Chapter Thirty-Two #2
On the beach, I spread my pink strawberry towel beside Hailey’s checkered black one.
I slip a glance back at Rocky while he stakes the umbrella in the brown sand. Tendrils of his black hair brush his forehead, and his aggravated, pissed-off eyes make me smile bit by bit.
You’d think he hates the beach. The scorching heat. Sweat dripping down his jawline. The salty scent of the ocean. Granules of sand going everywhere.
And he does hate it all.
Yet, he’s here. For me, for his sister, for every one of us.
As his narrowed eyes flash over to me, I’d like to believe he’s mostly here for me, and when his affection sinks into me like razor-sharp teeth against my tender flesh, I sense that’s true.
That at the end of the day, I am his first reason and maybe even his last, too.
Eventually, I peel away from Rocky and Hailey to take a walk with my brothers. I’m closest to the water, feeling shorter on the downward slope of the sand.
Nova picks up seashells every time he spots one, just to chuck them into the waves. “You haven’t talked to Rocky about last night?”
“He’s rehashed the horrible events to me.” I fix my twisted baby-blue bikini strap on my shoulder.
“But he said you haven’t talked about it, so what were you doing all this morning with him?” Off my raised brows and head tilt, Nova expels a heavy sigh and launches another shell into the water. “Do you two even communicate beyond fucking?”
“That is communication,” I argue, then look to Oliver for backup.
“It is,” Oliver chimes in while lathering sunscreen on his cut biceps. “They’re communicating with their bodies.”
“Exactly. We don’t always need words.” It’s deeper with Rocky.
He chucks another shell. “You two need to slow down. One unplanned pregnancy is already one too many.”
Oliver squeezes Nova’s shoulder. “You’re only saying that because you don’t like babies.”
“I’ll like yours,” Nova says.
“Might be Jake’s,” Oliver reminds him, and before we can ask, he says, “The paternity doesn’t matter. I just want Hailey and the baby to be healthy.”
“Agreed,” Nova and I say together.
“Jinx,” I add fast. “You owe me a Fizz.”
Nova almost smiles, but he just has to reinforce his point: “Seriously though. Slow down.”
“Rocky and I are using condoms. We’re having safe sex,” I assure. “And, no, I’m not slowing down.”
He glowers.
So I add, “You don’t understand. Being close to Rocky is a need, especially when terrible things happen, like last night. He makes my body feel like mine, and I don’t want to ever lose that.”
Nova blinks hard, trying to let it go.
I mentally try to walk away from this conversation, but all I can picture is the last few seconds with Hailey at the party—right before my vision went hazy.
I pull my hair into a high ponytail. “I can’t stop thinking about last night. What Hailey went through after I passed out…” The sun feels hotter, but it might just be my anger burning me. I snap my elastic tie.
She was using the tactics I was trained to do to bide time. Seduce. Distract. Delay.
Being an ace at seduction, that’s been my superpower. It’s my greatest talent, but I have a love-hate relationship with my role.
“Carlsbad,” I say after I tie my hair and drop my hands to my sides.
“I never told you both what happened. I don’t know if Hailey or Rocky ever told you, but…
I let the mark and his friend have sex with me so we could finish the job.
That’s why Hailey brought me here. So I would stop being in those positions.
I don’t think I ever would’ve stopped if she hadn’t. ”
I love her for it.
Releasing this truth now was much easier than the first time, when I’d struggled to pull it free to tell Rocky. I feel like maybe this is what healing is. Slow repair. Sewn up enough to not bleed out with each word.
Nova releases a long breath, nodding to me. “Thank God for Hailey.”
I nod just as strongly.
Oliver wraps an arm over my shoulders, giving me a consoling squeeze.
I kick up sludgy wet sand while we stroll along the shoreline. Laughter and chatter blend with sounds of soft, crashing waves and squawks of seagulls.
The beach is fairly crowded as the town relishes the sunny June weather.
We walk past a cluster of twentysomething guys in board shorts.
They toss a football back and forth, and their gazes shift over me.
As their eyes descend to my tits, my abdomen, and the strings of my swimsuit that peek out of my jean shorts, riding high on my hips, a gross sensation slithers across my skin.
Normally I’d just feel…numb.
My pulse accelerates. In this second, I don’t want them to look. Oliver is shirtless, so I slip a silent plea to Nova. He’s already pulling off his olive-green T-shirt, then hands it to me.
I’m grateful for the cover-up. The fabric hangs big on me, and I let it drop to my thighs.
Oliver checks his phone after it beeps. “Varrick,” he tells us. “He wants to know how you’re holding up, Phoebe.”
