Page 31 of Dirty Crown
“I don’t need experimentation to stick with all of us,” Valen said with a low tone indicating the strength of his emotions. “I just need you. You’re the reason I’m here and the reason I get up in the morning.”
“You know why I’m here, Evie,” Kingston said, putting down the dish he’d been wiping with the drying cloth.
“Why are you?” I asked, prodding him to open up.
“I’m here because you’re my first love and my only love. I don’t need anything but you to keep me by your side,” he said.
“That’s all I need to know,” I said looking around at them. “I love you all, and I love what we have. I want us to be here for the long run and I wanted to know that we all feel the same way.”
They all agreed, nodding their heads and reassuring me that this was it. They were here for life.
It felt good, not that they had reaffirmed it, but that they understood my need to hear it. We couldn’t ever legally recognize our union, as unconventional as it was, but knowing they felt the same way that I did gave me the sense of security I so desperately needed.
We finished cooking, then eating and washing up. It was such a domestic scene compared to the wild sex we’d had earlier in the evening that sometimes I couldn’t quite reconcile our lives. They felt so normal and even boring at times, and yet at the drop of a hate I could be kidnapped or fisted on our dining room table.
What a strange world we lived in, and how I hoped it would tilt more and more toward the steady, predictable life I wanted to lead with them.
After everything else, we went to bed and I dreamed of being surrounded by muscles and love all night. It was perfect, as perfect as they saw me.
* * *
We hadanother couple of fantastic days like that. We were able to ignore the world and live in our little cocoon of happiness and joy. We would go to school, attend classes, meet for our catch up assignments, and rush home right away. There was something drawing us back together, to our house so we could be alone and away from the whispers and stares on campus.
The worst was when I was alone, going to and from classes or just sitting in the lecture theaters. Neve helped me in the places we shared, in the classes we took together. She kept me distracted as people talked and that helped me ignore the way they looked at me like I was guilty.
It nearly drove me crazy at times, the weight of their suspicions, but I wouldn’t let them get to me. I couldn’t let it happen.
I knew the truth, that Avery had something to do with Seymour’s disappearance, at least I thought she did. She had taunted me with it, and claimed to have set me up. Hell, even one of their men was in the jail that night with me so I did believe her on some level.
But what if she had just seen an opportunity and taken it? What if Seymour had been harmed by somebody else?
It worried me to think about one of our fellow students being a killer, but after everything I’d been through, I knew that anything was possible. Anybody could have a dark heart no matter what they looked like from the outside.
I wondered how hard it would be to find out. To trace Seymour’s last night and discover what had happened to her.
Maybe I could do something to find out the truth and end these glances of suspicion and whispered rumors so I could enjoy my learning in peace.
Back to that boring life I wanted so badly.
“What are you thinking about?” Neve asked, leaning towards me at our lab table. “You look like you’re planning something serious.”
“Maybe not that serious,” I said with a laugh. “I was once again wondering what the hell happened to Seymour and how I could figure it out. I can’t stand all these people watching me all the time.”
“You know they’re just assholes,” she whispered harshly. “They don’t know shit. If anything, they’re more interested in your relationship with the four hottest guys on campus. Now that’s been the talk of everything lately.”
“I hope so, I’d rather that than Seymour.”
“I promise, they think you’re a big old slut and not a murderer,” she insisted.
I grinned, nudged her and said, “Thanks. That means a lot, you know.”
“You’re welcome,” she giggled. “I never thought I’d ever be praised for calling somebody a slut.”
“These are strange times,” I said. “Strange times indeed.”
She nodded sagely and we carried on with our experiment, talking and ignoring everybody around us.
Thank god for small miracles and good friends in the middle of the chaotic world at large.
