Chapter Three
Sixtine
“Bellamy,” Thayer purrs, and I know that voice.
It’s her troublemaker voice, the one she uses when she’s about to get up to no good.
We should all be very afraid.
“Truth or dare?” she asks.
“Truth.”
“Dare? Okay, great choice. Let me think,” Thayer adds, tapping her chin while deep in thought.
Bellamy laughs and shakes her head, letting her impish best friend do as she likes.
“Fine, dare. But make it good.”
“Don’t you worry about that, babe,” Thayer tells her with a grin. “I saw this trend on TikTok that I want to try. Basically, you send a picture of a bouquet of flowers to Rogue and say ‘thank you for the flowers’. He’ll text you back freaking out about who could have sent them to you since they won’t have come from him. We mess with him for a little bit and tell him it was a prank.”
Bellamy groans. “He’ll just get angry.”
“There is a high likelihood he’ll ruin girls’ night,” Nera agrees.
Rogue is extremely likely to barge through our front door swinging, wrecking destruction first and asking questions later, if she texts him that.
But a dare is a dare and I don’t mind the show. Especially if it means Rogue will bring my husband along with him.
I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of calling him that.
Plus, it wouldn’t be our last night in this apartment if one of the boys didn’t attempt breaking down our front door.
“To be fair, Rogue getting angry does feel like a rite of passage at this point,” I answer her, pulling my phone out and opening a new tab.
Thayer leans forward from her kneeling position so that she’s on all fours, her face only a few inches away from Bellamy’s.
She wiggles her eyebrows at her. “And think about how much you like it when you guys make up.”
Bellamy’s eyes darken. A mischievous gleam shines in her gaze as a slow grin stretches across her face.
“You’re not wrong. Okay, what do I do?”
I look up from my phone. “The bouquet will be delivered in ten minutes. That gives us just enough time to get a refill on drinks.”
“I love it when you get all scarily efficient,” Thayer praises.
“Call me the enabler of all your terrible ideas,” I reply.
She throws an arm around my shoulders and smacks a wet, tequila-soaked kiss on my cheek. “And that’s why I love you!”
She skips over to the kitchen island with a giddy laugh, busying her hands with glasses and champagne bottles and snacks. Doing a million things at once and not finishing any of them.
She’s energy and excitement, exuberance and loud, crazy plans. The complete opposite to my quiet reservedness in almost every way, which is exactly why I love her .
Rhys has met his match in every way with her. They’re the very definition of two halves of the same soul; always in motion, laughing and enjoying life together.
I’m glad that they found each other and I’m even happier that they’ll be moving to London with us after graduation. Nera and Tristan might come as well once they’re done traveling so I’m excited that we’ll still be able to do smaller squad sleepovers and see each other all the time. I’m not ready to give that up yet, if anytime soon.
The doorbell rings and a massive, three-tiered bouquet greets us at the door.
“Uh, Six,” Nera says, arms shaking under the weight of the flowers. “You might have gone a little overboard.”
“I’ve seen the bouquets he’s sent her in the past and they haven’t been your traditional dozen red roses. If we want this to work, we need this bouquet to put Rogue’s to shame and that’s no easy feat.”
“I like your thinking,” Thayer says with an assertive nod.
“Okay, Nera, what’s my art direction for this photo?” Bellamy asks, standing hands on hips in front of the bouquet. “Do I just send a pic of the flowers and say thank you, baby?”
“That’s the trend,” Thayer confirms.
“I think we should put you in the photo. I mean you look so adorable right now,’ Nera says.
She really does. She’s wearing a cute lemon-patterned pj set, her hair is up in a messy bun and her cheeks are flushed pink because of the alcohol.
“Here,” Nera continues, grabbing Bellamy’s hand and forcing her to sit back on the ground. She poses her legs and pushes a strand of hair behind her ear. Then she hands her the bouquet and directs her on how to hold it. She steps back to look at her handiwork. “I’ll take the photo from about this angle. The framing looks great with the background and lighting. Just one more thing…”
She leans back towards Bellamy and fingers one of the slim straps of her top. Nera pulls it down so it falls on her arm, revealing her bare shoulder.
“That finishing touch is going to finish him off,” I point out.
Nera laughs and then takes a few snaps.
“Don’t move, B,” she instructs. “Six, Thayer, what do you guys think?”
She holds up the phone between us and we look over her shoulder.
“I think if you turn down the brightness, this one has the best framing.”
“Oh my god, you look stunning here.”
“This smile is even better.”
We show her our favorite and she agrees. She’s smiling broadly at the camera, mirth in her eyes and on her lips like receiving the flowers delighted her.
“Okay, so just ‘thank you for the flowers, baby, I love them’ with a kiss emoji? Is that it?” Nerves rattle her voice as she places the phone on the table between us.
“Yup!” Thayer answers. “It’s going to be funny. He’ll huff and puff and get over it. Come on press send.”
She shakes her head. “I can’t do it.”
“I’ll do it,” Nera says helpfully, leaning over and pressing the blue arrow.
I watch the message leave the text box.
“ Oh mon dieu .”
