Page 57 of The Rejected King
Take it down a notch!
“It stopped raining,” Davin said, and the cheeriness in his voice broke her heart. He was happy. He loved Patrice, and he was happy.
Emree’s incessant nodding continued.
“If you’d been here five minutes earlier, you could’ve seen the rainbow.”
“Oh?” she said in a tone that was too high. Why were they talking about rainbows?
“Anyway.” Davin shook his head, taking in a deep breath. “There’s something I want to ask you, and I want your complete honesty.”
“Okay,” she said, trying to keep her own breathing at an even pace.
“Why did you like Gale best?”
Emree leaned forward like she hadn’t heard him, but really she just didn’t understand. He went from rainbows to the love triangle inThe Hunger Games. Had he lost his mind?
He took a step toward her. “InThe Hunger Games, why did you like Gale best?”
She didn’t say anything. Instead, she waited with bated breath for his next move, reading each cue, weighing each movement. He was the king of Enderlin, and this was his show.
“Did you like Gale because he and Katniss had grown up together? Because they were childhood sweethearts like you and Portlend?”
Emree creased her brows together. “I think you’re reading into my choice a little too much.”
Davin nodded, taking another slow step toward her. “So there’s room in your heart for Peeta?”
Emree looked around as if there was someone else there, witnessing the ridiculousness of their conversation. “Can we talk about this later?”
“What happened with Portlend?” he asked.
Emree straightened. “What do you mean?”
He took another slow step toward her like he was scared she would run away. “Why did you and Portlend break-up? Was it because of me?”
“We drifted apart and didn’t want the same things anymore.” Emree scratched her shoulder even though it didn’t itch. “You’re supposed to be in the grand hall in twenty minutes. People will start to wonder—”
“I don’t care what people think.”
“That’s not true.” She shook her head. “You told me that you do care. In fact, you alluded to the fact that you cared a lot.”
Davin took another step forward, making Emree’s heart race. Three more feet and he would be directly in front of her.
“I’ve spent the last two years caring about what everyone thinks about me and my reign. It’s made me miserable. I can’t even be myself anymore. I have to think through everything I say and everything I do. Will the newswriters like this? Will the people of Enderlin like me better if I don’t say that?”
There went another step. Did he have to exude so much confidence? It made him even more attractive and distracting.
His eyes softened. “Then you came along, reminding me how nice it is to be myself again, and now, all I want to do is be true to myself.”
Emree bit her lip, terrified about what Davin would say next.
“But you loved Portlend. So I tried to fight my feelings for you. I tried to play by the rules. I tried to throw myself into the Promenade. But at the end of every day, my mind always came back to you.” He took the last step forward, closing the gap between them. “Emree, I don’t want to fight my feelings anymore.”
“Fiona Rudd,” she said, folding her arms across her chest as if she could somehow ease her racing heart.
“What about her?”
“She said you went on and on last night about how much you loved Patrice.”
