the air.

Dad.

Mabel.

Baron.

“You better get in line before the whole family gets here and mobs you,” Royal says after a pause.

I wonder if he feels it too, but I’m too much of a pussy to ask. So I pull on my cap, tilting it at a rakish angle, and saunter across the lot toward the doors topped with our motto, Inis Origine Pendet. When I reach the entrance, I veer off and circle around the building with a couple other seniors, toward the little stadium where I played football for the past three years. Willow Heights is holding the ceremony outdoors, since all the parents and families can fit into the bleachers, and they think the weather is perfect. They didn’t take into account that it’s as hot as the devil’s ass hole in the sun, and we’re all wearing black.

A pang of loss hits me when I join the other seniors heading for the field. This is it. The last time I’ll step onto the grass where, under the harsh lights every Friday night, I banged chests, tapped asses, and gripped the thighs of triumphant teammates as we hefted them onto our shoulders. Where I slammed into opponents with all the force of fury and frustration I was allowed to unleash here; slid on the wet, sucking ground in the rain and the wet, sweaty bodies in the heat; spent countless hours locked in the heady grip of grunting, pushing, masculine aggression that was every bit as addictive as the tease on the sidelines, where girls danced in skimpy outfits, screamed my name when I scored, and whispered hot, dirty promises in my ears of the things they’d let me do later if we won.

How can anyone celebrate the end of that?

On the field, I wasn’t a fuck-up. I was good. I was needed. I was part of something bigger.

Everyone always talks about graduation like it’s this great, epic conclusion, high school’s greatest achievement. They don’t talk about what comes next. Not in any real way. It’s abstract—write this college essay, fill out this application, impress this recruiter. It’s just another assignment. Now the assignments are over, and there’s no one to tell us what to do, what not to do.

I spot my friends standing around in a group, the guys I’ve shared everything with the last four years, the jokes, the drinks, the pussy, the time. Everything but the truth, and the blame.

They open the circle for me, pull me in, clap me on the back and include me in their plans for the party tonight, the one they’re calling the last party of high school, even though high school will be over when the last of us take our diplomas and leave the field today. To anyone else, it must look like I’m popular, that I belong. But I know otherwise. They knew each other long before I was here, will know each other long after I’m gone. Even when we ruled, we were interlopers, usurpers. I always knew the crown was borrowed, stolen from the rightful king.

“Hey, dumbass,” he says, tipping his chin at me. “Your tassel is on the wrong side.”

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