“Well good. I’m glad I have you here. I’d feel uncomfortable otherwise.”
“Why is that?” Sicily asked. “You’ve been friends with them much longer than you’ve been friends with me.”
“I think it’s because I’m not the person I was when I was with them. I put on a front, one I started to believe by the end of it, but that wasn’t who I really am. When Deon showed up, I started to remember my old self and then this whole time I’ve been friends with you, it’s been as myself. I mean, I know I lost it for a little bit there, but when we weren’t at school and just hanging out, all of that was the real me. In a weird way, I feel like our friendship is built on something much more solid than my friendship with any of them was built on. Even Avery.”
“Yeah, you’re nuts about Avery though. I can see it,” Sicily replied. “You just gotta show ‘em more of this you, then. That’s all. Avery’s so over the moon that you’re back that she wouldn’t give a rip regardless. Hey, if Sicily can learn to love ya as you are, so can they.”
“Hanging up hacking for psychology?” I joked.
He let out his gruff, raspy chuckle. “Nah, but I’ll tell it like it is to a friend.” He stood up and tapped my leg. “Come on. They’re all downstairs havin’ breakfast. Time to introduce them to the real Cherri.”
With Sicily feeling so confident, I started to feel better myself and stood up off the bed. He led the way back out of the bedroom and down the stairs to where the entire Royal Court, apart from Brayden, was gathered eating from breakfast platters laid family-style in the middle of a kitchen island surrounded by stools that they were sitting on. There were a few remaining stools and Sicily and I walked in and sat down.
“Good morning,” Avery said to me brightly. “How’d you sleep?”
“Not bad,” I replied. “I don’t sleep well in general, but it was really comfortable. I think I’ll sleep better once we’ve found and talked to Brayden.”
“I know where he is,” Kyle said. “It’s going to be a bit of an ambush, but as long as I can get in there and talk, I should be able to get to him.”
“Okay, I trust you. When we get there, I’ll leave it up to you,” I said.
“Did you guys know that Cherri has a potty mouth?” Sicily said suddenly.
I looked over at him. “What are you doing?”
“And she loves trash talk. I’ll tell you something, when you get a few drinks in this girl and wind her up, she’ll tell you all the worst things about yourself and then laugh about it.” He chuckled. “She nearly convinced me to shave my entire beard once.”
“Please stop doing what you’re doing,” I said.
“You know, that’s funny you say that, because whenever I wanted Cherri’s honest opinion about something, I’d get her drunk first,” Avery said. “That makes so much sense now.”
“I noticed that potty mouth too over the course of the past six months,” Alistair said.
“Not just the past six months,” Colette said. “From when Deon first came back. She was throwing f-bombs like they were sprinkles.”
Then everyone erupted into laughter. It was Nathan who noticed first how I was staring at the interaction in confused shock, and he smiled at me. “Cherri, relax. We know that you’re not the same person you were when you were in The Royal Court before.”
“Yeah.” Avery wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “We want to get to know the real you, so don’t hold back, okay?”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll admit, I’m struggling with how to… I don’t know, just fucking exist right now.” Sicily did a knowing nod at me, and it was only then that I realized that I swore. I was about to apologize, but then realized that was the exact opposite of the point, so I didn’t. “It’s not like no parts of me from before were parts of who I am, but I was the more princessy version of myself.”
“You were who you were when it was just you and Sicily, right?” Colette asked. “This isn’t any different. Be with us how you are with him.”
I snickered. “That seems like the quickest way to get you all to fucking hate me.”
Kyle chuckled. “I am so here for Cherri dropping ‘fuck’ at seven in the morning.”
After that, breakfast wasn’t as uncomfortable as I expected it to be. We exchanged stories about how things were for all of us during the second semester of school, and heard the other side of the stories of my nasty fights with Colette and Nikita. Even though I easily could have come off looking like the shit-head I was, they told the stories in sympathetic ways that made me feel better, and it really changed the way I saw both women.
I didn’t get much of an apology out before they stopped me. Everyone was desperate to put the last semester of our senior year behind us, which I was more than happy to do.
“So… how long before we can go talk to Brayden?” I asked. “I don’t want to rush us or anything, but Deon’s still out there and he could be in trouble.”
“Whenever we’re ready,” Kyle said. “I told him I want to see him today, and he agreed, so we just need to decide where and when.”
“Is… um…” I had a specific question I wanted to ask, but I wasn’t sure how to ask it. “Will it be okay?” That wasn’t quite what I was going for, but Kyle’s lips flattened into a line as if he understood what I was trying to ask.
He nodded at me. “It’ll be fine.”
“Then, can we go soon? Within the next hour maybe?” I asked.
Instead of responding, Kyle simply pulled out his cell phone. He only needed to hit a couple of buttons, and then he brought the phone up to his ear. After a few minutes, he said, “Hey.” There was a strain in his voice, but a warmth that was almost unfamiliar from the typically resolved, even-toned man. “How’d you sleep?” It almost felt awkward to just be listening to the conversation, but everyone sat there without saying anything, so I did the same. “Well, it’ll get better, I promise. Hey, can we meet up soon? Maybe in like an hour?” He looked over at me and nodded then said, “Okay. Let’s meet at the park by school. Okay. See you soon. Bye.”
“Just a few of you are going, right?” Colette asked.
“That’s best. It’ll be good if Nathan’s there, and then Cherri obviously, and me,” Kyle replied.
Colette crossed her arms. “I feel like we’re not helping enough. What should we do?”
Sicily slowly raised his hand. “Uh, I could use some help.”
“Really?” Avery asked. “How?”
“Well, it’s like I said yesterday, I have to manually check like a million pings to try and find which phone Deon called from. It’s not hard to learn. If the rest of you were willing, I could show you and you guys could help me check pings.”
“Oh wow! That sounds interesting,” Avery said. “I’m in.”
“Yeah… Interesting. Sure.” Sicily let out a chuckle. “If that’s what it takes for your help.”
Jaxon looked over at Colette. “I am not sitting in front of a computer all day.”