12. Royal

Chapter 12

Royal

Royal climbed up and perched himself beside Marcel on the top rail of the weathered fence covered with peeling whitewash from having been painted far too many times without sanding down the chips. A refreshing breeze that brought with it the pungent scents of juniper, moist soil, and farm animals tousled the short wisps of hair peeking from beneath his hat and tickled his warm skin. He didn't have to guess why Marcel had selected this particular spot to consume his lunch. It resembled his ranch in Ville Platte.

"Where'd you get off to?" Marcel asked, squirting mustard from a packet onto his jumbo corn dog.

"I spotted a library not too far from here as we were driving in. I walked to it."

"What is it with you and libraries all of a sudden? Seems every time we get close to one these days, you're breaking your neck to get there. It's like you're obsessed."

"Now, that's a stretch."

"You don't have a card to check anything out, and you couldn't have had enough time to read any books. No one prints newspapers anymore, and everything else you see on that phone of yours. So, what's the appeal?"

Royal chuffed. "Wow! I go to a bar, and you say nothing, but I go to a place of learning and information and get the third degree. Interesting logic you got going on there. Maybe I wanted to read a nice fairy tale or research how to clone my good looks. Precious and relished stuff that is—like spinning gold. But no, you make it sound all clandestine and grim."

"Don't play me, boy. You're up to something."

Royal frowned. Marcel knew him too well, but that didn't mean Royal would admit anything.

"Paranoid much? Can't I just want to broaden my horizons?"

Marcel snorted. "Riiiight. Where's your twin?"

Royal shrugged. Everyone always expected him to know Easton's whereabouts, and he did 99 percent of the time. He could guess now, and chances were, he'd be correct—well, not about the where but about the with whom. For that reason, he didn't want to think about it. "No clue. He wasn't in the camper when I got back from visiting at the children's hospital."

"How'd that go?"

"Absolute around-the-world stupid. When Brown asked me to go with him, I had no idea he'd planned to have media there like some Publisher's Clearing House sweepstakes winner's ambush. Instead of it being about the children, it was about how many photos he could wrangle for his social media. Had I known, I never would've gone. Taking advantage of sick kids that way is shitty."

"Go a little easy on him. He's been struggling and could use some positive press."

Royal conceded with a noncommittal "Hmm" and softened his tone. "It still was shitty."

"You and that mouth. One of these days, I'm going to dunk your head in a trough and scrub your tongue with lye."

"Didn't you do that once already?"

"No, I was trying to baptize your ornery butt, but apparently, it didn't take. Rolled right off and polluted the waters. That's why eels exist today."

Royal laughed and realized it had been the first time all day that his glowering mood had lifted enough for him to find humor in anything. Tipping his head back, he closed his eyes and allowed the sun to beam on his face. A minuscule bit of tension eased in his shoulders. "Marcel, when you were competing, did you ever wonder about what you were giving up?"

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"Seeing those kids today got me thinking. We never know how much time we have with each other. You'd think doing what we do, I'd have a deep understanding of that. I've seen people trampled into so many Humpty Dumpty pieces that Gorilla Glue can't hold them together." He spoke easily, almost offhandedly. "So, it would make sense that we would value how precious time is and share how we feel with the people we care about, yet much of what we do and say is to make other people comfortable or satisfied. It's not necessarily the truth."

Marcel bit into his corndog and thought for a moment. "You've always been one to speak your mind. Lord knows you don't have much of a filter."

"I say what's proper for the franchise."

"What? You don't believe your own words?"

"I believe them, but it isn't all I believe."

Licking mustard from his lips, Marcel observed Royal evenly. "What are you getting at?"

"Sometimes what a person wants and the choice a person must make are at odds with each other."

"If this is about you winning the championship, you know Easton will understand the same as you would if he wins."

