Boys Club by Selena

eighteen

Harper Apple

I adjust my position so I’m lying perpendicular to Baron so I can rest my head on his stomach. It’s better than the cold floor. “Are you going to tell me about how Royal called your sister on choosing the Darlings over him, and she went ahead with it, anyway?”

“Fucked up, right?”

I can’t help but agree with him. Who would choose anyone over Royal?

But then, that’s not fair. I’m just learning how crazy love makes a person. Who’s to say I wouldn’t sell out my own family for Royal?

“Did his dad go to jail?” I ask, thinking of Mr. D, who wanted to live vicariously through my sex stories. No conjugal visits, apparently.

“For a few months,” Baron says, pressing a sucker into my hand. “They charged him with conspiracy or intent or something along those lines. But his lawyer got him off. The legal system here is even more fucked up than New York. But we got justice.”

I unwrap the sucker slowly in the dark. “You killed him?”

“Nah,” Baron says. “Royal doesn’t believe in murder. He says death is easy. Life is suffering.”

“So, he’s like an angry Buddha?”

Baron chuckles. “Sure. If you die, your suffering ends. If you live, you can suffer for a long time.”

“And you made him suffer?”

“The whole family,” Baron says proudly. “While Devlin’s dad was in jail, we made his mom our plaything. That lasted a couple months, until she checked herself into Cedar Crest.”

Even though people like me could never afford Cedar Crest, of course I’ve heard about the treatment facility. It’s one of the few local claims to fame, since celebrities hole up there for treatment on occasion. It’s basically a resort, or a psych hospital for the rich and famous.

“Is she still there?” I ask, suddenly wondering if Mr. D is a man at all.

“Nah, when Devlin’s dad got out of jail, he took her out and they moved away. Never even came back to see if they could salvage anything from the fire.”

“That’s the house next door?” I ask. “Devlin’s house?”

“Yep,” he says. “Such a tragedy it was lost in a fire.”

I roll my eyes in the dark. “I’m sure you had nothing to do with that.”

“Would we do something like that?” he asks, his tone filled with mock innocence.

“You don’t know where he went?”

“We know,” he says. “But they were gone from Faulkner, so we moved on. You know what was really fun, Harper? Seeing their empire crumble as we dismantled it brick by brick.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a sociopath?”

“Aw, now, you like watching people, too, don’t you, Harper? Always nosing around our business, digging into Royal’s life. Trying to get him wrapped around your little finger. We’re not so different, you and me.”

I shrug my shoulder against his side. “Maybe you’re right.”

I’m not so sure, though. I don’t glory in people’s downfall.

Or maybe I do. Before Royal meant something to me, I vowed to take them down. Not to take their throne, but just for the joy of watching them fall. Maybe I’m exactly like Baron, I just don’t hate the Dolces anymore. When they were my enemies, I wanted to watch them burn.

After a minute of sucking on our candy in silence, Baron shifts around to get comfortable and then goes on. “The grandfather Darling, John, had seven sons. All started with J. So we went through them all. After Devlin’s dad, Justin, there’s Joseph—Preston’s dad—and Jacob. That’s Colt and Mabel’s dad. Joseph went to prison for murder. That guy was definitely involved in Royal’s kidnapping. Get this. He’s such a dick that even Preston refused to be a character witness at his trial.”

That’s the Darling I suspect is Mr. D. The one I’ve been feeding information to. I’ve thought of him as a friend before, but I know that’s an illusion created by my own lack. He’s not a friend. He’s a guy so evil his own son wouldn’t stand up for him. And I’ve been giving him information about a boy I love. It makes me feel sick and dirty in a way even his creepy sexual interest never has.

Baron goes on when I don’t answer. “We fucked with Lindsey a little, but she was too easy, and then Preston threatened Gloria, so we moved on to Colt’s family. We had some fun with them.”

I think of the missing finger on Colt’s hand, the burn scars. His dad’s missing finger, and his cane. Mabel not just blowing out of town but changing her name so they can’t track her down. I swallow hard, wanting to hear the details I’ve been in the dark about for so long, but fuck. The blasé tone in Baron’s voice makes my skin crawl.

