Page 91 of Gilded Fake

“Yeah, obviously,” he says. “Why would we give you anything? We already let you stay at school.”

“What a fucking privilege.”

“Was I just supposed to let you go?” he asks, scowling at me. “I had to put my ass on the line more than once to talk them into it. Until you went and fucked with Harper. I couldn’t help you then.”

“Yeah, that’s where I fucked up,” I admit. “I miscalculated Royal’s attachment.”

“I think we all did,” he says. “No one knew he was capable of caring before that.”

“And before that, you knew having me around would keep my sister at school,” I say, nodding. “I kinda figured, since I made it all the way through junior year, but as soon as she graduated, I was fair game. Surprised I made it two months into senior year.”

“Don’t be,” he says. “I might be your brother-in-law one day. We might as well get along.”

“You’re not marrying my sister.”

“Probably not,” he says, sounding glum. He rubs his heels on the gravel edge, sending a few pebbles tumbling down the impossible slope. “She’ll probably end up with Baron. He says he hasn’t made a move yet, but I don’t know…”

“You talk to him?” I ask, drawing back.

“All the time,” he says, giving me a funny look. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Of course he does. Most people don’t ghost their entire families. Baron left, but he didn’t change his name and identity and disappear off the face of the earth like my brother and sister. He didn’t make them think he was dead. He keeps in touch with his twin brother like someone who moved to another state, not someone on the run for his life.

“Never mind,” I mutter.

“I’m not dumb, but I’m not Baron, either,” Duke says sourly. “He’s the mastermind. He’ll figure out how to get her before me, even if I’m right there with him.”

“We all saw how well that worked out last time.”

He leans forward and pulls a flask from his back pocket. His eyes are already unfocused, staring out over the empty chasm below.

“You don’t owe me,” he says, slowly unscrewing the cap. “In case you thought that’s why I pulled you away from the edge tonight. I didn’t do it so you’d owe me.”

“Good,” I say. “Because I don’t. I didn’t ask you to save me.”

“I know,” he says, leaning back on one hand and tipping the flask up. When he finishes, he holds it out to me. “But maybe you’ll forgive me for some of the times I didn’t.”

“Maybe,” I say grudgingly, pulling my gaze from the fucking spectacle of him innocently licking whiskey from his pouty lower lip. “If you’re part of the family—not from Mabel, but because my brother married your sister—I should probably start on that.”

“I tried,” he says, his dark eyes serious. “Only a few times, but I did.”

“I know,” I say, taking a swig. The whiskey goes down hot, the liquid inside the flask warm from his body heat. “At homecoming, and then Bye Week…”

“And senior project,” he says. “You know, I’m the one who got you in our group, not Baron. People think he makes all the decisions, and I’m just the fuck boy who likes to party. But I know how to get the shit I want.”

“Why would you do that?” I ask, watching him warily.

“I like having you around, y’know?” he says, holding his cigarette butt between his thumb and middle finger. He flicks it out into the quarry, and it tumbles down through the air, disappearing into the dark long before it reaches the bottom. “I wanted you near.”

I rub my temple and close my eyes for a second. “I’m not going to help you win points with my sister.”

He takes the whiskey back and takes a drink, then wipes his mouth on the back of his hand and grins. “Not even if the alternative is Baron?”

“Not even if the alternative is the river.”

He screws the cap on the flask and sets it down between us, reaching for the pack of cigarettes next to it. “What if it’s not about your sister anymore?”

“Then what’s it about?” I flick open the lighter, holding it out to him. He angles his face, the flame casting golden light over his olive skin, his sculpted jawline and chiseled cheekbones. He sucks once, his cheeks hollowing, and then his dark, luminous eyes sweep up to mine.

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