Nova rolls his eyes and picks up another shell. “Pretending to be a father?”
“He technically is our father.” Oliver finishes rubbing in his sunscreen.
Nova glares. “And not only has Varrick killed before, he likely abused Elizabeth, Ol.”
He still won’t call Varrick our dad, just like he’s stopped calling Elizabeth our mom. Even knowing she’s biologically ours, Nova can’t easily forgive her for the lies and the lifelong deception. I still struggle, too.
“We don’t know that,” Oliver says. “Because we haven’t asked.” His bitterness is noted. But we all agreed to holster our curiosities and not ask our dad to crack open a family memoir. I failed exactly once when I asked Varrick a question, and I still regret it.
“Elizabeth ran from him for how many years?” Nova asks. “She never let him believe she was pregnant. She never told him about us. She might’ve done some heinous fucking things with Addison, but she’s always tried to protect us from whatever trash she hooked on her arm.”
Nova leaves out how he’s always tried to protect our mom from them, too. Her husbands were never upstanding men, so the chances of Varrick being a decent guy are slim to none.
Still, we don’t know the origins of their relationship.
Oliver lifts his sunglasses to his head, letting us see his eyes. “I’m not making excuses for our dad.” Nova cringes as he uses the dad title, but Oliver continues, “All I’m saying is that I’d like more of the story, Nov. I’d just be open to hearing what he has to say. Is that a crime?”
I cross my arms. “Not one that will send you to literal jail.”
“What? Is there a pretend jail I’m unaware of?” Oliver drops his sunglasses over his eyes. “Monopoly prison—”
“Is that Elizabeth?” Nova asks, stopping dead in his tracks.
Oliver and I follow his gaze, and we spot our mom on the patio of the Lure, a ritzy beachside restaurant where I’ve gladly overpaid for oysters and melt-in-your-mouth buttery crab. She’s at a two-seater table with a half-filled mimosa flute.
Despite our roller-coaster relationship, her warm aura still captivates me in a single instant. Honey-blonde hair cascades over her slender shoulders like rivers of gold, and her dainty diamond earrings match the sparkle in her brown eyes. She’s breathtakingly beautiful.
And her smile is pure sunlight on her town bestie, Stella Fitzpatrick.
“Let’s go back,” I suggest, not aching to confront our mom today, but as soon as the words leave my mouth, her head swings in our direction.
She straightens up, then waves an energetic hand at us.
“What’s she doing?” Nova asks under his breath, very baffled. We all are, because in Victoria, Connecticut, her alias is Isla Rivers. She has zero relation to the three of us.
I’ve publicly interacted with “Isla” because Claudia Waterford tried to hire her and Addison to matchmake me and my ex-husband, but that ploy never really came to fruition.
“She’s getting up,” I whisper in panic to my brothers. What the hell is happening?
Our mom is out of her chair. She snatches her pistachio-green alligator Hermès Birkin, puts a sweet hand on Stella’s shoulder as if to say a quick goodbye, then struts down the patio stairs toward the beach. The ones that lead to us.
Her very pretty pale-yellow sundress (Oscar de la Renta, I’d bet) leaves me with fragments of envy, which are much easier to digest than the shards of hurt and betrayal.
“Stella’s watching us,” Oliver mutters, his lips barely moving.
“Should we just leave?” I ask them, but it’s clear our mom is coming to greet us. She’s plucked off her heels, then goes barefoot in the sand.
Nova is rigid. He’s glaring out at the ocean, unable to even look at our mom.
“It’s too late for that,” Oliver says, and with a dazzling smile, he waves up at Stella.
Her lips form a soured pucker, but she manages to acknowledge my brothers with a stiff hand while completely ignoring my existence.
My social standing is shakier being Jake’s ex-girlfriend and working as a server.
Luckily, Stella grabs her Chanel handbag and enters the Lure, not sticking around to snoop on us.
“Fancy finding you three here,” our mom says, journeying closer to us at the water.
“Some fancier than others,” Oliver teases me, since I’m the only one who currently appears like I shop at Old Navy. Nova has on an emerald-green Piaget watch worth over seventy grand, and Oliver exudes preppy yachtie energy with his striped swim shorts and perfectly styled brown hair.
The town believes our fictional backstory where the Smith family come from old money, but my disapproving parents revoked my trust fund when I rebelled and married Grey Thornhall. So it shocks no one in Victoria that my brothers are loaded while I’m serving clam chowder and crudités.
“What’d you tell Stella?” I ask our mom, unable to uncross my arms from a defensive posture.