Page 96 of The Prince of Broken Crowns

“You’ll do great. I know you will. Not just because you’re good, but because you have an amazing coach.” He grins, causing me to giggle.

“Way to stroke your ego,” I tease, nudging him with my shoulder. “But you are a great coach. Ruthless, but great.”

“How are your legs?” he wonders, pausing as someone comes to take our order.

He asks me what I want, and I make my order small, but with how much he ends up ordering, I feel like he’s gotten extra food, as if he caught on that I was keeping mine to a minimum because he’s paying.

Once he pays, we’re given a number and take a seat at an empty table.

I release a sigh as I plop down in the seat. “To answer your question from before, they were totally awful, but Finn helped me stretch them out.”

“When you guys had lunch today?”

“Yeah.”

He bobs his head up and down, and I get the impression he might be uncomfortable with Finn and me spending time together. I’m unsure why.

He fiddles with a napkin holder that’s on the table. “Did you do hill climbs at your high school?”

“Sort of. But never as intensely as we did today. I’m sure it’ll be for my benefit in the long run, because I know you know what you’re doing.”

“So, for tryouts—at least last year—they make you run both a mile, and then a 5k, and that one has a pretty intense hill, which is why I work hill climbs pretty intensely into the routine. When you get onto the team, it won’t be as bad. They just make tryouts intense to weed out people.”

“That makes sense.” I recline back in the chair, and it lets out a noise that makes me wonder if it’s about to break. “I’m a little nervous. I get that way sometimes. I even threw up once.”

His brows rise in surprise. “Really?”

I nod. “It’s not that uncommon.”

“I know, but you don’t seem like the nervous type.”

“I don’t frequently get nervous, but when I do, I hide it well.”

He scans me over. “You might be the toughest person I know.”

I rest my arms on the table. “You barely know me.”

“I know, but from what I’ve seen so far, you’re tough.” He contemplates something. “I’ve been wanting to ask you for a while but was worried you might get upset, so if you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine, but I feel like I should ask.” He sinks his teeth into his bottom lip. “That thing with Drew … what exactly is that about?”

I sigh heavily. “I had a feeling you were going to ask about that.”

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” he quickly says. “I know we’ve only known each other for a few weeks.”

He’s right. We have only known each other for a few weeks, and yet I feel like I can trust him more than anyone else that I’ve met.

“My father’s a drug dealer,” I confess softly, hoping no one else can overhear this conversation. “He got arrested a while ago, and to lessen his sentence, he told the police who his supplier was. And Drew works for the guy, so everything my father has done falls on me, thanks to daddy dearest telling them I’ll work off his debt in exchange for him getting left alone. So, yeah … there’s a bounty on me for that.” I’m staring at the table, worried about what expression he’ll be wearing. When I glance up, I can tell he’s shocked, but he does look freaked out, so that’s a plus.

“Jesus Christ, Maddy,” he finally speaks as he slumps back in the chair. “Your father is an asshole.”

“I guess we have that in common.”

“We really do. But this … He’s putting your life at risk.” His gaze sears into mine. “What happens if Drew catches you?”

“They’ll force me to deal drugs for them.” I shrug like it’s no big deal. It is, but the normalcy of it is unsettling.

“How would they force you to do that?” he asks, his naivete about northside showing through.

“You’ve heard of human trafficking, right?” It’s more of a rhetorical question, but he nods, anyway. “Well, when people are trafficked, they get drugged up so they’re mostly out of it and can be controlled. Drew would likely do that to me because he won’t trust me. And for a good reason.”

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