“And then there’s Jeremiah and Jedediah. Twins, actually. Jed had some kind of accident and died of blood loss. He had kids, but they’d already grown and moved away. Jeremiah has two kids. His son would have been a sophomore this year, but he disappeared mysteriously right before he would have started at Willow Heights. But he didn’t change his name, and see, I’m pretty good at finding people. We’ll be watching, and if he ever comes back, we’ll be ready. And then their daughter Magnolia will be a freshman next year. That’ll be fun.”

“You don’t even know these people, and you’re literally torturing them until they die?”

“They tortured Royal,” he says, as if that explains everything.

“Some little twelve-year-old girl tortured Royal? Or, wait, she’d have been ten at the time?”

“She’s a Darling,” he says. “They would have done the same to us. They tried. The difference is, wherever they tried, we succeeded.”

“All because one of them dared to love your sister?”

“They killed our sister,” he says, his voice hard. “There are two more Darling men, too. They were disowned by the grandfather and changed their names, but we found them. One of them had moved away, but one of them actually lived in the same trailer park where I believe you hail from. John Jr. I hear he was close with your mom a while back, maybe when you were really little?”

I don’t say anything to that. Lots of men have been close with my mom, and it’s not like I want to explain to Baron Dolce that my mom is a trailer park slut.

“Never heard of him,” I say after a minute, because it feels like Baron’s expecting something.

“Oh, well, I guess he OD’d, so he’s out of the picture, anyway.”

“You literally studied Darling family history and found anyone with that name and just destroyed their lives?”

“Not just their name,” he says. “Their blood. Blood makes family, not a name. A name is something you can hide behind or run from, but you can’t hide your DNA. Their blood is poison to this town. And poison has to be eliminated.”

“That’s… Harsh.”

“They started it.”

I lie there not even sure what to say. I want to laugh at the ridiculous pettiness of his response. That’s all he has to say? They started it? That’s the excuse of a five-year-old on the playground. I’m pissed off for the Darlings and I barely know one of them. But shit. No wonder people say the Dolces are evil. They’re brutal as fuck, and Baron just sounds like he’s recounting a boring story about our grandparents when he talks. This isn’t something that happened to someone else, though. He and Duke and yes, Royal, did all this. Drove people to suicide. Had them imprisoned and committed to mental institutions.

I shiver at the thought of what they would do if they found out I was reporting to someone about them. They’d fucking kill me is what. So I better get Mr. D what he wants and cut all ties, the sooner the better.

“The Darlings started it by kidnapping Royal?” I ask, pulling the sucker from my mouth.

“That, and stealing Crystal, and even before that, they fucked with our dad when he was in school here. Dolces never forget.”

“Can I ask you something?” I say after thinking that over. “Why do you do anything your dad says? Royal’s eighteen, and you’re what? Seventeen? You don’t have to do that.”

“You wouldn’t understand,” he says. “You come from a fucked up family.”

“And yours is so functional.”

“Family is everything to the Dolces,” he says. “That’s what Crystal forgot.”

“Damn,” I say. “That’s cold.”

“It’s a fact,” he says. “People always say that—cold hard truth, cold hard facts. But facts aren’t cold anymore than they’re hot. They’re just facts.”

And that’s the cold part, I think to myself. This guy isn’t just cold, his heart is made of ice. Royal can make himself that way, but there’s some switch he flips inside to get there. But Royal feels. He feels a whole fucking lot, probably more than he wants to. Enough that he goes into that dead-eye mode to protect himself.

Baron, though… Baron’s ice cold to the core.

I remember thinking that about Mr. D, and I wonder yet again if I got it wrong, if it’s not a gross old guy but a hot young guy.

“So, she forgot, and she died for it,” I say. “Is that what your dad says to get you to obey him? He threatens to kill you?”

“Dad would never threaten us,” Baron says. “He used to use Crystal to get Royal to do what he wanted, though. But he’s not blunt like Royal. With Dad, it’s always a subtle suggestion, a gentle reminder of where we stand.”

“You admire him,” I say. It’s laced through every word he speaks, in his tone of voice, as clear as his admiration for his brother. That makes him that much scarier. He’s so detached it’s unnatural and a little terrifying. How can that same boy be lying here stroking my hair and pillowing my head, giving me his sweatshirt when I’m cold and telling me I’m his friend?

“He’s a self-made millionaire,” Baron says. “What’s not to admire?”

The fact that he pimps out his own kids, first off.

I don’t say anything, though. I don’t know if their father does that or if it’s Royal’s doing. I don’t know if the twins know, or if they do it, too. And I’m not about to spill that kind of information to anyone, not even Royal’s brother, without knowing.

