Tiny Dark Deeds: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Court Legacy Book 3)

Sloane

Bru missed Thanksgiving at the Mallicks’. I begged him to attend, but he said he had other plans. Since he’d been at Callum’s, he’d been going off on long weekends, ones during which Callum was allowing him to do college visits and basically any other thing he wanted to do. If he wanted it, Callum provided it, and this hadn’t been uncommon before Bru had left. Callum had always bent over backward to be helpful, and I appreciated him taking care of him.

I just wished I could have.

The Monday after Thanksgiving break, things returned right back to what they were in the halls of Windsor Preparatory, my brother in his clique and me with my own. Another new change was he’d gotten new friends, getting more and more involved in anything academic, which meant the kids in those clubs too. When we’d first gotten here, he’d been all about the football bros, Court, and Legacy.

Now, he seemed to stay away from anything at all that had to do with any of that, them. If I was with Dorian, Ares, and any of Legacy, I got an awkward wave from my brother or a stiff smile, and when I wasn’t with them, the interaction wasn’t much better. I asked him how he was doing, and the one or two-word responses that followed only unsettled my stomach. My brother was here, but he wasn’t here.

“I just need time,” he said to me one day. I’d confronted him about the holidays coming up. I wanted to be able to see him and open presents with him. We never did anything big, but we were always together.

He said of course I’d see him, of course we’d meet up, but anything having to do with him coming over to the Mallicks’ had been questionable. He said he still needed time for all that, but I’d given him time.

It’d been weeks.

I really wasn’t dealing with all this well, feeling myself give one or two-word answers in the majority of conversations I had. No one pushed me about anything, but they weren’t stupid. I was missing Bru, and every day I felt like I had one toe dipped into two different lives. One was with Legacy, and the other was the one I’d been forced to leave behind. It made me a non-participant in the life I felt I had left, and I knew that the moment I ran into a few members of security outside of Brielle’s office.

Forrester, the head of security, was ushering people out of the headmaster’s office with boxes in their hands, and when I asked about that, Forrester said Brielle was moving things back to city hall.

This was the building she worked at as mayor, and since I hadn’t heard about a move, I passed him, heading inside. I had to pass the freakier-than-shit King Kong bust on my way into the office. I knew the school’s mascot was the king, but that thing freaked me out every time I saw it. Even when I’d been a student assistant for Principal Mayberry, I’d found myself giving it a wide berth.

Because I was familiar with the space, I waved to the headmaster’s secretary once inside Brielle’s office. I saw her secretary a lot here since I used to be a student assistant, and she didn’t bother to announce me to Brielle. She just told me to go ahead inside, and I passed more movers with boxes on my way. Brielle was ushering another in bib overalls when I finally did get in there with her.

“Oh, hey, honey,” she said to me, signing off on a clipboard when it was presented to her. She finished, and that person left too. “What’s going on? Everything okay?”

It was for once, yes. I’d had so much drama in my life recently, so I wasn’t surprised she asked, though.

Brielle came around her desk, her slacks long and brown, her top flowing. She came just to my chin, which was where most people did. She put a hand behind my back. “Aren’t you supposed to be in science this hour?”

She knew my schedule, along with everyone else in my life. I nodded. “I was just coming from the bathroom. Saw Forrester and he said people were moving things out of your office?”

The place almost appeared bare through further observation, barely more in here than a desk and chairs.

“Yes. I’m actually headed back to the Mayor’s office following the holiday break,” she said. “Thought I’d get a jump on things. The school hired someone for the position ages ago. They’ve been on standby, waiting.”

They were waiting for me to be okay, I guess, but she didn’t say that. We all knew Brielle was only here for me.

Another man came in and handed Brielle another clipboard. She signed this one too, then instructed me to wait a second while she pointed out to the movers a few things that needed to be packed in the foyer as well. By the time she came back, I was sitting down, and she closed the door. She smiled. “Sorry about that.”

“No, it’s fine,” I said, but did frown a little. I had been neglecting this life and her. She’d been right here, so close to me, but I had never not once made it in here while she’d been headmaster. I messed with my hands. “I wish I would have gotten in here to see you more. I’m sorry about that. I…”

Brielle joined me in one of the student chairs, quickly waving me off. “It wasn’t your job to come in here and see me. I was just here to help and make sure you got acclimated okay.”

Even still, I couldn’t get in here once? I shook my head. “I guess I’m just kind of bummed. I don’t really feel like we’ve gotten to talk.”

She’d been working a lot more recently, her and Ramses both. They’d ask me if that was okay before they’d done it, and it had been. I wanted them to go back to their normal lives and not feel the need to watch over me.

They had been, though. Especially with Bru leaving. They’d been worried. They’d been suggesting therapy for me too off and on. I wasn’t against anything like that, but I’d never been one to open up to many people. Actually, these days I’d been talking more and more to the dark prince, which had been nice.

