Page 63 of Dice & Dekes

My vision blurs, but I blink it away. I am not crying in this bougie pastry cafe over a dick pill.

“I would call you on your bullshit,” I say through a mouthful of crumbs. “Nobody goes to the ER for that.”

“They do if the reason is that they have a best friend who gave them a pill… a confidence pill… because he was afraid of you… just a little.”

I stare at my brother. “No way.”

Knight responds by aiming finger guns at me and offering an awkward grin. “You can see why neither of us explained it before.”

I gawk at him. “You have got to be fucking kidding me. I didn’t want sex. I was fourteen! I just wanted to go to the dance with the hottest guy at school!”

Knight does a double-take. “Wait, I thought I was the hottest guy at school.”

I snap my fingers in front of his face. “You’re mybrother. Focus. Were you the friend in question?”

He nods. “I found one of those supplements at a gas station.”

“Why would you give my would-be boyfriend a dick pill?” I demand.

“I didn’t realize what they did, I just thought, you know, confidence wouldn’t hurt. He was so nervous. The instructions said the pills would take about half an hour to work, so he took one about half an hour before he was supposed to leave, and then… he ended up in the ER. He said that boner lasted for almost seven hours. His blood pressure was so screwy, he couldn’t stand upright without getting lightheaded. It was so hard that it literally broke the zipper of his dress pants. Molly about had a stroke. Then she thought he might be a junkie.”

I rub my forehead. This is all making a disturbing amount of sense. I mean, it’s nonsense, but it’s the kind of nonsense my brother and his friends regularly engaged in back then. Still do, honestly.

“And why didn’t he just tell me?” I ask at last. “He knew I was mad.”

Knight looks at me like I’ve grown a second head. “Knova. Be serious. What fourteen-year-old boy is gonna admit he took a sketchy gas station pill and landed in the ER with a boner that broke his dress pants?”

He has a point. But still—I raise my eyebrows, waiting for more.

“He was humiliated,” Knight says simply. “And he didn’t know what to do with that. So he didn’t explain. Didn’t apologize. Didn’t own it. Instead, he did what teenage boys do when they’re scared they’ve screwed something up—they fake swagger. He let the rumors spin it into something cool. A power move. The guy who ditched a girl because he had better options? That was easier to live with than being the guy who accidentally self-sabotaged and broke a good girl’s heart.”

My heart squeezes.

Knight shrugs. “You think he understood what that night meant to you? He was a dumbass kid trying to impress a girl he’d held a torch for since third grade. But instead of owning it, he leaned into bravado, because that's all boys that age really have. Arrogance. Misplaced confidence. No clue how to clean up their own messes.”

I close my eyes, gutted by the sudden clarity. “And I punished him for it. For years.”

Knight doesn’t soften the blow. “Yeah. But don’t get it twisted—he’s punished himself just as much. Maybe more. Because while you were turning that night into your villain origin story, he was building a personality around trying not to fuck up again. Problem is? He still hasn’t figured out how to say the words that matter. Maybe too much time has passed. There’s too much water under the bridge. I don’t know.”

“And you, mytwinbrother, just… let my soul be crushed?”

Knight shrugs. “You didn’t act crushed.”

“Of course not!” I run my fingers through my hair. “Then he would know I was hurt. That I cared. Instead, I just did the logical thing and decided to hold a grudge for eternity.”

Knight leans closer and lowers his voice. “Then this will rock your world. You ready?”

As if my world wasn’t already rocked enough for one day. I wave for him to continue. “Lay it on me.”

Knight scans the cafe, then cups his hand around his mouth to stage-whisper, “Your secret husband is a fake fuckboy.”

He waits for me to gasp and swoon or something. I nibble the caramel scone we got instead.

“I’m serious. He has only fallen once in his life, and he has never recovered. I live across from his curtainless castle. Ask me how many women he has had in that condo?”

After what Viktor told me last night, I have a feeling I know what he’s going to say next. “Just me?”

He nods. “Just you. And before you jump to any conclusions… he comes home every night.”

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