“Duke’s passed out cold,” Baron says after a few minutes. “Guess we’re alone.”

“Yeah,” I say, moving to sit up.

Baron’s hand tightens in my hair, though, and he sits up, so my head is in his lap. “Stay,” he says. “Maybe now that we have a minute alone together…”

“What?” I ask, turning toward him even though I can’t see him in the dark. “You’re going to hit on me?”

“No one would know,” he says, his fingers gently stroking my hair.

“I’d know,” I say. “You’d know.”

“Just a little suck?” he asks, and a second later, he pushes himself against my face. I don’t know when he whipped his dick out, but it’s hard and hot and so shocking that for a second, I don’t move.

Then reality kicks in and I scramble away. “What the fuck, Baron.”

“You make me so hard,” he says. “I’ve been thinking about it ever since I saw you going down on Royal. And listening to you lick that sucker… I know you feel it, too. You’re attracted to me.”

“Look, Baron,” I say. “Sure, I’ll admit you’re hot. Maybe if I wasn’t into your brother, I’d be into you. But I am, and I’m not.”

“Just for a minute,” he says, his voice almost pleading. He takes my hand and gives it a little squeeze. “I just want to feel your mouth. I won’t even make you swallow.”

He pulls my hand down, wrapping my fingers around his hard length. It throbs in my hand, and I gulp at the sensation.

“No way.” I yank my hand back, my heart hammering. “You shouldn’t even be asking. The only way that’s happening is if you rape my face like your brother did.”

“I’m not going to force you to do anything,” he says. “If I did, you’d tell Royal, and he’d kick my ass. But if you want to do it, no one will tell him. It’ll be just between us. Our little secret. Like what I told you here tonight. I trusted you. Don’t you trust me?”

“It’s a little hard when you’re literally telling me to keep a secret from the guy I—the guy I’m seeing.”

He’s quiet for a second, and I think he’s going to ask what I was about to say, if I was going to let slip the L-word.

“Just this once?” he asks instead.

“Fuck you, Baron,” I say, getting up and feeling my way through the dark. I don’t know where I’m going, but I want to be further from him and his dick. My pulse is still stuttering, and I don’t like the uncertain feeling in my belly one bit.

“I could make it worth your while,” he says. “I could make you a Swan.”

“What?”

“Just because you didn’t let us take turns with you, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t still count. If you fucked multiple Swans… You’d be sexed in.”

“You said three of you.”

“I bet I could convince Duke,” he says. “Maybe if you just gave him head, too… It’s not even sex. But we could tell them it was.”

“And I’d be a Swan.”

“Betray a friend for a Swan…” he says, quoting the challenges I read.

“And I faced my fear in the passage?”

“Didn’t you?”

“So that would be all the challenges. And the gauntlet—blowing you and Duke—would get me in.”

“Just like you wanted.”

I think about that for a second. I could be on the inside. I’d give Mr. D everything he wanted.

But I’d lose Royal, and somewhere along the way, he became more important.

“I’ll pass,” I say. “I try not to go around trading sexual favors to get what I want.”

“Not even when it’s what you want, too?” he asks, his voice closer than I expected.

“Touch me, and you’ll see exactly how much I want it,” I say, dropping the sucker stem on the floor so my fists are ready. “And you’ll be pissing out a hole in the side of your dick for the rest of your life.”

“Jesus,” he says. “You’re fucked up, you know that?”

“You know what’s more fucked up? You continuing to harass me when I said I wasn’t interested. I’m interested in Royal. That’s it. Not you, not Duke, not any of your other Swans.”

“You’ll change your mind when you’re the meat in a twin sandwich,” he says. “But I’ll let you have it your way. For now.”

“Gee, thanks for not raping me. Don’t let me forget to give you a gold star on our way out.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

I stalk over to the side of the room and find a chair. I curl up in it to wait for morning. Even with the hoodie, it’s so fucking cold I’m shivering, though.

“Come on, don’t sleep over there,” Baron says. “I put my dick away. Come over here by us. It’s too cold to sleep alone.”

“I’d rather not get raped in my sleep.”

“That’s not our style,” he says. “Though, if you have a kink about that, I have a friend who could help you out.”

“No, thanks.”