He’d been opening up too, giving me more and more details about Charlie. Apparently, the two had really used to go by Batman and Robin to each other, which I thought was friggin’ cute as hell. The dark prince wasn’t cute by any stretch of the word, so yeah, all that was fucking adorable.

Brielle tilted her head. She was probably one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen in my life, strong. Both seemed to be a prerequisite to be a Legacy mom, which I could confirm now since I’d met them all. How they all had ended up raising so many arrogant pretty boys I didn’t know, but maybe they were the soft side to them. All the bros had a softer side, even if none of the cocky fucks wanted to admit it. She put a hand on my chair. “I’m always here to talk with you. That won’t change just because I’m going back downtown.”

I still couldn’t help but be bummed, though. I felt like we’d wasted an opportunity here.

I had wasted one.

She was another one who’d upheaved her whole life for me, but I’d failed to even talk to her even though she had been close.

I noticed a metal bust in a box on her shelf, abstract. It was one of the few things the movers had left to take, and I picked it up.

“Your father—” she started, but then smiled. “Ramses made that for me. He’d fill my office if he could. If I let him. He loves giving gifts.”

I knew that about him, still looking forward to the show we were going to together.

And I noticed she’d corrected herself, calling Ramses something else besides my dad. They were still walking on eggshells and trying to protect me. I swallowed. “Do you do art?”

“Oh, no.” She took the piece from me when I handed it to her. She made it face me. “If I did this, I probably would have lost an appendage in the process.”

I chuckled, and she grinned.

She placed it delicately in the box. “You definitely get all that from him. I don’t have an artistic bone in my body.”

“Could you tell me how you got into politics?” I brought my legs up. “I’d like to know more.” I felt like I knew little to nothing about her.

“Well, not much to that really. I actually kind of feel like I stumbled into the mayor’s office.” She made a face, which made me laugh again. She put her hands together. “I was in academics before. I’d actually just taken the job as headmaster here when… well, when you were taken.”

My mouth pressed together, and she lifted a hand.

“That was hard, as I’m sure you can imagine, and losing you wasn’t the first hardship I’ve experienced unfortunately.” She tilted her head. “I had another marriage before I met Ramses. It wasn’t a great one, and my ex-husband and I had a miscarriage during it.”

I didn’t know what to say. “I’m so sorry.”

“I got through it. Though, it was a process. By the time I met Ramses, I was on the way toward healing, and he only expedited that. In fact, he saved my life in every sense of the word. He’s such a good man, and every day I wonder how he chose me.”

He had similar wonderful things to say about her, both of them so kind.

Brielle’s smile stayed strong despite the harder details of her story, unfaltering. I was sure she had done a lot of work to get to this place. Her mouth lifted higher. “When I lost you, I worked a lot. Worked for years as headmaster of the school, but also in the community. My community work invigorated me, and I think truly that was the difference in helping me deal with my grief surrounding the loss of you. I was helping other mothers and fathers who’d also experienced the loss of a child, both locally and globally. I started a foundation, and it was my peers who suggested I run for local office. I thought the notion was crazy, but I did it. I worked in a few positions before, again, my peers pushed for the mayor’s office.” She opened her hands. “The rest is history, as they say.”

She’d had so many horrible things happen to her, but here she was with me, and still being strong. “How did you deal with all that? With what happened with me and before?”

“Like I said, it wasn’t easy, and though you were gone, I hadn’t lost hope you were out there and were safe.” She nodded, her eyes glassy despite her smile. She shook my leg. “And here you are with me.”

Here I was with her, with both her and Ramses.

Her hand left my leg, and she got up quickly. She headed to her desk. “I can write you a pass back to class. That way you won’t get in trouble with Dr. Stone. I know she can be a hard-ass.”

She winked after she said that, and I smiled. I got up too. “After you go back to the mayor’s office, I’d love to visit sometime. See what you do?” I didn’t really have too much of an interest in politics, but I was desperate to know her. She seemed amazing, and I, with my own grief, had been missing that.

She stopped what she was doing, the pass in her hands. She came around her desk. “You would?”

“Yeah, if I could.” I played with my hands. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”

“You wouldn’t be. Not at all.” A warmth touched her eyes, her voice. She tugged some of her hair back. “I’m actually headed down to the office today. Pulling an early day to assist with the move. You wouldn’t like to tag along, would you? I can give you a tour, and it’d be a good time with things being quiet down there.”

My mouth parted. “I have a few periods left.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. I can have Diane get you out of your other classes,” she said, before picking up her line. “After all, I am the headmaster, and I also happen to know your mother so…”

She tossed another wink my way, which made me smile. I’d love to hang out with her today. It was time I moved past my own grief too.

It was well past time.