Chapter Fifteen
Phoebe
THE BADGER GAME (CONTINUED)
Rocky laughs. “You’re joking.”
“Kiss your sister, roach.”
Rocky lets out a weaker laugh, then shrugs like, whatever. He faces me, and the raw, provocative desire to sink into his protective arms and never leave just tunnels into me. It’s a freight train. A bulldozer. A semitruck that slams against me, and I let myself get run over. Until I swallow back every ounce of this feeling. This yearning.
For a flicker of a moment, his gaze switches into something not even close to brotherly.
I refuse to uncross my arms.
He gently runs his fingers against my cheek and lightly kisses the other one.
“On the lips!”
Rocky laughs harder, but the strain in his throat reverberates the sound into a deep cackle. He gestures with his head to Matthew and asks me, “Can you believe this guy?”
“Just get it over with,” I mutter.
He rolls his eyes, and his hand begins to encase my cheek with strength and possession, fingers slipping into my hair. His head tilts, and as I shut my eyes, as my heart slams out of my rib cage, Rocky presses his lips to mine. Warmth explodes in my body, and what should be a peck shatters in the way his fingers tighten through my hair—in the way he draws me against his firm, bare chest. The kiss is pinning me to him, and selfishly, I cling and clutch, and when he teases my lips open, there is desperation on his tongue and a longing that tornadoes between us.
The wine cellar is silent.
Once Rocky breaks away, our breath comes shallow and a little wanting, but he changes his into a laugh and a radiant grin. “How’s that, Number One?”
Matthew is in shock until he shares in Rocky’s laughter. “You sick motherfucker.” Matthew grins, and they literally fist bump, bro-hug.
So gross. I uncross my arms. To keep from physically embracing Rocky, I dug my nails so hard into my arms that half-moon indents mar my skin and sting.
“Do you hear that?” Claire squeaks from the stone.
The door bangs open, and a flashlight beams down into the stairwell.
A cop appears. He intakes the clandestine shit show. Bloodstained faces, wet bodies, reddened asses, and robed figures lording over us.
“Oh shit,” a Firefly member swears.
I hold my hands up, as do Nova and Rocky. It causes everyone else to follow suit.
Once the cop sees Kendra nearly passed out next to her vomit, he touches his radio. “I’m gonna need backup.” To all of us, he says, “All right, you have the right to remain—”
“Whoa, whoa, what’s the problem, Officer?” Matthew asks, tearing off his mask. His prickish face and curly blonde hair come into view.
“Hazing—”
“I’m suing,” Nova cuts in before the officer can list all the crimes. He stands up from the stone. “What you did is fucking heinous. Do you see her?” He’s pointing to Claire.
She nods repeatedly, sniffling, but the waterworks ignite the longer everyone focuses on her. I bend down and splay her jacket over her shoulders, and I check on Kendra. Her pulse is weak.
“She needs the ER—”
“She’s fine,” Matthew says. “Everyone is fine.” He speaks to the Firefly Club members who whisper amongst themselves, stiffening in doubt and fear. “My father—”
“I don’t care who your father is,” the officer snaps, but in the same breath, he zeroes in on Rocky and me. “Cole. Abby?”
Hope strikes Matthew’s eyes. Oh, you’re not getting out of this that easily. “Cole.” Matthew smiles over at him like, Fix this.
Cole nods, then rushes over to the officer. With the officer’s hand on Cole’s shoulder, it’s clear they’re friendly. Because they’re literally father and son.
Everett is wearing an actual police uniform. Not a cheap Party City costume.
“You’re not suing,” Matthew sneers quietly to Nova.
“I could go to the public,” Nova says, more emboldened. “I could bury all of you.”
“Lighten up, bro!” another guy shouts at Nova.
“This could ruin their lives, their futures, J.T.,” I tell Nova, my fake brother’s childhood friend. “We knew what we were signing up for.”
“I’m so dead,” some dude mutters, his hands on his head and his mask already trampled on the stone. “I’m so fucked.”
“My dad is going to kill me,” a girl cries.
Cole pats the officer’s chest in thanks, and Matt intakes a breath and nods to my fake brother. “What’d he say, Cole?”
Everyone notices the officer lingering in the narrow stairwell. Barricading the exit.
“He says we can make this go away, but we have to go through my lawyer. He doesn’t take on new clients, so you have to do this quick.” Rocky is dialing a number. “His name is Pierre.”
“Claire,” I whisper, since I need to leave soon. “Claire.”
She sniffs. “Mmmh?”
