Chapter Thirty-Nine
THIRTY-NINE
Phoebe
“This goes in my top ten,” I tell Rocky quietly in a bathroom that has to be violating at least four health codes. The tub is cracked. The showerhead is leaking, the sink dripping. And I’m fairly certain black mold is creeping out of the air vents.
“Top ten what?” Rocky reaches into the plastic drugstore bag.
My arms are tightly crossed. “Top Ten Most Unexpected Nights.” I did not think Rocky would get down on one knee or that I’d need to buy a pregnancy test or that we’d end the night in a run-down, crappy motel two hours from Victoria. “Did it make yours?”
“Top five, for sure.” He holds out a blue box to me.
I cringe at the pregnancy test, then peer back at the door.
“Who do you think will make it here first?” Our siblings, plus Jake, are meeting us at the motel.
Room 102. A staggered arrival. It lessens the chance that the Michael Myers wannabe will suspect that we know he’s a literal disgusting creep.
Rocky isn’t answering me.
I stare at the scuffed doorknob. “My money’s on Nova.”
“Betting your pocket change on your most overprotective brother.”
I glance back at him. “Who would you bet on?”
Rocky rips the box open while staring at me. “Nova.” He flashes a dry smile.
I force one back, then my eyes fall to the test and my grimace re-forms.
“It doesn’t have cooties,” he states.
I scowl. “Did I say it did?”
“You’re staring at it like it’s going to leap out and lick your face.”
Rotating to face him fully, I avoid elbowing the stained sink. “Great, maybe you should take it then.”
“I would if I could, but that’s not how this works.” He plucks out the stick and the mini pamphlet of directions. “You want me to hold your hand?”
I drill a Fuck you glare into him.
He’s not intimidated. “You want to wait for my sister and do this with her?”
“I want to wait for the person who’ll jump out of the closet and say, Aha! Gotcha! This is all one big joke!”
“Okay, a stranger hiding in the motel closet is some horror shit that’s not going to happen. So let’s stay in fucking reality.”
“As if this isn’t horrifying?” My voice cracks. Fuck.
Rocky stares deeply into me until I look away again.
I didn’t realize just how relieved I’d been learning I wasn’t pregnant until this moment—when I’m faced with another scare. Only this one feels a hundred times worse. Because my own dad could’ve baby-trapped me.
I blink out of my heavy thoughts and reach for the stick in Rocky’s hand.
He retracts it from me. “Let’s talk about this first.”
I swallow a pit in my throat and manage to ask, “Do you want to be a father?”
I’m surprised when he doesn’t volley the same question back at me right away and instead answers, “Not really. Do you want to be a mother?”
“I’ve literally never pictured it.” I stare at the tile floor. “Even now, the image is just so…blank.” I look up at him.
Rocky’s gaze skims me head to toe. “Do you know if you want kids or not, Phebs?”
“Like now or ever?”
“I know you don’t want them now. It’s very fucking clear. I meant ever.”
I touch my wedding ring absentmindedly. “You know what would be really unexpected, we just married each other and we’re on different sides of a deal-breaker.”
“We’ll figure it out,” he says quietly.
“Will we?” I try not to cry. My burning eyes feel swollen from restraining waterworks on the drive here. I’m used to bolting the emotion behind closed doors. Being numb. What I’m trained to do. Just carry on. “I don’t know, Rocky…”
He tenses more. “Don’t know what?”
Fuck being closed off. I’m done pushing it down.
Even if this part hurts. I rip the feelings out with the words.
“I don’t know if I ever want to be a mom.
I don’t know if I ever want to carry a child in a body that barely feels like mine sometimes.
I don’t know if I want to be a parent when the only road map we were ever given was so fucked-up, it’s impossible to follow.
And then I think I do know…I think I know that I don’t want any of it. ”
He seems stunned, either that I just purged my feelings in one breath or by my answer.
I try to inhale. “You better say something.”
“You don’t want kids,” he realizes.
“I honestly…” I swallow. “I just can’t see that changing. It would take decades for me to feel differently, and by then, I’d be too old to have—”
“I don’t want kids either, Phebs.”
“Never?” I ask.
“Never.” He nods. “After all we’ve been through…I’ve never wanted to bring something so innocent into a world so corrupt.”
I wince. That hurts for some reason, and I figure out why very quickly. “Hailey.”
“I know,” Rocky says in a deep breath. “I know. Hailey is going to have a baby. And it’s a blessing that Oliver or Jake will be the father.
