Page 27 of Evil King

“It’s fine,” Sicily replied quickly. Unlike me, he was dressed head to toe in green and gold, and he even had a school hat on. “Trust me. With some of the people out there, they’ll barely notice ya.”

“That’s been my hope since I got here, and it hasn’t happened yet.”

We left the bathroom and parted ways, off to our first class of the day, but it was just a snippet compared to normal. Thanks to the pep rally happening later in the day, all of the classes had been shortened from their typical hour back to just twenty minutes. The teacher didn’t make too valid an attempt to keep the students focused on the class, and eventually, they just let everyone talk until the bell rang.

It wasn’t until after my third class that I got my first glimpse of my dad, slinking his way around the halls. He looked almost exactly like Nathan, except his brown hair was already showing gray. He was rocking the salt and pepper look with a goatee, too, and he was wearing a gold shirt with a bright green vest over it. His pants were black with little green and gold dragons on them, the school’s mascot. He had a booklet of coupons in his hands and was ripping them off the booklet and handing them out to particularly flamboyant students as he passed them. I made sure to keep a large group of students between myself and my dad at all times, and I had somehow managed to successfully duck him until all the students were loading out of the gym after the pep rally.

“You okay, man?” Sicily asked as I walked behind the crowd of students surrounding the girl who’d won a cruise for her school spirit. “You seem a little jumpy.”

“I’m fine,” I replied. “I just—”

A hand curled around my arm. My heart sank because I was almost home free. I turned around and wasn’t surprised to see that my dad was on the other end of the arm that was gripping me.

“Hello,” he greeted.

“Whoa, do you know Connor or something?” Sicily asked, and to my disdain, several other students had stopped and started staring as well.

“No, I don’t. Can you get some of these people to move along for me?” I asked.

Sicily nodded. “I got ya, buddy.” He turned around and started clapping at the crowd. “All right, all right. Nothin’ to see here. Let’s move it, people.”

With Sicily distracting the group, I led my dad around the corner and away from watchful eyes. When we were there, he held out his arms wide toward me. “Hello, son. How about a hug for your old man?”

“If you try and hug me, I’ll punch you in the face,” I replied.

Connor didn’t seem intimidated, only laughed. “My, aren’t we seedy? Prison wasn’t good to you.”

“Shocking,” I grumbled back.

Connor reached into his back pocket and pulled out a gold envelope with green writing scrawled across the front in an elegant script that said, “You are cordially invited…” He held it out to me. “Here you are. An invitation to your brother’s birthday. He’d want his brother there.”

I snatched the envelope purely for the joy I would get in setting it on fire later. “I wouldn’t—”

Connor looked over my shoulder. “Oh, hello, dear.”

“Hello, Mr. Loche,” Cherri’s voice called back, and my heart started racing. She walked until she was standing next to me, and in my attempts to dodge my dad, I’d also avoided seeing Cherri prior to that moment. She looked delectable in a pair of tight green skinny jeans and a gold sequined shirt with her hair up in pigtails, one sprayed green, and the other gold. “Nathan is looking for you.”

“Well, I should go find him.” He took one final look at me, smiled, and then walked between Cherri and me toward the amassed students.

Cherri looked down at the invitation in my hand. “Did you just get a personal invite?”

“I guess so,” I said.

She gasped. “I wonder if Nathan’s considering you for The Royal Court?”

“Like I’d accept,” I grumbled back.

“I’d be shocked if you did,” she replied. “Still, you should go.” She grinned up at me. “We’ll find a corner and hang out.”

That did sound nice, but being back at my dad’s house gave me hives just to think about. When I thought about explaining to Cherri, or anyone for that matter, why I turned down a personal invite to the party of the year, that gave memorehives. With my skin crawling and only Cherri’s sweet smile to give me confidence, I smiled back at her.

“Okay,” I replied finally. “I’ll go.”

12

Deon

Iwas glad that my mom had Friday night off because I was able to bring Sicily over for the first time and introduce them. She’d heard me mention a friend several times but hadn’t yet seen him with her own two eyes, and I could sense she was beginning to think he wasn’t real.

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