Page 23 of Charming Cruel Boys

“My heart’s not black, baby girl. It’s just fucking gone. I’m dead inside.” Then he grabs my arm in a hard grip and hauls me out of his room, slamming the door in my face.

Tears sting the back of my eyes even as I tell myself that I don’t care. Not about Knight or the things he says to me. Not at all.

But as I sulk back to my room, I can’t help it. My mind wanders back to those blessed few minutes where his guard was down and he let me in. He confided in me, trusted me with something that’s clearly torturing him. That means… something to me. For a tiny blip in time, Knight showed me his pain, and all I wanted to do was soothe it away.

16

Knight

Timeslipsthroughmyfingers as the days drag on. The drunken conversation I had with Remi the other night still haunts me. I almost told her too much. I’m so stupid. So careless.

As soon as I realized what I was doing, what I wasfeelingwith her, I shut that shit down and slammed my walls up higher than ever.Remi isn’t someone I can trust, no matter how tempting. She eases my demons and loosens my chest, but it’s all a lie. It has to be.

Note to self: lock the door when you’re drunk so you don’t overshare with Remi.

I haven’t spoken a single word to her since. It makes me sick. I see the hurt in her eyes when she looks at me. I know she felt that connection between us too, like we could be something explosive and passionate if we just let ourselves go. Ignoring it is harder than I thought it would be. I shake my head to clear away the useless thoughts and steel myself before heading into Charles’ office.I’ve got thirty minutes before we leave for school and the dickbag left early for some staff meeting this morning.

I have no clue what I’m looking for, only that something is not right. I have to know why my mom is marrying Charles, what kind of secrets he’s hiding in this house, and how I can stay as far away from it all as possible. If I can find something serious and get his ass out of my life for good, even better.

I rifle through stacks of paperwork, go through all the desk drawers, check for secret latches like I’m in some detective movie. I find nothing. Not a single thing in this entire fucking room that could prove Charles isn’t who he says he is.

“Knight? We’re leaving, where are you?” Remi calls from somewhere out in the house.

I hurry to put everything back neatly and then rush out of the room. “Right here,” I answer once I’m in the hall.

She comes around the corner from the kitchen and narrows her eyes at me. “Were you in my father’s office?”

I stalk forward and stop chest to chest with her, glaring down at her short frame. “Why don’t you worry about yourself and stop obsessing over what I do?”

Her cheeks flame and I fight back a smirk. God, I love riling her up. “Do what you want. I couldn’t give less of a fuck. It’s your funeral if he catches you in there.” She turns and storms outside while I feel rooted to the spot. I know she wasn’t being literal, but a part of me wonders if I actually will end up in a pine box if I’m not careful.

***

My mind is running wild as I fidget at my desk. I’m doing alright this year, so I guess I can afford to not pay attention right this second. We’re just over a month into senior year, and so far, it’s looking good. My grades are up, high Cs in most of my classes. Hell, if I do good on my next English report, I might bump up to a B-.

It’s ridiculous to feel proud of my grades. It’s not like I had any other options. After... Well, I had to force myself to push harder and really focus in class, even though my mind always wanders to literally anything else. Most of my teachers last year were happy to offer me help during lunch or offer me extra credit when they saw I was trying. I’ve done a complete one-eighty since freshman and sophomore year, when I couldn’t be bothered to give a shit if I passed my classes with a D, so long as I could stay on the football team. But things changed. The Varsity team has higher grade requirements.The college scouts expect more.

It’s a bit too early in the school year for me to need any of that help now, but I’m sure a few more weeks, and I’ll be struggling again.

Especially in calculus. It’s hard enough to focus in any class, but with Remi in the room, my mind is anywhere but on whatever Mr. Maxwell says. It doesn’t help that I still sit next to her every day, but I can’t seem to stop. I’m a masochist. This shit is like foreplay. If I’m not talking to her, not indulging in the passionate fury between us, I can at least sit by her side for fifty minutes a day and steal peeks at her. Smell her sweet floral perfume that makes my mouth water.

It’s torture. I love it.

I walk my sappy ass through the door and smother a smile when I see Remi sitting in her usual seat. Half the room is still empty. She could sit anywhere. There’s even a desk a few rows back against the wall and another student in the spot next to it. She could have gone there and I wouldn’t be able to sit next to her, but I think she secretly enjoys me being close.That she likes the fight between us.

That’s what I tell myself, at least.

I drop down beside her, and we ignore each other like usual. But just having her near eases some of the tension in my chest that I always carry. Remi does more for me than if I popped a Xanny. She’s always level-headed — except when I piss her off — and she’s so damn open and kind. There’s not a single person in the world that Remi would turn a cold shoulder to because that’s not the type of person she is. She’s a lover. Unless she’s around me, then she’s a fighter, but only because I force that side to the surface. Nobody else can do that to her.

The rest of the class fills in within a few minutes and then Mr. Maxwell strolls in with an extra pep in his step that instantly has my hackles rising.

“Alright, class! Everyone get pencils and calculators out and put everything else on the floor beneath your desk. We’re doing a pop quiz!” he exclaims with a big ass smile on his aging face.

Half the class groans as we all move to get our things out. Remi tenses in her seat and I almost say something to poke the bear, but then I remember we’re not speaking to each other right now. I don’t know why I decided to play thiswhich one of us can ignore the other longergame, but fuck me, sometimes I’m really dumb. I bite my tongue and try to get my brain to focus as the teacher passes out sheets of paper that I can only assume will bring my grade down.

The ticking of the clock is grating on my ears as I stare at the questions, my mind blank and my hands sweating. I fill in what I can and skip what I don’t know, and when I’m done, I’ve managed to answer maybe more than half of the problems.

Dread coils in my stomach as we all pass in the finished tests. I can’t let this class screw everything up. It’s not just that I could lose my spot on the team and any chance I have at getting a college scholarship for football. Compared to everything else, that’s nothing. I could live without getting scouted. I could move on from my dreams of making a name for myself in professional football and get a desk job that makes me want to blow my freaking brains out by the time I’m thirty.I’ve learned that there are worse things that could happen. Much worse.

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