Chapter Twenty-Nine
Rocky
Hailey and Oliver don’t follow, and as I approach Jake and Phoebe alone, I sense heads swerving and eyes rerouting to me. Whispers trail after my dark presence as I cut through the street in a diagonal to reach the fountain.
Jake looks unamused when I come to a stop. He sips his apple cider stiffly. “Enjoying the festival?”
“Not really.” I take a bitter sip of my overly sweet coffee.
Phoebe watches the gossipy audience with caution and uncertainty. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this here.”
“Do what? We’re just talking,” I say to Phoebe, but I haven’t broken Jake’s challenging stare.
Skin pinches between his eyes as he feigns confusion. “What’d you say before in the locker room? I think the words were I’m not interested in her. Correct me if I’m wrong.”
“Not wrong.”
I’m more interested in you at the moment and what you’re hiding.
His face sobers. “Then what are you doing here?”
Phoebe is shielding her eyes with her hand. There must be a gaggle of people behind me invested in the outcome of this “fake” romantic rivalry. Are pieces real? I can’t see whether Jake truly is catching feelings or if he’s just starting to care about Phoebe’s well-being.
“Just making conversation,” I say, skating fingers through my hair as the wind blows. “That’s what friends do.”
“I missed the part where we became friends.”
“I’m friends with your girlfriend, and she’s not invisible to me.”
Phoebe downs her apple cider with a big gulp.
Jake raises his brows. “Clearly, she’s not.” An insinuation is sitting on the tip of his tongue.
I drill him with a glare. “Continue that thought.”
“You’ve only been stalking—”
“Stalking?” I interject with heat.
“You followed her to this town when she tried to get away from you. What else do you call that?”
Are you fucking serious? My eyes flash to Phoebe, wondering if they’ve had conversations where she’s spun them here, or if this is just his assumption. It matters with how I need to proceed next, because I can shoot him down, but I’d rather not discredit her or her story, even if it’s one that paints me in the worst light.
Phoebe has no opportunity to send me a signal. Jake steps out in front of her, as though to protect her from my sudden wrath.
Jesus Christ. I rotate slightly as frustration shoots into my bloodstream. And then I cock my head to Jake. “Call it whatever you want.”
I hear whispers behind me. “He’s going to push Jake in the fountain. Bet you twenty bucks.”
Oh, I would love to.
Jake crosses his arms. He stands like a skyscraping brick wall, and I’m not someone who shrinks when men tower. It’s just a tell to me. A dead giveaway that a man is trying to assert dominance and feels threatened enough to pull the weakest tool out of his weak box. His height.
Congratulations. You’re fucking tall.
But continuously seeing him try to protect Phoebe from me is going to send me over the edge. “You’re not her white knight.”
“You’re not her boyfriend,” he retorts. “I am.”
Fake.
But all I’ve ever been is the fake thing to Phoebe.
Whispers and mutters catch the wind and hit my ear. He just publicly claimed Phoebe. Again.
What was I expecting? I don’t know. I don’t fucking know.
This was a mistake.
Jake suddenly shifts his eyes off me, and I follow to my right and see his mother, Claudia Waterford, and a few of her friends. The well-dressed, polished women are gathered around the craft table where little kids paint pumpkins. The women make no effort to hide the fact that they’re watching us.
Claudia’s lips are pursed, judgment in her eyes. She’s not happy with her son, and she excuses herself from her friends and just leaves in the opposite direction of Jake. Ensuring he sees her disapproval.
His jaw tenses, but this is what he wanted. To stick it to Mommy.
“Grey?”
Fuck.
I barely glance over at the sudden appearance of Sidney Burke. Phoebe freezes behind Jake, likely recalling the boathouse party where Sidney tried to dance with me, but I’m hardly giving the nineteen-year-old the time of day.
For one, I look too old to be entertaining her advances.
For another, her father is at an outdoor patio eating brunch with the other widowers, and he’s in view. She knows this, and I’m not about to be used.
Jake is confused. “Sidney? You two know each other?” He motions from her to me.
I frown, more interested in his reaction. “How do you know her?”
Jake can’t answer before Sidney speaks. “Grey and I met at the Reynolds’ boathouse. Bummer you couldn’t make it, Jake. It was a good time.” She says that while looking at me with a coy smile. Like we fucked that night.
“She’s nineteen,” Jake warns me, uncrossing his arms.
The fact that he’s buying her bullshit is aggravating. I was actually starting to think he was better than that, but we all have our blind spots.
Sidney is relishing this moment; her smile is off the charts. Jake is feeding into the show she’s putting on for her father, and I’m about to embarrass the shit out of her.
Sorry.
I stay on Jake. “Which is one of many reasons she’s not in my rearview, peripheral, or my fucking windshield, and she never will be. I don’t know her. I know of her, and that’s already too much for me.”
Sidney intakes a sharp breath. She’s flustered; her cheeks are beet red, and she avoids me and just says a quick goodbye to Jake, then slips away.
Jake glares at me. “You didn’t have to be rude.”
This guy. I’m so glad he’s not a lover I need to please because he’s fucking impossible. I’d tell Phoebe to have fun with him, but even the thought of them fake together and fake fucking is scarring my brain.
I end up saying, “Sidney hasn’t taken the hint when I’ve been nice, so I’m not sorry for being an asshole.” His shoulders are squared. He’s on guard and not happy. Still, I ask, “Is she a friend of yours?”
“She’s my sister’s... was my sister’s best friend.” His defensive edges start softening at the mention of his sister.
He might feel ten times more brotherly toward Sidney since his sister is no longer alive. Makes sense.
Still hate him.
Behind me, I catch more mutterings: “It’s so cute how Jake is protecting Phoebe.”
“God, I know.”
“Her and Grey are so toxic.”
A painful knot constricts in my rib cage. Seeing Sidney Burke reminds me of her father. And how Jake is a better repellent against Weston Burke than I’d been.
Weston Burke hasn’t approached Phoebe while she’s serving at the country club, not since the clambake. All because she’s dating a Koning.
Maybe Jake is protecting her in ways that I can’t.
I don’t want to believe it. Phoebe doesn’t trust him fully. Protecting her from him is the reality I’m standing in.
“You done?” Jake asks like he’s the valiant hero of this dramatic scene.
I grind my teeth and then force a smile at Jake. “Never. And if you ever hurt her—”
“Really?” He lets out a laugh of disbelief. “I wouldn’t dare, but you...” He canvasses me up and down. “Who knows what you’re capable of?”
A lot.
But not that.
“Jake,” Phoebe warns quietly. “Please, just let him go.”
At the sound of her voice, his posture loosens more, but he hasn’t shifted away from my narrowed gaze. “I’m not keeping him here.”
“Push him in the fountain!” someone jeers.
“Oh my God, no,” Phoebe warns me now. “Rocky.”
Jake doesn’t stop glaring. I’m shooting an everlasting glare back, but I end up raising my hands in surrender. “Not today, folks.”
Some people boo, but I hear a lady call me a bastard for even wanting to push their precious Koning boy in the town’s historical fountain.
As much as I’d love to lightly drown him, I can’t have his family rallying behind him and trying to charge me with assault. So without another word, I just leave the fake couple to do their fake thing, and I return to Hailey and her half-carved pumpkin feeling no better than before.