Chapter Three
Phoebe
Rocky leaves the bathroom long enough for me to get dressed, and when I return to the bedroom, I catch him rifling through his sister’s duffel bag. He doesn’t care that I see him—or else he would’ve been more discreet.
What he said to me still rings in the pit of my ear. You’ve lost your fucking mind.
I rub leave-in conditioner through my damp blue hair and watch him toe the line between protective older brother and complete asshole.
I near him. “What the hell are you even looking for?”
Still focused on the bag, he doesn’t glance up. “Tension wrench, bump key, burner phones, spare IDs, extra cash, all the shit she’d have on her for a job.”
“Don’t waste your time. Tension wrench and bump key are in the trash. IDs and burner phones have been destroyed. Extra cash is in our boots.”
He solidifies. His eyes flash hot on mine. “Destroyed?”
“Yeah, they’re gone. We don’t need fake IDs. We just need the one real one.”
He rises to his feet, alarm gushing at this point. He’s the Niagara Falls of stormy concern. “You’re going by your real name?”
“No, of course not.” I wouldn’t put my family in jeopardy like that.
A wave of relief washes over his face. “What name, then?”
The response sticks to my throat. “Phoebe.” Anyway, Phoebe is a name I’ve used for decades. Even though it isn’t the name my mom gave me at birth—it feels like mine.
Rocky intakes a tight breath, then looks away from me. I try not to understand what he’s thinking or feeling—in case they’re emotions I’m not in the mood to confront.
Cowardly, maybe, but our history is so deep that I’m not prepared to sink into quicksand. I’m supposed to be stepping outside of that hazard.
Starting new. “Just trust that we’re doing this right,” I tell him. “We want to try this out, and you know I’ll look out for Hails.”
He runs his fingers through his wavy black hair. For a flash, I remember those hands slipping through my hair and his rough voice against my ear in a trancelike whisper: “I hate this.”
That is what he said to me. I. Hate. This.
Truthfully, I could never fully love when we had to pretend to be head over heels in love during cons either. But I also hate that I enjoyed the feeling of hands I knew and trusted and cared about skating through pieces of me like I was the tenderest, sweetest thing he’d ever touched.
Yeah.
I also hate that.
Rocky lets strands of his hair flop to his forehead. “I just wish you’d convince my sister this is a bad idea.”
“I can’t. I won’t.”
“I know.” He glares at the ugly stained carpet and then up at me. “So you’re just ‘trying this out’?”
I try to ignore his use of finger quotes.
“Like an experiment?” he adds.
Tensely, I lower onto the squeaky bed. This isn’t supposed to be some temporary gig where I pack my bags and bail at the first bump in the road. Hailey wants this to last, and living a normal life is hard. Which is probably one of the million reasons why my mom and his parents never bought into the concept. If Rocky thinks we’re dead set on this new lifestyle, I fear he’ll be a bigger thorn.
Let him think what he wants.
“Yeah, it’s an experiment.”
He rubs at his temple. “All right. Okay.”
“Okay?” Surprise flits across my face.
“If my sister needs this to understand our lives are better grifting, then yeah, she can have this fucking experiment.” He bends back down to her bag and zips it up. “But I’m coming with you two.”
My stomach drops. “Excuse me, what?”
The door to the motel whips open. Hailey stands frozen with an armful of Doritos, glancing between us like she’s witnessing a marital dispute. And ugh, why does my brain go there? No. I’m not married to her brother, but yes, we have pretended to be married.
Maybe more than once.
“Oh.” With a red Twizzler between her teeth, Hailey eyes him, then me. She’s cerebral, perceptive, and way too good at reading the temperature of the room. “I came back too early. I can go raid the soda machine. Get carbonated.” She throws the Doritos onto the bed and then waggles her Twizzler at us. “Don’t fight—”
“Wait, don’t go,” I say fast and wave an angry hand to Rocky. “Your brother just said he’s coming with us.”
Hailey barely contemplates Rocky’s involvement before brightening like a Gothic lamp. “You’re coming to Connecticut? You really want to move there, too?”
“Yeah, for a bit.” He stuffs his hands in his pockets. His gold Rolex watch makes him seem mega-yacht rich, but his insides are cheap.
I snort at myself. Finding humor in our lifestyle is one way to cope.
Rocky gives me a strange look.
Hailey tears off another bite of Twizzler with a flourishing grin.
Seeing her happy honestly makes me grin, too.
“Half the gang is back together,” she muses, her confidence rising with Rocky here. “Just like old times. The three of us together again.”
Rocky doesn’t break his gaze from mine. “Just like old times.”
