Page 6 of My Dark Prince
I dropped my voice into a whisper. “Second, where are we going?”
“Seb found the alcohol stash, and it isglorious.”
He whirled down another flight of stairs. It wasn’t the first time we’d stolen booze during a summer party. We’d started the second I’d turned eleven and accidentally drank Mom’s wine instead of my apple juice. We never got truly drunk, but something forbidden always tasted the sweetest.
Six flights of stairs later, we burst out the entrance. Ollie set me down and reclaimed my hand. We charged toward a vineyard, snickering between gasps of breaths and tripping over our own feet. Yellow torches guided us in the dark. Powerful music rattled the ground beneath our feet, dirt caked the hem of the dress I’d spent weeks on, and somewhere along the way, Ollie lost his bow tie.
I trailed him, my hand still secured in his.
“Just wait till you see it.” His words danced in the wind, the music and lights dimming the further we ran. “He also found a crate of old-ass books.”
“He tookbooks?”
“Yeah.”
“He doesn’t even read.”
“We’re hoping for some smutty scenes.”
We ran for a few minutes until we reached the deserted stable on the far end of the property. Far enough from the party – from my parents – that I could breathe again. Well, once I caught my breath.
Ollie didn’t seem winded at all as he flipped his phone and led the way with its flashlight. “Oh, shit. I forgot something first.” He shoved his phone into his mouth, held it by his teeth, and produced a crumpled, coral rose from his tux’s inner pocket. With a grin, he tucked the trimmed stem into my hair, dropping the phone back into his hand. “A rose for Briar Rose.” He winked. “Didn’t think I’d forget, did you?”
I shook my head. I knew he wouldn’t forget. He never did. Without fail, Oliver started every summer by gifting me a rose to remind me of who I was. A pact we’d shared since I tried to run away from home at seven to meet my grandparents. Mom and Dad never let me. They called them bad influences, gold-diggers, and “white trash.”
Oliver pried open the sliding barn door with his shoulder. Dusty concrete and a row of open stalls welcomed us. The second we stepped inside, aged wood and dried urine clung to my nostrils.
“Seb?” Ollie’s voice echoed through the walls.
“Right here.” The playful lilt came from the last stall.
We found Seb slouched against a wooden wall, nursing an open bottle of wine. A blazer draped across a moldy bale of hay, discarded without a care for its price tag. He’d left his crisp dress shirt completely unbuttoned, revealing a golden chest, lean and tan from years of rigorous rowing. While Oliver could be mistaken for a Greek god, Sebastian resembled a renaissance painting.
Ollie’s mom once explained that the name had beckoned her during her babymoon to Tuscany. They’d made an emergency landing in Great Britain and decided to make a pitstop in London. Fate had brought her to the famousMartyrdom of St. Sebastianpainting, where she stared into the tortured saint’seyes, tormented and steadfast, and decided to name her son after him.
Without the muscles and hulking frame, Sebastian would almost be girlishly pretty. He treated his long lashes, playful flaxen curls, and big eyes the color of a clear summer sky like tired accessories. That was the thing about Seb. There was always something tragic about him. Just like the saint. An arrogant stubbornness that made me worry for him.
“Hi, BR.” Seb aimed his flashlight on my face. “I see you got rid of those awful braces.”
I winced at the brightness, noticing a crate full of books next to him.
“If you want to keep your teeth intact, you better watch how you talk to her,” Ollie warned.
“Come, come.” Seb ignored him, patting the dirt next to him with his Berluti Oxfords. “Might I interest you with a …” He turned the wine bottle by its neck, squinting at the label. “Domaine Leflaive Montrachet Grand Cru?” He hiccuped. “Or whatever’s left of it, anyway.”
I loosened my hand from Oliver’s. “Umm … sure.”
“You started drinking without us?” Ollie stormed the stall and snatched the flashlight, pointing it in his brother’s face. “What is your problem?”
Seb squinted. “A healthy mix of debilitating anxiety, self-doubt, and delusions of grandiosity.” The bottle swallowed his yawn. “What’s yours?” He always managed to sound like a thirty-year-old divorcee on the brink of an early midlife crisis.
Oliver shook his head. “Jesus, you are trashed.”
Seb shrugged, taking another pull of his wine. He plopped down onto a mat of crunchy leaves, laughing. “I prefer the term comfortably numb.”
“Let’s see about your comfort levels when your face spends the night inside a toilet bowl, and you throw up through your mouth, nostrils, and ears.” Oliver righted his brother up. “You reek of wine. Mom and Dad are going to shit a brick when they see you.”
His words hit me right in the chest, piercing it with vicious, cloying jealousy. First – because Ollie and Seb had parents who actually cared about them enough to make a stink about private underage drinking. There would be punishments, and talks, and consequences. Maybe even tears. Second – because I knew it would never get to that. Ollie would never let his parents find out. He’d hide Seb and nurse him back to health himself. Take the blame, if need be. Oliver and Sebastian were fiercely loyal to one another.
