46. Serena
Serena
My pistachio milkshake sweats nervously in my hand.
Bianca sits next to me, staring down at her chocolate milkshake like it might stage-whisper some lines for her. Part of me can’t believe I agreed to this—that I got into the car with her in the first place. Don’t they always tell you not to go to a second location?
I texted the guys to let them know I was getting milkshakes with a friend. Of course, they all reacted differently.
Ryan: have fun
Ryan: ooh, bring me back a hot fudge sundae
Graham: thumbs up
Travis: What do you mean? What friend?
Travis: When will you be back?
Travis: Should we send someone with you?
Serena: I’ll be careful.
After that, Travis had tried to call me, and I texted him that, really, everything was okay. And that I would let him know if I needed anything.
Now, I rotate the milkshake in my hand, sliding the condensation around on my palm.
Through the windshield, I watch the servers on roller skates whizzing around the parking lot.
This was my grandmother’s favorite place.
She’d always get fried mushrooms and a strawberry milkshake. I’d get pistachio and a pizza burger. As we ate, she’d tell me stories of how she used to roller skate, working at a diner on the weekends and doing roller derby on weeknights.
When Bianca and I were first becoming friends, she’d had a bad dinner out with her grandfather, and I brought her here. It went from being something I did with my gram to being something my best friend and I did.
Maybe it’s a call on nostalgia. Maybe she thought it would soften me up.
All it’s doing for me now is pissing me off. Ruining one of the few places I had left with happy memories, reminding me that I naively shared this with her. Just like the rest of my life.
“I need to get back,” I say when Bianca doesn’t start the conversation.
More than anything, I wish that this could not affect me, but there’s adrenaline pumping through my veins.
My mouth tastes like a battery, and I can feel the anxiety building up in my shoulders, like icy hot spreading all the way down to my fingertips.
“I know.” Bianca tips her head back, takes a deep breath, and says, “I just… I didn’t want to hurt you, Ser.”
I let out a puff of laughter and shake my head. What a massive waste of my time. Did she bring me here just to make herself feel better?
“Look, I get it.” Bianca speaks through her teeth, like she can hear what I’m thinking. Like this is painful for her. “It was shitty. But you said it yourself—you didn’t even like him.”
“Yeah, I’m not doing this,” I snap, shoving my milkshake into the cup holder and reaching for the car door.
“Stop!” Bianca grabs my arm and I pause, turning to look back at her.
Now, tears are welling in her eyes. “Just—it’s that shit with my Gramps, Ser.
He’s been putting more and more pressure on me to marry into a good family.
Then you met Alex, and I was so jealous.
You didn’t even realize what you had. What a blessing it would have been for me if I caught his attention instead. ”
Bianca pulls back her arm, and I sit back in my seat, staring at her.
She pauses, sucks in a breath, then barrels ahead, like if she doesn’t just keep going, she might stop altogether.
“I knew it was wrong. It was so wrong. But after we went on that double date, he… noticed me. He liked the fact that my family is wealthy. Maybe he also felt some pressure to make connections that way.”
“Great.”
“I had nothing to do with the way that he ended things.” When I look over at her, Bianca is untying the scarf from around her chin, shaking her head. “That was cruel. I told him that. He knows that.”
“Oh, right, okay, sure—you told him he was cruel, then you continued fucking him.”
Her head snaps toward me, voice warbling, “It’s not like that, Serena.”
“Oh?” I shift in the seat, fully facing her. “This is not about Alex, Bianca. It’s about you. It’s about the fact that you were supposed to be my best friend, but you put some weird fucking desire for social climbing over loyalty.”
“I’m trying to be loyal,” she snaps, letting out a quick breath. “That’s what I’m doing right now. I’m trying to be honest. Trust me, I did not want to sneak out?—”
“Oh, good for you.”
