Chapter 128: I Was Princess First Kiss
I just can’t believe it. I kept thinking about the date, over and over. Yesterday was Saturday. It was Princess’s birthday, and she didn’t say a single word about it the last time we met on Friday. We had been talking, cuddling, and she didn’t even drop a hint. That is not cool. It felt like a punch to the gut that I didn’t even know.
"I can’t believe she didn’t tell me about her birthday. She just said she was going to spend time with her brothers and nothing else," I said. I was pacing around the living room, my feet hitting the floor in a fast rhythm. I was completely ignoring the fact that Malo was trying to watch TV. Every time I passed in front of him, he had to tilt his head to see the screen. I was like a glitch in his movie, but I didn’t care.
"Why would she not tell me something that important?" I added. I felt restless. I felt like I had missed a test I didn’t even know was scheduled.
"Because it’s not just her birthday... can you just stop moving? This is the interesting part," he said. He sounded clearly frustrated. He picked up the container of Chinese noodles from the table. We had decided to eat something Chinese tonight. He looked at me like I was blocking the sun.
"Is it also her brothers’ birthday? Is that why she needed to spend time with them?" I asked, stopping for a second to look at him.
"It’s their mother’s death anniversary. Their mom died nine years ago, so they pause whatever they’re doing and spend time together, cherishing their moments," he said. He sounded so casual about it, like he was reading a weather report.
That hit me hard. I stopped pacing and just stood there. I grabbed the remote from the couch and switched off the TV. The screen went black, and the room got suddenly quiet. I needed him to focus on me, not the show.
"Dude!" he snapped, sitting up straight. He looked at the blank screen and then at me, his eyes wide with annoyance.
"I can’t believe she didn’t tell me anything about that. I would have stayed with her and tried to, you know... help her out," I said. I felt a wave of guilt wash over me. I felt bad that I hadn’t noticed the signs. Princess always smiles. She’s like a wall of sunshine, always hiding things deep inside where nobody can see them. You have to really provoke her to bring out what she’s actually feeling. And all I was thinking about lately was myself. All I was thinking about was controlling my heat and my own problems. I felt selfish.
"Relax, it’s no big deal. Princess doesn’t seem sad about it. She’s used to it by now. Also, if you had your memory, you’d know what yesterday was. You wouldn’t be asking these questions," he said. He started poking at his noodles again, trying to find a piece of chicken.
Then something hit me. A thought crawled out of the back of my mind.
"Wait, I heard her mom was an Alpha. Alphas don’t die easily. I mean, that’s the whole point, right? No one can kill an Alpha. Not even another Alpha in a straight fight. So how did her mom die?"
Malo looked up, his expression turning a bit more serious. "Well, Mrs. Kings traveled out for business. On her way back, on Princess’s birthday, she wanted to make it in time for the party. Her car was ambushed on a quiet stretch of road. She was shot straight in the head. Clean shot. When the investigators tried to recover the bullet to see what kind of gun did it, the bullet was gone. Just vanished from the wound. Her death was a message to every Alpha in the world. It was a warning that there was someone with a weapon out there that could kill them. So yeah... Alphas can die. They aren’t immortal. And do you know the weirdest part? She was with her husband when it happened. They were in the car together. But his body was never found. No blood, no clothes, nothing. He just disappeared into thin air."
That was definitely weird. I felt a chill run down my spine. How does a body just disappear from a crime scene like that? It didn’t make any sense.
I grabbed my own container of noodles and sat lazily on the couch. I felt heavy. I started thinking about what my life was like before I left Oakland. I tried to remember something, anything about school, from before I met Guru in Redwood. But it was like staring into a fog.
"Hey, Malo," I said. I was trying to pick up my noodles with the wooden chopsticks. I wasn’t a fan of them at all. They felt slippery and awkward in my hand, but I forced myself to use them instead of reaching for the plastic fork that was sitting right in front of me. I wanted to feel like I could handle something difficult.
"What was my life like here in Oakland before the memory wipe? Tell me something real," I asked.
"Well, we were friends since we were pups. On our first day at school, we got bullied by Princess and her friends, the Trios. But you weren’t having it. You wanted revenge, so you pulled a prank on them on the playground. You put some kind of sticky sap all over the monkey bars. It was hilarious. We stood there and laughed at the Alpha and her friends while they were stuck. Then... everything changed. You became friends with Princess," he said. He gave me a look. It was a look of betrayal, like I had traded him in for a newer model.
"Go on, I’m listening," I said. I ignored his expression and kept fishing for a noodle.
"That was it. You became friends with Princess, and you two got really close. I mean really close. I started looking like a third wheel in my own group. I was a freaking third wheel. Every time I came to school, you were already there. You were already holding Princess’s hand, walking into the building together. You two were always off by yourselves. I’d see you two eating popsicles on the swings, just laughing without me... and then I saw you kissing on the playground..."
I almost choked. A noodle went down the wrong way and I started coughing.
"Wait, what? Princess and I kissed?" I gasped, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
"Yes. I saw you two kissing," he confirmed. He looked back at the blank TV, his voice flat.
"What kind of kiss? Was it just a cheek kiss? Or a small peck? Maybe on the forehead?" I asked. My heart was racing now.
"No. You kissed her on the lips," he said.
"Oh my God... does that mean Princess was my first kiss?"
I tried to think. I searched my brain for any memory of a first kiss. If what Malo said was true, then my first kiss wasn’t some random person. It was Princess Kings. All my life, ever since I could remember, I thought my first kiss was some girl back in Redwood. But no, it was Princess.
I sat back against the couch. So I did not just lose my virginity to Princess, but also my first kiss.
Fucking hell, she really lived up to that, becoming first in everything.
