Page 40 of Evil Queen

Nathan

The expensive blue and gold Versace bathing suit seemed so pretentious as I stared down at it. I still remembered when I first purchased it. Kyle, Brayden, and I were out shopping, and I thought it was astounding that a pair of swim trunks could cost damn near six hundred dollars, and then I immediately wanted to flex my wealth by purchasing them. Brayden and I spent a vast majority of that day making fun of Kyle for buying a twenty-dollar pair from Target. Little did we know, he was just sensible.

“What are you doing?” Nikita asked from behind me.

I motioned to the swim trunks. “These look like the fucking Sistine Chapel or something. I can’t wear these to Kyle’s house.”

“Listen, for as much money as you paid for them, you’d better wear them,” Nikita responded. “You can’t look more ridiculous than me in jeans and a leather jacket at a spring break party.”

Turning around and looking at her on the edge of my bed, I smiled. “You’d look good in anything, but why aren’t you swimming?”

“I don’t swim.”

“Yeah, but why?” I asked. “Is it a fear of water or something? It’s the one thing about you I’ve never known.”

“Well, it started out as a thing with my dad,” she said, and I sat down next to her on the bed and wrapped my arm around her. “We had a pool growing up, and it was one of the places he’d…you know.”

“Yeah.”

“My foster mom helped me get through that, but I don’t know. I never developed an enjoyment for it after that. It’s probably residual issues from that experience, but I just don’t like swimming. It’s not fun for me.”

“I get that. Consider me shutting up, then.” I kissed her on the cheek. “And because I’m an ass, I’ll wear the expensive, royal swim trunks so that you can at least enjoy that.”

Nikita laughed. “Thank you for your consideration.”

I swapped my boxers for the swim trunks, then grabbed a pair of equally expensive sunglasses and slid them on as well. I looked back at Nikita. “Okay. You ready to go?”

She nodded. “Yeah, let’s go.”

It was one of the last few days of the spring break, and Kyle had opted to flex his new position as king to host a pool party and invite all the members of The Royal Court. Colette hadn’t been out much since her big confrontation with Cherri, but it had been about a month, so with her injuries mostly healed, she agreed to step out again. Kyle invited us all, telling us not to worry about bringing anything but our suits and selves. Nikita and I seemed to be the last two to arrive if the cars in the parking lot were any indicator, but it didn’t bother either of us. We had a little more stability in our relationship since I’d started going to therapy, so we locked hands after getting out of my car and enjoyed a slow walk from the circular driveway in the front of Kyle’s house to his enclosed, heated pool house in the back.

Kyle greeted us when we walked in with an enthusiastic, “Hey!”

He was wearing his twenty-dollar Target bathing suit and a tank top, but he wore them with his own pair of Prada sunglasses and had a drink balanced in his hand. The entire pool house had been decorated with different cliche and tacky paraphernalia, and the Olympic-sized pool had been topped with a variety of brightly colored floats, noodles, rings, and blow-up sea creatures.

“Wow, this looks amazing,” I said.

Kyle laughed. “Yeah? I wanted it to be astacky as possible. If it didn’t look like a staged photo for a Wal-Mart catalog, I wasn’t happy.”

“Why?” Nikita asked with a giggle.

“Because I feel like we all spend too much time trying to look fancy and sleek. We all need a good, long break from all of the airs we try to put on.” He motioned to the decorations. “Therefore, Wal-Mart catalog.”

Nikita nodded. “Got it. I approve.”

“Come over here!” he said, turning around and waving for Nikita and me to follow him. “Guys! Come over to the bar!”

Alistair, Avery, Jaxon, Colette, and Brayden got up from their varying spots around the pool and walked over to the curved bar that was situated along the back wall of the pool house. Nikita and I spent a few minutes greeting all of them, and then Kyle walked behind the bar, so the rest of us sat down on the stools.

“Okay,” he said with his eyes wide and excited. “I’ve been working on this with Kaylee all week.” Kaylee was Kyle’s older sister, and she was a professional bartender at one of Posting Proper’s highest-end rooftop bars. “She helped me design drinks for all of you.”

He started to pour different liquors and flavored syrups into a tumbler and mixed them together as we all watched, stunned and silent. A playlist of popular music was playing quietly and was a perfect soundtrack to Kyle’s mixing. He poured the contents of his first drink into a glass—something light blue and somewhat ethereal-looking—and slid it over to Colette.

Colette took a drink of it, and her eyes lit up. “Oh, wow! It’s amazing.”

Kyle smiled. “You’re bright and mysterious. I told Kaylee that you have a sweet tooth, so there’s a little bit of white chocolate in there.”

Alistair got a darker drink that looked like a regular brown liquor until he lifted the glass to drink, and I saw shimmering particles swirling throughout it. “It’s bitter, like you,” Kyle said, and we all laughed. “But I know you’re a classic guy, so it’s a bitter twist on a tried and true.”

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