“Can you call a friend to come pick you up?”
She nods over and over.
Nova has bent down to Kendra. He’s helping her sit up. “Are you okay? Can you hear me?”
She moans. “I... yeah?” Gently, Nova rests her back against a wine crate. He collects her clothes.
“Take Kendra to the hospital,” I tell Claire.
“Okay,” she blurts into a squeak. “Okayokay. Kendra?”
I move out of the way and let Claire crawl to Kendra’s side. Nova hands her Kendra’s clothes, and she covers Kendra with the warm parka. After I fumble putting on my shirt and jeans quickly, I back into the shadows fully clothed. I watch as Matthew speaks to Pierre.
Also known as Oliver Graves.
“Okay... yeah... I can do that right now,” Matthew says, then focuses on the other Firefly members. “Get your phones out. You each need to wire thirty grand to this number. It’s the lawyer’s retainer fee.”
If anyone bats an eye at the high price, they don’t question Matthew, not at the risk of looking cheap, and a few friends cover for those who can’t pay in full.
Not long after all the wire transfers go through, the sighs of relief follow, and Matthew hugs Rocky like he’s his archangel and not a devil in disguise.
The officer doesn’t press charges. He leaves before the desperate students realize there was never a cop car parked outside.
Nova is pissed and pretends to have a fight with his “childhood friend” on their way out. Rocky calms him down for show.
Tomorrow morning, we’ll all be gone like a fever dream. And the Firefly Club will remain what it is. A secret.
Snow flurries are salting the night sky, and I pretend to call our personal car service. While we wait, we use Nova’s T-shirt to clean the blood off our bodies and faces.
Oliver arrives in five minutes, and I climb into the backseat of the black Rolls-Royce. I’m squished between Nova and Rocky since Hailey is in the passenger seat; heat blows through the vents and instantly warms my frigid skin.
No one says anything for a hundred miles.
The clock blinks 4:32 a.m.
Sitting on my sore ass is painful, and I slide further down the middle seat. Sort of angling into Rocky is the comfiest position, and he curves his bicep around me to tuck me against his chest. The thump of his heartbeat could soothe me to sleep.
He rests a calming hand on my head, and he watches me as I canvass the tensed lines of his jaw and the darkness shadowing his gaze. He’s not all right. I try to sit up, but he keeps me there and I ease back against him, concern flaring inside of me.
The silence is eating at Oliver. “Okay, is anyone going to tell me what happened?” he asks, his eyes flickering to me in the rearview mirror while he drives. “Phoebe?”
Hailey rotates in her seat. “Phebs?” She studies my slowly drying hair and the way I’m leaning into her older brother.
“I’m good.” I really am okay.
“Platypus?” Oliver questions.
I shake my head. “Polar bear.” We walked away with three hundred grand. Matthew will wake up to the realization that he’s not the big man on campus. He’s a fool who was so obviously tricked, and he opened the door for it to happen to his peers, too.
It’s not enough, a nagging thought grates at me.
I wish I could call him a piece of shit to his face. I wish I damaged more than his pride. I wish he would hurt as badly as he hurt those girls. He’s wealthy enough that thirty grand probably means nothing.
Embarrassment is the punishment, and sometimes, it just feels weak.
I hear my mom in my head. “You have his money. That’s the point, bug.” The payout might be everything to my mom and Addison, but the fancy lifestyle we’re living isn’t the reason I relish tricking people out of a tiny fortune.
Craning my neck to the other side, I touch Nova’s arm. “Platypus?”
He’s quiet. Gazing out the window, the snowy landscape thickens in white as we drive north.
“Nova?” My pulse skips. “Platypus?”
“Platypus,” he says in the quietest, deepest breath.
I take my hand off him. Unsure if this is about me or seeing Kendra nearly pass out and hearing Claire cry and doing nothing to help. He’s not regularly in those positions. Usually, he’d be behind the wheel keeping the car warm.
We’re in the middle of nowhere when Oliver drives onto a snow-blanketed dirt road. He parks near a skeletal tree and a small, iced-over pond. Most of us get out. Nova pops the trunk.
And while my brothers begin removing the license plate, Rocky strides angrily over to the pond’s rickety dock. His fury could melt the snow with each maddened step.
Rage. It boils at a higher temperature inside Rocky, but it’s quietly simmering in me, too. There is no vindication great enough to satisfy the cruelty of tonight. We can’t stick around long enough to even revel in someone’s misfortune.