“God, I forgot how mean you can be.” She digs her fingers into her eyes, and I don’t point out the hypocrisy of that statement. “But you know what? It’s not working out for me anyway. I thought Alex was interested in me for me, but it turns out he just wants my family’s money.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.” I cross my arms over my chest like armor, stare her down. “Weren’t you constantly telling me how I should have let him pay for everything? How I should have done nothing? Let him take care of me, right? Why would he need your family’s money?”
“Because he doesn’t have any!” Bianca’s voice goes shrill, breaks on the last word.
A beat passes. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Alex has not fulfilled the requirements for the trust his father left behind.” Bianca speaks low and fast, staring at the dash like she’s in a trance. “And Priscilla spent everything that was left to her. Every penny, apparently.”
It takes a moment for it to fully hit me. I replay conversations with Graham and Travis, think about the total sum of money that would have been left behind to Stephen’s widow. A staggering amount, not just of cash, but in equity. Buildings and properties, companies and organizations.
“But… that’s not possible,” I breathe, shaking my head a little hysterically. How could Priscilla have liquidized everything? “It was like, hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Bianca shrugs, looking miserable. “She spent it. Priscilla grew up with unlimited money, and she never really had to pay attention to how she spent it. So when it all fell into her lap, she just… blew it apart. Took out loan after loan, listed the holdings as collateral, just so she could have money for her jet and her clothes.”
I don’t know much about the ultra-wealthy, but it seems impossible. “But… didn’t Stephen have accountants? Lawyers? Like, an advisory team who would protect the wealth?”
“He did.” Bianca scrubs her hands over her face again. “But it was within Priscilla’s power to fire them. And she did. Didn’t like the way they treated her.”
“Shit,” I breathe. It’s strange—I’ve never had that kind of money, and have, like every other poor kid in the world, spent time dreaming about what it would be like to be rich.
I’d never thought to imagine what it would feel like to lose it.
To be the kid of a rich person blowing through every dollar, not caring about the people standing to inherit after them.
“Shit is right.” Bianca clears her throat, turns to me, still dabbing at her cheeks with her scarf.
“But what does this have to do with the guys?” I ask, finally. “They have their own money. Travis never even took the trust from Stephen.”
“It affects them,” Bianca rasps, “because Alex needs money. He’s going to blackmail Travis with more photos. Of you.”
I blink at her. “Of me?”
Miserably, she nods, “Alex seems to think that the only way he’s going to get to his brothers is through you. If Travis doesn’t pay Alex off, Alex will post the photos personally, on his own accounts. He’ll blast your identity and let the world know about your… arrangement with them.”
“Fuck you.” I spit, still remembering the sting of her judgment in her bedroom.
Bianca raises her hands, palms out. “Alex isn’t just going to make it about you, though. He’s going to claim that Travis and Ryan, Ryan and Graham… that they’ve all been… together.”
“They haven’t.” I cross my arms, glaring at her. “Not that it would matter if they did, but they don’t.”
She gives me a sad smile—a girl who knows far more about this world than I do, witnessing my naivete in real-time.
“You’re right. It wouldn’t matter, except to the stakeholders.
To Travis’s investors, Ryan’s show-runners, Graham’s donors.
People suck. No matter what Alex says, they’re going to want to distance themselves from anything that doesn’t make sense to them. ”
My heart twists, and I’m breathless. The guys could stand to lose everything they’ve been fighting for.
“…Alex is going to give Travis one week,” Bianca chokes, before blowing her nose daintily. “And if he doesn’t pay up, Alex is planning to do a big reveal at Graham’s big park gala.”
My body goes into shock. All that time I spent with Alex, and I really didn’t see what he was capable of? All that time he talked about not being close with his family, and I really assumed it was through no fault of his own?
Numb and a little zoned out, I reach for the door handle again. I need to figure out what the hell I’m going to do.
“Serena…” Once again, Bianca grabs my arm. This time, when I turn to her, it’s like looking at a stranger. Swallowing, brow bouncing hopefully, she says, “I was hoping... that someday, maybe, we could be friends again.”
That, at least, makes me laugh. I pull out of her grasp and close the car door. “Not a fucking chance in hell.”