Your brother is so unfettered. He won’t let life drag that child down, and Jake—Jake is fucking noble.
He was practically born to spawn a litter of golden retrievers. ”
I frown. “You don’t think the world could use more German shepherds?” It’s what Hails says Rocky would be if he were a dog breed.
He glances at the pregnancy stick, then back at me. “I’m not going to say I’d be a bad father, because that’d be a lie. In the end, I think I’d be cut out to be a great one.”
“Cocky,” I tease.
His lips tic up, rising with mine. “All I’m saying is that you don’t have to think you’ll be a bad parent to not want a baby. You can just not want one. Because I do know that we would be great parents.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, we both would try to give a kid everything we never had and everything we ever loved, and I know this because we’re going to give my sister’s kid absolutely everything.”
It swells inside me, and I nod strongly, knowing he’s right.
I would do anything for Hailey’s baby. Absolutely anything and everything. Just like I’ve always done for her.
I inhale the deepest breath yet. It’s audible when I exhale, and I say, “You’re really good at this.”
“Talking?”
“Making me feel better. Just when I was about to feel guilty for never wanting to have kids of my own while my best friend is pregnant.”
He raises his brows at me. “Fuck your guilt. We have way more shit to worry about.” He’s still holding the pregnancy test.
“Right.” I tense. “I might be pregnant.” I reach for it.
He lets me take it this time. “If you are, we’ll figure it out together. But at least we know we’re on the same page.”
Letting out another breath, I nod. “I just pee on it?”
He reads the directions to me. I shimmy my panties down my ankles, reluctant to put my butt on the toilet seat. I just squat over it. Rocky stays in the bathroom while I piss on the stick, but he keeps his eyes on the door.
I can tell he’s listening for noises.
“Is someone here?” I ask.
“I think I heard a knock.”
“I’ll get it.” I hurry. Wipe. Wash hands. Set the test on top of the box. Do not want to be around that thing.
Rocky gives me a hard look like I’m being a scaredy-cat.
I flip him off on my way out. I swear I catch his smile before I leave him behind.
Even though I fully expect to see Nova, I peer through the peephole. Okay…unexpected thing number whatever of the night. I yank open the door. “Trevor? Did you speed here?” I notice the parked Honda. He took my car.
“I ditched Trent early at the Gulp.” He enters the motel, fisting a bottle wrapped in a paper bag.
I lock the door, including the chain. “Were you drinking and driving?”
“No, I barely had any whiskey. I faked it.” He plops on one of the squeaky twin beds and unscrews the alcohol.
Rocky is still in the bathroom. His voice sounds muffled, like he’s on the phone.
Just me and his little brother, who withstands me like a cold sore. I sink down on the other bed, facing him. “You okay?”
“Fine.” He takes a large swig.
Concern tosses my stomach. “Everything went okay with Trent?”
“Yeah.”
He’s not the best liar among us, so I can tell that’s not the total truth, but I don’t press. In our shared silence, Trevor offers me the bottle.
I stiffen. “No thanks. Baby might be on board, so…I need to figure that out first.”
“Shit, yeah.” His frown deepens. “Sorry.”
The apology surprises me. I don’t like that he’s not teasing me hard-core or calling me PG. This feels wrong. My eyes flame. “If Trent fucked with you tonight, I will mutilate him.”
Trevor lets out a short laugh. “No, you wouldn’t.”
“I would shear off his nuts.”
“Please, PG, you’re embarrassing yourself.” He’s smiling a little bit. “We all know I’m the only one with a kill list.”
“That you’re no longer using,” I tell him in a tone that says, You better not be.
“Oh, so you can chop Trent’s dick off, but I can’t?”
“I’m older.”
“So, when I’m twenty-five, I get full castration privileges. Got it.”
“I will always be older than you.” I shrug my rigid shoulders. “We all will, Trev. That’s the beauty of being the youngest, you get full protection privileges when we all take turns worrying about you. I don’t know why you hate it so much.”
“I don’t,” he says under his breath right when the bathroom door opens. Rocky comes out, and Trevor raises his bottle at him. “Heard you’re going to be a dad.”
“We don’t know yet, shithead. You get wasted, you’re spending the night here.”
“Already planned on it.” He gets comfy on the single bed, not taking his shoes off, and grabs a remote.
Also did not expect to room with Trevor tonight. Maybe the motel has a king available.