“ Oh my god ,” Bellamy echoes.
“It’s going to be fiiiin— ”
Thayer doesn’t get to finish her sentence because Bellamy’s ringtone interrupts her.
Four heads snap down at the same time and watch as Rogue’s name flashes across her screen.
Simultaneous panic hits each of us.
Bellamy’s wide eyes find mine. “What do I do?”
I pick up the phone and hand it to her. “Answer it!”
“Why didn’t I think about the fact that he’d call? What do I say?”
“Um, just go along with it. Let him do the talking. Don’t tell him it’s a prank just yet,” Nera answers.
“Be cool, be cool,” Thayer urges.
“This is your fault,” Bellamy accuses.
“Let’s remember you haven’t actually done anything wrong, it’s just a prank.”
The prank seemed funny five minutes ago, but with how quickly he called her, I just know he’s mad. And his anger is explosive to say the least.
“Answer the phone before he comes down here and burns the whole Pen complex down,” I urge.
“ Loudspeaker ,” Thayer whisper-hisses as Bellamy presses accept.
“Hey, babe,” she answers, managing to keep her tone breezy even as her face reflects pure anxiety. “Thanks again for the flowers, you’re so sweet.”
“Hey.”
Rogue’s voice doesn't sound anything like what I expected. I share a startled look with Nera, confirming she’s caught off guard as well.
There’s no anger or aggression as I’d assumed there’d be. No, his voice is quiet.
Hollow.
Barely above a whisper and without any of the usual arrogant swagger. Even just with one word, one syllable, we can all hear it.
Bellamy more than the rest of us.
“You okay?” she asks, worry tightening her own voice.
“No. Do you have something you want to tell me?”
Bellamy bites her cuticles nervously, wide eyes meeting ours. I can tell she’s doing her best to hold up the pretense of the prank but his voice is making her waver. “What do you mean?”
“Are you fucking someone else?”
I inhale sharply and she sucks in a shocked breath through her teeth.
“Is that what you’re doing tonight? Are you with him?”
Rogue is missing the joke entirely. I’m surprised there’s a world in which he’d ever believe that she’d do that to him.
Her mouth drops open in disbelief. “What?”
“I didn’t send you those flowers. Have you been cheating on me?”
His words are raw with pain.
Bellamy jumps to her feet.
“I can’t do this guys, I’m sorry,” she tells us, face ashen. “Baby, we’re playing Truth or Dare and this was my dare. It’s a prank we saw on TikTok. Six ordered those flowers, they’re not from someone else.”
The line is silent for a couple seconds.
“Rogue?”
“You’re really with the girls?”
“Yes,” Bellamy says, breathlessly.
“We’re here!” Thayer adds helpfully.
More silence.
“I assume I have you to thank for this?”
“Oh, um,” Thayer splutters, unprepared for the question. “Well, it was a group idea really…”
“Coward,” Nera mouths at her in response.
“I’ll get you back for this, mark my words,” Rogue growls through the phone. “When you’re least expecting it is when I’ll strike.”
“Sounds like you’re announcing the start of a prank war,” Thayer quips.
Bellamy gets to her feet, taking the phone with her as she heads to her room.
“Babe, how could you think I would do that to you?”
I hear his quiet, ruminating answer as she walks away.
“I thought you were getting me back for the shit I pulled with Lyra,” he confesses. “It’s not like I wouldn’t deserve it.”
“So you thought I’d actually cheat on you?” she asks, disbelief coloring her words.
More silence follows.
“I wouldn’t have let you leave me if you had,” he finally answers.
“I told you, never…”
Rogue is still new to the concept of people loving him and actually sticking around. He’s got some abandonment issues he’s working through so I see how this prank could have triggered them.
“I’ll get you all the flowers you want,” he vows. “You won’t ever need to get them from anyone else.”
“I don’t need any more flowers. I’m already yours forever.”
“You’re the only person I truly love, sweetheart,” I hear him answer as her door closes. “I can’t afford to lose you.”
“ Rude ,” Thayer mouths in the background. “I thought the psycho and I were friends. You think you know someone.”
“She brings out the softest side to him, it’s adorable to see,” Nera says, pulling my attention away from Bellamy’s bedroom and back to the living room where the three of us are still seated.
Thayer is now head bent and giggling as she types away on her phone.
“Why are you laughing?”
She looks up at me with a smile still on her lips.
“Rhys is giving me a play by play of Rogue’s reaction. I’m laughing because he said he’s proud of me for coming up with the prank and that it was hilarious, but also that he wouldn’t be as forgiving as Rogue if I ever pulled that shit on him.”
“Understandable,” I answer. “Of our four guys, he’s the only one who had to watch you date someone else.”
She shudders, her hand tightening around her phone.
“Don’t remind me.”
Before I can say anything else, two ringtones erupt in the silence. I look down and see Phoenix’s name flashing on my screen. Nera holds her phone up and shows me that Tristan is FaceTiming her as well.
With a grin, I swipe to accept the call. My husband’s face comes on the screen and his black eyes soften when they find mine.
“Wild girl,” he purrs.
***