Chapter 14 #4
Near the windows, someone is reenacting Tia’s stumble with dramatic flair. In minutes, it’ll be all over Instagram, TikTok, and group chats. Immortalized forever.
Tia Calloway is done. Obliterated. Reduced to ash. Finished.
And Aubrey didn’t even have to throw a punch.
It takes me a moment to spot Nicole amid the chaos. She’s standing still, phone in hand, staring at the doors Tia just ran through.
Her face is ghost white, the kind of white that comes from watching your entire strategy go up in flames.
Because that’s what this is for, Nicole.
A game. She’s been circling Tia for months, studying her moves, learning the playbook, waiting for the perfect moment to slip into those designer heels and take what she believes she deserves.
Except this wasn’t supposed to happen.
You can’t inherit a kingdom that just got torched.
Nicole’s eyes dart around the cafeteria, scanning, trying to salvage something from the wreckage—figuring out how to spin it, how to use it, how to climb over Tia’s corpse and take what’s left.
Then her gaze falls on Aubrey, standing there as calm as ever.
I keep my eyes on Nicole’s face, observing it shift, the gears turning behind her eyes. I see shock bleed into understanding, which then twists into something uglier.
Hate flashes across her face because she finally gets it.
All those months of plotting, scheming, and carefully positioning herself—all that effort to be the one who would step up when Tia fell. She now realizes that the throne wasn’t empty. It never was.
It’s always been Aubrey’s for the taking.
The dinner rush hasn’t hit yet but the place is already half full, which means it’s gonna be a nightmare by seven.
I arrived early today. Earlier than I usually do, and that’s saying a lot because I’m never early for anything.
The shift manager on duty noticed me walking in and handed me a rag before I even had my apron on. Tonight, I’m on tables, not the grill. Something about needing someone who could move fast when it gets busy. Translation: some idiot called in sick, and I’m the one paying for it.
I wipe down the same table again, slowly dragging the rag across the sticky laminate.
The lights above the soda machine flicker as they always do, emitting that weak yellow buzz that makes everyone look worn out. Some song from the 70s drifts out of the radio on the counter. I’ve heard it twice already tonight.
I grab two baskets and carry them to the couple tucked in the corner booth.
“Burger and fries,” I say, sliding the plates down without ceremony.
The guy doesn’t glance up from his phone. The girl sitting across from him says thank you in a small, almost apologetic voice, the way people do when they feel bad that their boyfriend has no manners.
I nod and then walk away.
I head back toward the two construction workers squinting at the menu as if it’s in another language. Concrete dust still on their boots. I take their order, two burgers, one with extra pickles, and I set it down at the counter.
I reach into the gray plastic wash bucket and grab another damp rag before heading to the next table to wipe it down.
Work usually keeps my head quiet. Hands busy, brain off, just the noise of the place filling up around me. Usually. But today, every slow second breaks apart, and the same thing slips in.
Bells. She was pissed she missed it. That moment when the universe finally delivers something spectacular and she wasn’t there in person to see it explode.
I sent her the link the second the video went up. Tia, mid-flinch, frozen in slow motion. Someone had already added captions by the time it hit my feed.
My phone buzzed in my pocket ten seconds after I sent it.
Bells: OMG FINALLY
She went quiet for ten minutes, which can only mean one thing: she was watching it on repeat. Bells has never met a moment she couldn’t squeeze every last drop out of.
I drag the rag across the table and almost smile as I imagine her watching it, laughing with that smile on her face.
I feel her, before I see her.
Aubrey.
She’s behind the counter pouring drinks, moving through her shift the way she always does. But her attention keeps drifting to the side. Toward me. It has been for the last five minutes.
I meet her gaze and she quickly looks away, as if she wasn’t just doing exactly what I caught her doing.
I move, and her eyes follow, then drop.
She carries a round of drinks across the room, weaving between tables, and still somehow manages to find me on the way back. The tension radiating from her is loud, the kind you can’t ignore even when you’re trying really hard to.
Which is strange because Aubrey has never once in her life had trouble saying exactly what she thinks about me.
No filter, no softening it, no courtesy pause before she goes in.
She doesn’t like me and has made that clear since day one, wearing it like a badge.
And I’ve never lost a single minute of sleep over it.
That’s what I keep telling myself anyway.
I move to the back table and start wiping it down. Thirty seconds later, I hear footsteps slow behind me. I don’t turn around. Don’t give her the satisfaction.
Aubrey is hovering.
I keep wiping the table, moving at the same slow pace, completely unbothered. Or at least pretending to be.
She clears her throat.
I peer over my shoulder slowly and unbothered because that’s the only speed I operate at.
She’s got the drink tray pressed against her hip and is staring at me as if she’s weighing whether it’s worth starting this conversation.
I toss the rag onto the table.
“If you’ve got something to fucking say, Aubrey, just say it.”
She exhales slowly before she shifts her weight and buys herself one more second.
I wait for the usual crap to come my way. That look, the one she has just for me, the one that falls somewhere between disgust and I knew it. The whole “you’re a terrible person, Jace” speech she gives.
“How’s Lola?”
That question throws me off guard for a second.
“She’s okay.” I keep my voice flat, giving her nothing to work with.
“And her dad?”
I drag my hand over the back of my neck, and my eyes drop to the table for a brief moment. “The same. Still hasn’t woken up.”
She nods, accepts that answer, and sits with it instead of dissecting it.
She turns her head toward the door when it opens, new customers coming in off the street, but Maggie’s already moving toward them.
“Jace,” she says, turning back to me.
“Yeah.”
She closes the gap between us and lowers her voice enough so it stays between me and her. Her eyes lock onto mine, and for the first time I’ve known her, there’s no hostility there.
“Please don’t hurt her.”
The protective edge in her voice is unmistakable, and I suddenly realize that this isn’t Aubrey confronting me. This is Aubrey asking me… For Lola.
“You really think that’s what I’m doing?” I hold her gaze.
She pauses, and I can see her carefully choosing her words before she speaks. “I think you’re Jace.”
“Say whatever the hell you want about me, Aubrey. But Bells is the only person in my life I never want to hurt. Ever.”
Something crosses her face, silent and swift.
“You actually care about her,” she says, as if she’s still processing the shock of it.
“Don’t.” I shake my head. “Don’t fucking do that.”
She almost smiles, just the edge of it, the closest thing to a white flag I’ve ever seen from her.
Some guy in the corner booth raises his hand as if he’s bidding at an auction. “Any chance of some more sodas over here?”
Aubrey exhales through her nose, the tray already sliding back onto her hip as she turns away. “Coming,” she calls.
And just like that, the moment breaks. I watch her go.