This must’ve been a “failed” stagger since Nova, Oliver, Hailey, and Jake arrive practically two minutes after Trevor. Soon, we’re all crammed into the musty motel room, and I sit beside Hailey on a bed, while on the other, Trevor flips through TV channels on mute.
I hold Hailey’s hand. She looks around at the motel room, and I wonder if she’s remembering how this all started.
With me and her and boxes of hair dye in a crummy little motel.
En route to Connecticut. Now we splurge and have our hair professionally dyed at the salon from time to time.
I don’t even hate the upkeep just to have it blue.
Her eyes meet mine. “This could be the end to something awful and the start to something great. That’s what I told myself a year ago, you know,” she whispers. “Things could be better than they were.”
“They have been.” I had such low hopes for how things would pan out living honestly in a cutesy small town. I would’ve never thought how much could change. How much I could change.
She smiles down at my hand in hers. The diamond ring. “I loved Miami.” She peeks over at Jake and Oliver, who talk quietly with Nova and Rocky in the corner of the room.
“You love Victoria more,” I say with a growing smile.
“Yeah,” she breathes. “That’s why it’s scary to lose him.”
Him. She sees the town as Jake. My heart pangs. Hailey and I look over at the guys as they break apart their team huddle to face us. The timer for the pregnancy test hasn’t gone off yet.
Trevor sits up on the other bed, seeing the severity in their expressions. Even Oliver is way more uptight than usual. I send my brother a look like, What’s going on?
He lifts his shoulders and brows, then takes a sharp inhale like, Shit’s fucked-up. What can I say? I watch him slip on designer sunglasses, which means he’s sick of me reading his reactions.
I try not to worry about him. He wouldn’t want me to.
“What were you talking about?” I grimace at Rocky. “I hate to even want this, but please tell me Trent is still alive.”
“No one killed Trent,” Rocky says, running his fingers through his hair. “We’re discussing the possibility of Varrick not wanting a team in the end. If his motive is solely to have a baby.”
“What?” My face falls.
Hailey squeezes my hand, like she’s already thought about this. She’s comforting me. When I should be comforting her. She’s the pregnant one. I might be…I might not be.
Nova snatches the paper-bagged bottle from Trevor. “He means Varrick isn’t a team player. Never has been. Why would he believe Rocky would ever work with him?”
“He doesn’t believe that I would.” Rocky sounds so assured. “Because he’s not going to work with us. That’s not what this has been about.”
“If it’s just about having a baby to raise as a grifter, then…” I can’t process this. “He could’ve had one any other way. Adoption. Gotten another woman pregnant.”
Rocky arches his brows. “Honestly, I think it’s a fuck you to Elizabeth, Addison, and Everett for not telling them he had children two decades ago. He really wants revenge, and we’re caught in the fucking middle.”
My blood runs cold. “So, what is he going to do?”
Nova chugs from the bottle, then wipes his mouth with his bicep. His anger is palpable. Jake is rolling his sleeves to his forearms. Oliver sends me and Hailey tiny, fleeting smiles of reassurance.
Rocky works his jaw before saying, “He could steal the baby and run.”
Oh.
Okay, yeah. It hits me like a brick wall. I feel like I just got knocked out. “My dad might kidnap Hailey’s baby. That’s what you’re saying?” I refuse to acknowledge that I might be pregnant.
Oliver leans on the dresser, blocking Trevor’s view of the TV. “Nicolas Cage did it in Raising Arizona. Maybe our dad has a thing for the actor.” He holds up his right hand. “Raising Arizona.” Then lifts his left. “Matchstick Men.”
“That’s the film about con artists?” Jake asks.
“Yep,” Rocky says.
“I hate that movie,” Trevor mutters, trying to switch channels with Oliver in the way. “Too predictable.”
“Okay. Okay.” I let go of Hailey’s hand, needing to stand up. “So, easy fix. Varrick can’t know Hailey is pregnant. He has to be dealt with ASAP.”
“He will be. That’s the plan,” Rocky reminds me.
There’ve been two jobs happening at once.
I know.
There will be two ropes pulled.
Rocky looks around at everyone, at Hailey, at me, as he says, “This stays here. Do not act like you hate him more than you already do. Don’t act like he’s the scum of the fucking earth. Do exactly what you’ve been doing.”
I’m more nervous than I have been. All I’m going to want to do is stab him between the eyes. “Everything about this is dangerous.”
“Yeah,” Rocky agrees with me. “And the next generation of Tinrocks and Graveses will be dangerously ours. He’s not getting shit.”