I see him ache to rip the world to pieces, and it’s comforting to know I’m not alone.
Hot tears prick my eyes, and I chase after him.
Rocky screams out into the nothingness of the icy dark, and the guttural noise ricochets inside me like a stray bullet. Pain punctures the shield I think I’ve been wearing all night.
Carefully, I climb on the squeaking dock, my pulse racing. My blood on fire. “Rocky?”
He twists around, and swiftly, he cups my cheeks with two warm hands, looking deeply into me. My chest lifts with a strong breath. My heart pumps, and I wanted that prick to pay as much as Rocky did.
Really pay. To bleed more than just cash. If we had it our way, I wonder if he would’ve. I hang on to Rocky, holding his hands that encase my cheeks.
“Fuck. Him,” Rocky grits out, his eyes reddening and glassing.
“Fuck him,” I breathe into the frosty air, my voice breaking painfully.
Rocky slides his arm around me as I hug him. He’s bringing me closer in a tighter, fiercer embrace. He puts a hand on the back of my skull, like he’s afraid someone will come behind me and yank me away.
“I swear to God, Phoebe...” His voice sounds choked on my name, and he can’t finish what I think is a promise or a threat. “I swear to fucking God.” It comes out hot under his breath.
All I know is that I couldn’t do this without Rocky. We’re all the children of confidence men and women, living inside a train that hurtles forward with busted brakes and no signs of stoppage, but Rocky and I are in the same passenger car. We always have been. Sitting there together, peeking out of the opened door as the landscape whizzes past us, wondering where the hell we’re going.
And I could tell him.
Right here, I could tell him how I need him. I could tell him how tonight is better because of him. And tomorrow will be brighter because he’s there. But I can’t...
The words are balled in my throat. I’m afraid of being someone’s burden. I don’t want to saddle him with another bag of weight. It’s better if he knows I can do this on my own.
I can do this without him.
And maybe I can.
But maybe I’d hate every second of it.
His firm chest melds against my soft body while he’s holding me against him. And the speeding tempo of our pulses never slows, never dies down. We’re set on overdrive, me and him.
Destined for the thrill of a hunt. But also for the pain at the end.
When we slowly draw back, his gaze drops to my lips, and I remember the feeling of his lips against my lips—the desperation and longing. It swirls around us like a cyclone dipping from the sky. Snow kisses his hair as more flurries descend, but Rocky doesn’t kiss me again.
I don’t kiss him.
The job is over.
It’s strange to feel so bound to someone but to have never kissed outside of a con. Yet, the way his fingers hook mine is intimate and loving.
“What are you to me now?” I whisper.
He shakes his head, uncertain, but he grips my gaze. “I’m just your Rocky.”
My Rocky.
It overwhelms me for a long moment. “Quoting ancient history?”
“Not that ancient.”
“I was four.” I let out a pained laugh.
His name back then was Reed Donahue, an alias that had likely changed a handful of times since his birth.
The Tinrocks hadn’t even chosen the “Tinrock” family name until later—not until after I nicknamed Rocky. On a summer morning, we were playing in a garden, and I told him, “You’re Rocky.”
He said, “You’re Phoebe.”
My name was Natalia Abruzzo. The Graves weren’t the Graves yet either. But Rocky chose my first name—the one I’ve kept close all these years. Just like I chose his.
“No,” my four-year-old self told him with stubbornness. “You’re my Rocky.”
He was five, and he held my little four-year-old hand. “You’re my Phoebe.” He kissed my cheek.
I giggled.
Life was simple then. Four and five, playing in a fairy garden outside a multimillion-dollar mansion.
Back at the icy pond, as snow falls heavier, I whisper strongly, “You’re my Rocky.”
He’s hanging on to every word like we’ve flown to the past and brought the good, happy bits to the present, and his fingers curl around mine. Before I can also add that I’m his Phoebe, my brother calls us over.
“You two!” Nova shouts. “We need to head out!”
Rocky releases my hand. “Our chariot awaits.” He forces a dry smile.
I try to ignore the flip of my stomach. Neither of us rushes back to the car. We linger. We’re always loitering around each other, stealing seconds. Minutes.
“Are you the princess or the fairy godmother?” I ask.
“Always the princess,” he says with more bitterness. Most would be okay with being royalty and not the actual pumpkin or a mouse, but Rocky wants to wave the wand and not be at its mercy.
Fairy godmothers aren’t evil.
I’m perfectly fine in the role I’ve been granted. It’s what I’m good at. What I excel in. Stick to the plan.