Page 87 of Kingmakers, Year One

After twenty minutes of painstaking cleaning, I’m pretty sure I got every last grain of sand. I use my fingernail to screw the case together again, then I check to make sure it’s still working.

The playlist resumes at exactly the same spot, thank god. The one good thing about old electronics is they’re built like tanks. Made to be bashed around without consequence.

I stand up triumphantly, brushing off my hands.

A lot more kids have streamed into the party, and the little beach is packed with people now. Everybody is drunk enough to think they know how to dance, and they hoot and whistle as the music resumes.

Couples are sneaking off into the scrubby stands of trees around the beach, dragging blankets along with them so they can lay down on the sand and remove as much clothing as they like.

Some of these couples aren’t couples at all, but rather two boys paired up with one extremely tipsy girl. It’s a sight I’ve gotten used to seeing at Kingmakers, where the gender balance is so far out of whack.

We’re not supposed to be fucking each other at all. Some of these girls are already locked into marriage contracts with other mafia families. Some of the boys, too. But with no one here to stop them, they’ve obviously decided to take their chances.

The days when you were expected to show up on your wedding day a virgin are far behind us. In my parents’ time, some of the old-school families still expected a medical examination to prove you were “intact.” Now all you have to pass is a pregnancy test. The only thing the families truly care about is that their heirs are actual blood relations.

Even my Uncle Callum had an arranged marriage with Aunt Aida. You’d never guess it now, from how obsessed they are with each other.

I have a lot of examples of marital bliss to draw from. Like Aunt Riona and Uncle Raylan out in Tennessee with all their boys. They seem like a funny match, she’s a ball-busting lawyer and he’s pure southern charm. Yet it’s clear they adore each other.

Not to mention my parents, who are more in love than any two people I’ve seen.

Maybe my standards are too high. If I ever get married, I expect nothing less than perfect devotion from my future partner. Who could live up to that?

There’s only one person in my life who’s never let me down . . .

I search the crowded beach for Leo, but he seems to have disappeared.

Leo and I were raised like blood cousins, even though we’re not. Our parents saw us as family. It was assumed we’d see each other the same way.

I’ve known him since birth. We really did grow up next to each other. I should see him as a brother . . .

But I don’t.

That’s becoming clearer to me every day.

These feelings I have . . . these urges . . . they’re not going away.

The harder I fight to crush them down, the stronger they arise, over and over again, like a hydra with a hundred heads. I cut one off, and two more come roaring back.

I think Leo feels it, too. At first I thought he didn’t. But he gave up his scholarship to come to Kingmakers with me, even though his mother hated the idea. And ever since we got here, things have been different between us. I’ve seen him looking at me. I see how jealous he gets when Dean talks to me.

I felt something between us tonight. I know he felt it, too.

I want to finish our conversation. I look around everywhere, wondering where he disappeared to so quickly. I walk down to the water, but nobody is stupid enough to try to swim here, not even when they’re drunk.

I head back up to the cliffs, checking the steep pathway to see if he went back that way for some reason.

I walk all the way around the bonfire, wondering if I could have somehow missed him in the crowd of students. It’s hard to push my way through the crush of people, especially when Chay is trying to pull me into dancing with her, and Matteo is trying to ask me some asinine question about an upcoming history exam.

The only place I haven’t checked is the little stands of trees on either side of the beach.

My boots are filling up with sand. I take them off, pouring them out and slinging them over my shoulder by their strings. I pad across the ground in sock feet, peeking into the scrubby woods to see if Leo came this way.

All I see are couples writhing around on blankets or making out pressed up against trees.

I’m about to turn back when I hear a moan that sends a shiver down my spine.

I’ve never heard him make quite that sound before. But I’d know Leo’s voice anywhere.

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