"No, it's not—" Royal stopped himself and pushed back the mixed emotions of making a full confession. No, he couldn't have this conversation, especially not with Marcel, who would never understand the words on the tip of Royal's tongue. Jumping jackrabbits, he struggled to have it with himself. He needed to find a balance between the warring of his logic and his emotions. Rubbing his palm over his face, he pondered when he'd become such a coward at taking a risk. When it involves Easton, that's when. Better go along with what he's thinking. "Yeah, you're right."

"Look, both of you boys have trained hard, and you both deserve it. But there can only be one winner."

"Now, if that doesn't sound like a line ripped from an exorbitant testosterone-riddled dystopian horror novel, I don't know what does."

His gaze bounced along the wooden fence to the end, where it abruptly stopped at a veil of trees and met barricades to prevent festivalgoers from going farther. On the other side, between branches swaying in a gentle breeze, he caught a glimpse of a small pond. The area looked peaceful. If Easton had been here, Royal would have suggested they go for a stroll the way they often did at home when they wanted to rid themselves of troubles and hopping on a bucking animal more than ten times their body weight wasn't an option. But Easton wasn't here. He hadn't been at the camper or with Upton at the practice arena. Cody hadn't seen him either. Royal had asked a half dozen people of Easton's whereabouts, and no one had seen hide nor hair. His text messages had gone unanswered, which wasn't all that unusual. Easton had a bad habit of forgetting his cell. However, what happened to be too coincidental was that Maddox was conspicuously MIA as well. The glower on his face returned.

"What do you know about that Maddox character?" Royal asked, pleased that his tone remained steady despite his eyes glinting precariously. "He seemed to have popped up out of nowhere."

"No, he's been training for a while but working mostly the smaller shows. With Bob and Frank both retiring, it opened up some spots. He's good. Consistent. Definitely someone you'll want to keep your eye on."

Oh, I'm definitely doing that .

"But I don't think he's a main concern. He can stay on, but he doesn't have much in the way of showmanship."

Royal grunted. I'm not so sure about that . The man positively had some sly moves—like a third weasel on Noah's Ark.

"You worry about doing what you do," Marcel continued.

"Again with the solid advice. I could've gotten that from a fucking fortune cookie."

Marcel paused midbite and scowled at Royal. "That mouth!"

Chuckling, Royal hopped off the fence. "Yeah, yeah. Lye soap. Je va vous voir plus tard ."

"Not if I see you first, but I hope by then you'll have a better attitude."

Royal hoped for that as well. This funk wasn't what he wanted. However, if he was honest with himself—and there was no reason for him not to be—this entire tour was jacked the hell up. He was living his dream, right? Leading the pack. Yet he couldn't say he was happy. Each day brought more melee and another pile of crap to step in. He needed a spreadsheet to keep track of the mounds of bullshit. Easton had gotten hurt. Gerald was a deadbeat, forcing Jerry to be a latchkey kid. Protesters were trying their damnedest to hurl him into the unemployment line—or the entrails of hell, whichever came first. At this point, it remained a coin toss. Supernatural elementals emerging from fucking floors. Chronically ill kids being exploited for clicks and views. And an asshole moving in on his man.

He froze in his stride at the last thought. His man? Not his boi but his man . When had he begun thinking that? And what a dangerous thought it was.

"Roy, wait up," Upton called, jogging to catch up, Cody and Wade trailing not far behind. "Didn't you hear us hollering after you?" he huffed once at Royal's side.

"Naw. My mind must have been on other things," he answered, pulling himself together.

"I'd say. You were walking a mile a minute. Where's the fire?"

"Nowhere. What's up?"

"We were about to go shoot some darts. Wanna come?"

Royal smirked. "Now, you know those balloons are underinflated to deflect the darts. It's nothing but a gamble."

"Which is why we have a pot going," Upton replied smugly. "A dollar a balloon."

"You're going to pay somebody to take your money and then pay someone else for someone taking your money?" His tone dripped with derision. "Real smart."