“For fuck’s sake, just relax,” he says. “I was just seeing if you wanted it bad enough. Obviously, you don’t. You’re not committed enough to be a Swan.”

“And you’re not going to try to molest me in my sleep?”

“What fun is that?” he asks. “If you don’t fight back, it’s not worth taking.”

“You’re really selling this.”

“Come on,” he says. “It’s cold down here, and you stole my hoodie, and I don’t want to snuggle my brother’s blacked-out ass. You’re going to freeze over there by yourself. I promise I won’t fuck with you anymore. I get it. You’re Royal’s, and until he’s done with you, you’re off limits.”

“I’m sleeping with my pocketknife in my hand,” I say. “I’ll cut you if you grope me.”

“Deal,” he says. “Now get over here and let us keep you warm.”

I make my way back over and slide down next to Duke. Baron scoots over and wraps an arm around me. I have to admit, it’s nice to feel them on either side of me, keeping me warm like he promised, instead of holding onto my pride and freezing my ass off in a chair. Still, I don’t sleep until I feel him relax, his breathing going deeper as he falls into sleep first.

I blink awake when the electricity comes back on, the light on the ceiling flickering a few times before remaining on. It takes a second for my eyes to adjust and see Royal standing over us.

I scramble up, my heart stampeding in my chest. My hands fly up as if to defend myself from the accusation in his eyes. “It’s not—we were just sleeping.”

“Did you fuck them?” he asks quietly.

“No,” I say, my hands falling to my sides. I remember Duke’s threat from last night. No matter what happened, there’s not a damn thing I can do to convince him if they say otherwise.

“Not for lack of trying,” Duke says, stretching his arms over his head.

Baron sits and picks up his glasses and my knife from the floor before standing. “Didn’t touch her,” he says. “We tried everything you said to.”

I snatch my knife back and turn on Royal. “What the fuck? Is this some kind of game to you?”

He gives me a cool look. “You wanted to be a Swan. I just wanted to know how bad you wanted in.”

“You were testing me? You really think I’d fuck your brothers? That’s not even part of the initiation, is it? You just wanted a reason to dump me.”

“Hey, don’t be upset about it,” he says with a lazy smile. “You passed.”

“You were never going to let me into the Swans, were you? This is all just a hilarious game to you, seeing what you can make me do. Even if I passed every challenge, you’d never let me in your little, preppy boys club.”

“And you should thank me for that,” he says quietly, his dark eyes going serious.

“Fuck you, Royal,” I say, stomping past him and up the stairs.

“Oh, I will,” he says behind me. “The only question is, should I let you cool down first or rage fuck you right now?”

“Try it and see what happens,” I snap. It feels good to step into the library and slam the door in his face. I’m tired and sore from sleeping on the floor, not to mention I’m wearing the same clothes as yesterday but with the addition of a good amount of dirt. On top of that, I don’t even have my backpack. But there’s only fifteen minutes until school starts, which means I can’t go home without missing first period.

No matter what I said to Baron last night, I still fucking hate Royal half the time.

*

BadApple: I got what you wanted

MrD: What do you have for me, Darling?

BadApple: info on swans including rules 4 joining n new rules 2

MrD: What new rules?

BadApple: They said a girl can join but has 2b ‘sexed’ in by 3 current members

MrD: Then do that.

BadApple: lol

BadApple: that wud b a no

MrD: What do you think I can use this information for?

I grit my teeth. I fucking hate it when he asks that question. It always means I didn’t give him what he wanted.

BadApple: also got meeting minutes for about 6m after u were booted

MrD: Good work.

BadApple: screenshots on my phone. Want 2 meet so u can get them?

MrD: In due time. You can email them.

BadApple: how come u wanted 2 meet me at 1st but not now? R u afraid I’d recognize u now?

MrD: I ask the questions. You answer.

MrD: When I want to meet, we will meet.

BadApple: k. where do u want pics sent?

MrD: I will make an email address for them.

BadApple: Then we r done. I got u the information u wanted. My debt is paid.

MrD: I’ve told you before. That’s not how this works, Harper. Really, it’s tiring.

MrD: I will tell you when you are done. As long as you are at WHPA, you will do as I ask.

BadApple: that’s bullshit

MrD: I pay your tuition. Month by month. The first month you don’t make it worth my while will be your last month there.

BadApple: I do not agree to those terms

MrD: Then clean out your locker and go back to FHS.