There was a time where we’d spend months on the road together. Cramped in whatever car we found at the junkyard. I’m handy when it comes to fixing broken things, and it’d been easier driving around an old beater before we needed to “look the part” of the obscenely rich.
Rocky has a talent for making friends who’d lend him their Porsches and Range Rovers. One let him borrow his Ferrari for a whole weekend.
Sometimes he had some insane dirt on the mark. But in most cases, the guy just fell for Rocky’s charm and bullshit.
“Old times,” I say, more stilted.
Rocky and I have always had a chaotic energy around each other, but for the past two years, it’s grown more tumultuous. I can pinpoint the exact day it all went haywire, so I don’t have much optimism that this Connecticut town will fix things for us. My only hope is that the Rocky and Phoebe volcano doesn’t explode.
Maybe I’ll find someone else in Connecticut. Someone nice.
Someone better.
That way I can get over Hailey’s brother for good.
The three of us leave the motel room. An old faded green Honda waits in the parking lot, and Rocky veers past the car toward a motorcycle. He rode a motorcycle here in a suit.
Who is he?
That is a question everyone asks before he disappears out of their life like a specter. Though, I’m one of the few people Rocky sticks around for.
That should make me feel amazing.
Special, even. But I just want to flick him away like a spit-wad.
Hailey bumps up against my shoulder. “This’ll be good. Don’t you think? He’s the best at convincing our parents of anything.” She checks the map on her phone while she talks. “And if they call, he can sweet-talk them into believing we’re on a job or something.”
He’s the best liar—I want to rephrase for her.
The best manipulator.
Yet, his true Brillo-pad personality is what he always gives me, and I should be happy that he doesn’t try to manipulate me (if he does, he sucks), but I’m also too busy being annoyed right now.
“If you think he’s an asset to the plan, then I guess he is one.” I trust Hailey’s “big picture” brain, but I have a feeling her brother is mainly here to sweep up the broken pieces of a failed experiment.
And I bet he’d prefer this experiment blow up sooner rather than later.
A new determination boils inside of me. To prove Rocky wrong. Hailey and I can do this.
Rocky seizes a backpack from the motorcycle’s cargo area over the back wheel. Then slyly, he snaps off the license plate and shoves it inside his backpack. He’s abandoning the bike.
He approaches us. “Ready?”
“Yeah, let’s ditch Indiana.” Hailey slips on dark circular shades and hops into the driver’s seat.
Rocky and I fight for the passenger door, our hips and hands bumping.
I glare at him, and he layers one on me. “Excuse me, you’re the interloper here,” I tell him. “Backseat, bud.” I jam my thumb toward the back door.
He cocks his head. “A Tinrock is driving, so I get the passenger seat.”
I scoff. “We made that rule when we were children.”
“And everyone has abided by it since.” He keeps his hand on the door handle beside mine, our thumbs flush against each other. The warmth of his skin on mine sends a shock wave of emotion through me, my lungs reinflating—and I almost concede and draw back then and there.
He’s the oldest of his two siblings.
I’m the youngest out of three. My brother, Oliver, loved the rule about drivers and passengers sharing the same last name. Whenever our eldest brother, Nova, drove, Oliver had prime-time seating.
Really, I just came up with the rule to irritate Rocky. Growing up, our families spent a lot of time caravanning one behind the other, usually on the road to the next job and distancing ourselves from the pool of white-collar crime we left in our wake.
Besides our parents, Nova was usually the one manning the wheel. Rocky was always trying to one-up him—and I loved watching Rocky’s face when Oliver shoved him aside to sit up front.
And then when Hailey learned to drive, the rule backfired on me. Because she became exceedingly good at it, and now she does most of the driving.
She beeps the horn from the driver’s seat.
Fine.
I remove my hand.
He takes the opportunity to hip-bump me aside.
I flip him off.
He smiles like I just gave him a royal wave.
Ugh.
I crawl into the backseat, tossing my backpack on the floor.
“Next stop, Connecticut.” Hailey peels the Honda onto the road. A twelve-hour car ride ahead of us.
Rocky puts earbuds in his ears, drowning us out. Of course he’s not even going to do the proper passenger-seat duties of entertaining the driver. My glare pinches my face painfully.
Hailey glances to me in the rearview and gives me a sympathetic look.
“We didn’t tell the landlord there would be a third tenant,” I whisper-hiss to Hailey. “How is this going to work?”
She shrugs. “Jake seemed chill over the phone. He probably won’t mind as long as we pay rent.”
I mind.
I care.
There’s a lot that Hailey and I lined up before choosing this town. We’re staying at an old loft apartment near the college campus. Students usually rent it dirt cheap. We have jobs at the nearby country club.
Rocky isn’t in the equation. He never was.
Living honestly isn’t in his DNA. Just like it’s never been in mine.