"If you're not afraid of losing," Upton retorted, "what difference does it make? Don't be chicken."

Placing his hand on his hips, Wade flapped his elbows and clucked like a chicken.

"If you blow all your money, I'm not spotting you supper."

"You cheap ass." Upton smirked in return. "But you don't have to worry about that because I'm going to smoke you."

"This is so dumb," Royal muttered, glancing at Wade and Cody, who were both sporting equally smug grins. He waffled between practicality and wiping the condescending smirks off his companions' faces. It was a no-brainer. "Y'all have less going on in your heads combined than the Headless Horseman, but you're on."

The gaggle ambled down the congested midway, shuffling between rowdy adolescents shoving each other for attention, cheery parents carrying sticky-fingered toddlers with dripping ice cream cones, and senior couples reliving memories of their youths. It didn't take long for the quartet to find a darting booth, and they weren't the only ones. As they approached the booth, Easton and Maddox were being handed darts. Each laughed and carried on as if neither hadn't a care in the world.

Disgust flickered across Royal's face, and his spine stiffened to the degree that he thought it might snap. He'd strongly suspected the two were together, but seeing it leveled up.

"Hold up there," Upton yelled as Easton drew his arm back to throw. He rushed up to the pair and began explaining the bet.

While Upton spoke, Royal's eyes narrowed to slits as he icily stared Maddox up and down, and his chest swelled with irrational fury. He felt his upper lip curling in a snarl to reveal his gums and his jaws clenching. Get away from him . Yes, Royal recognized his irrationalism. But did he care? In a word, in that moment: fuck no. Easton was his… what? His man ? No, no, no . Damn, it was getting old and tiresome, repeating these conversations with himself. He could not afford to keep having those kinds of fantasies invade. Fantasies? Fuck! He'd advanced to a new echelon in a matter of minutes. Get yourself together.

"Where have you been?" Royal demanded, hissing between his teeth. Shit! So much for getting it together. Royal had intended it as a nonchalant inquiry, but it had come out sharp and pointed. He'd never been one to emulate others, but he was performing a damn good caricature of a Neanderthal. He'd failed to disguise the venom in his voice. All his companions' heads snapped toward him, and they glared at him with stupefied eyes and slack mouths.

Easton folded his arms across his chest. His voice was firm, but his eyes conveyed warmth with zero hint of hostility. "Maddox and I went to the races. You could have come, too, had you not stalked off earlier."

"We had a good time," Maddox added.

Royal's vision flashed red, crimson, scarlet, and some more shades on the Sherwin-Williams paint wheel that he didn't know the name of. Who asked you? Slice open the wound, and pour in a bucket of salt. He did not want to hear about Maddox and Easton's date. Whoa! Date? How the Nancy Drew had he made that leap? Reel it back. He needed a diversion—something to keep his mouth shut and mind occupied from venturing to unsanctioned places. He reached into his pocket to retrieve a few loose bills and slapped them on the booth railing, his eyes glittering with temper and his lips harboring a pout. "Give me what that pays for," he directed the festival worker. "I need to show these skinny boys what a dispensary of whoop-ass feels like."

"Oh, you think so?" Easton questioned, his easy tone returning. A crafty smile curled the corners of his mouth. "Let's see what ya got, sha ."

The festival worker set twelve darts in front of Royal and stepped out of the throwing path. Royal selected a dart and rolled the brass barrel between his fingers, measuring for weight. "Prepare to be cremated."

As expected, the dart was light with a dull tip and long shaft. The odds weren't in his favor—about five thousand to one on a good day, but he'd gotten himself into this pissing-on-an-electric-fence contest, and there was only one way out. He focused on a red balloon, envisioning it as Maddox's face, and released his shot. The dart made contact, but the balloon only bobbled.

Figures. Deceptions always hung around longer than they were wanted.

He released a windy sigh, deflated but still determined. Yep, he was bound to be out of a lot of money before the night's end.