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He slipped into the role so easily and co how much he hated it He had been stuffed into a h he fit inside it perfectly now, that was only because they’d broken parts of him to make him fit

Philip was friendly in a more real way than Jacqueline, and the whole dinner was, on a surface level at least, pleasant

And I counted that as a win

On the way back to Oak Park, Elijah fiddled with the buttons on the dash until a sweet song caers throughour joined hands to his lips

The warmth of his breath traveled over my skin before he pressed a kiss toa sort of contentment wash over me

If I ignored the fact that the queen bitch of school was out for my blood, that I wasn’t sure who my real father was anymore,

that unanswered questions and unknown allies and enenored all of that, I could’ve just been a regular girl driving back to school with her boyfriend after dinner with her family

I wasn’t My life had never been that simple

But I liked the sound of it

So for the rest of the ride back, I let myself pretend it could be true

The twenty-four hour security detail from the Princes continued, and whether it was because of that or because Preston had been bluffing about what he and Adena had planned, no new threats came my way

I was growing more accustomed than I should probably have let myself be to the four boys’ constant presence in s of theirs were scattered aroundthe small dorm feel more lived in than it ever had when it was just me

The strangest part was thatused to it as well Dan, who’d never been particularly interested in the social hierarchy of the school, was the first to break down the barriers, talking sports with Finn at lunch or getting into passionate debates about er to warm up, but over the next couple weeks, I noticed both of the around with the Princes—boys they’d once held in both awe and disgust

It ether, although it occurred to me that maybe part of why my three friends were so relaxed around the Princes was because the four boys were no longer treated like royalty by most of the Oak Park students

That hy I was a little surprised when Finn tolda party at Clarendon Hall on Thursday—their first one all semester