Page 75 of Evil Queen

Nikita

The last week of May brought finals, which meant that on top of all of The Royal Court’s run-of-the-mill stress, we also had the additional stress of nailing our final exams. It wasn’t as if any members of The Royal Court weren’t particularly intelligent or prepared to ace their exams. The issue was the added stress of being sequestered from one another, leaving us alone or maybe in pairs for a vast majority of the day. The biggest issue was not being able to keep an eye on Brayden. After our hypotheses from prom, we were surprised to see him return to school and continue hanging out with The Royal Court as he always had, but everyone kept him in sight and mind.

However, Brayden was a junior. They had final exams, too, but they weren’t as important or as intense as the senior’s final exams. He had much more free time during the day, so there were several chunks of the day where not only was he not with any other member of The Royal Court, but he also had a lot of time to get into something he shouldn’t. Nathan was pretty convinced that Brayden would never work with Connor to harm us in any way, and I wanted to believe that was true, but I wasn’t so sure. If anything, I knew how conniving Connor could be.

There was something that curbed the darkness of Brayden’s lack of supervision, though. Cherri was present for the finals. Several members of The Royal Court reported seeing her in their classes in the little bits of time we had between classes to check our phones and used the bathroom, and at least in the one class Cherri and I had together, she appeared to legitimately be trying. How she was managing the course material after skipping class nearly all semester, I wasn’t sure, but even the teachers seemed to be shocked at her presence.

The students of whatever class you were in during the lunch hour were the ones with whom you ate, and the food was delivered directly to your class to prevent cheating. The only other member of The Royal Court in my class during lunch was Kyle. As soon as lunch was delivered, he made his way over to my desk and sat down. His eyes were certainly a bit wearier, and I was wondering how much he’d talk to me about Brayden if I asked. Kyle and I had been friends since before Nathan even conceived The Royal Court, so it was oddly nice and calming to have a one-on-one meal with him.

“We should probably all get together tonight, huh?” Kyle offered. “I feel weird being separated from everyone all day. Do you think they would all go for dinner?”

“Yeah, I think it’s a good idea. It’ll be nice to relax and have some good food. If we go to Colette’s mom’s place, she’ll let us drink wine.”

“Oh, that’s a good idea. I’ll send a text.” He typed on his phone, and I heard the message notification as he sent the message to our group feed, but I didn’t bother to check it. “There. Everyone will see it when they can, and we can figure out the specifics after school.”

“Hey,” I started. “Can I ask you a question that you totally don’t have to answer?”

“Okay,” he said, tilting his head to the side.

“So, I have kind of gathered that Brayden maybe has feelings for Nathan, and I get the sense that you figured that out too.”

Kyle rolled his eyes. “Ah. Busted.”

“So prom was what?”

“Nathan was going through so much, and he was trying to fix things with you and make things right with Cherri, and he didn’t need Brayden in the mix, muddying things up. Plus, Nathan is obviously straight, and I just felt bad having to watch Brayden go down that road. I thought I could maybe serve as a distraction for him and put both him and Nathan in a better spot.” He took a sip of his juice. “Can I admit something to you, though?”

I smiled. “You like him?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know why. It really was supposed to just be something to get them through the rest of this year, but then I started to really get into it. All of a sudden, I’m dreaming about him and can’t get him off my mind, and all this shit with him and what’s going on with Nathan’s family keeps me up at night. I’m terrified that he’s going to get hurt.”

“So why don’t you say something?” I asked.

“I mean, it’s pretty obvious that he’s not into it the way I am.”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “I think it could be less black and white than you think.”

“Maybe once all of this is all over, once there’s less mud to swim through, I’ll tell him how I feel.”

I tilted my head to the side as I imagined it. “Though, if I can be honest, I feel like you guys would be a weird couple. Not bad, necessarily, but weird.”

“Whose fault is that? You all paired up and left us alone! Flirting spreads, you know? You all made cuffing season look real good.”

I laughed. “Sorry, not sorry.”

“Man, it doesn’t really feel like it’s been eight years since we met, does it?” he mused.

“Eight years?” I thought back and realized that it was true. It had been eight years ago when we met. “Wow. No, it doesn’t.”

“Do you remember how excited he was when we first all went to play basketball together?” Kyle asked.

I smiled, remembering the wide, dopey smile on Nathan’s face as he ran at me with a basketball in hand, screaming at me that he was going to show me his jump shot. “He was elated. All it took was for Deon to spend one day teaching him how to play. Then he wouldn’t put a basketball down.”

“It’s so weird. I doubt many people even know how much he loves basketball,” Kyle said.

“I was just thinking about that recently. There are all these things about Nathan that got pushed beneath the surface and hidden because of his dad and the pressure of The Royal Court. He loves the outdoors, he’s really into classical music, and he hates technology. His computer is as old as dirt. Every time his dad forced him to get a new phone, he complained to me for hours about it.”

Kyle started to laugh. “Yeah. I had to have a whole tutorial to show him how to use his phone.” He smiled at me after that. “I’m happy he has you, Nikki. I mean, I know he says it, but he’s, like, always loved you. When we first met, I told him that I thought you were cute, and he flipped his shit. He told me to stay away from you. And you could do anything, literally anything, and he’d get excited about it. After everything that you’ve ever done for as long as I’ve known you that’s even been mildly impressive, Nathan would call me to talk to me about how cool you were. He really, really loves you, Nikki.”

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