Chapter 18
Keira
“Truth or dare?” Arianne’s mischievous brown eyes hold her best friend’s gaze.
“Truth.” Phoebe answers before drinking a gulp of her cocktail.
Arianne sits a little straighter. “How was your first time?”
“Awful.” Phoebe says before brushing her shoulder-length dark-brown hair behind her ears.
“He was my age, and he had no idea what he was doing. He fumbled a bit with my lady parts and then rammed into me like a missile. It hurt so much, I cried. Two minutes later, he was calling out God’s name, and I was praying for it to be over.
Not that I could guide him, but even I knew, I had been shortchanged. ”
“Ditto,” I say before taking a sip of my drink.
“Mine didn’t fumble his way around because he was older… but now I know, he knew shit about sex,” Arianne says, disgust painted all over her pretty face.
Phoebe lifts a hand up and waves it over her head.
They high-five each other.
There’s something I’m missing, but I’m a little too buzzed to bother asking.
We’ve long lost count of how many drinks we’ve had, but since we’re partying at Phoebe’s house after a long day of shopping, it’s all good. It’s just us girls. Her boyfriend didn’t want to be in the way, so he’s crashing at his brother’s house.
Last night, over pizza, Arianne and Phoebe drilled me with questions about my former career. I answered all their questions. They were total fan girls. They oohed and aahed, wide-eyed and amazed. Secretly, it was adorable.
Tonight was barbecue night. With our bellies full, we’ve moved on to the entertainment part of the evening––the mortifying embarrassment of playing truth or dare.
We’re sitting on the floor, circling the oversized coffee table weighed down with unfinished drinks and too many desserts for three people.
We’ve exhausted the list of fun and safe questions.
As the evening progressed––and Phoebe kept the cocktails flowing––the questions became a lot more interesting.
“Your turn, Ari,” Phoebe says. “Keira, you ask the question.” She hands me the iPad.
I scroll through the list of questions until I find a more risqué one. I meet Arianne’s gaze. “Ready?”
“I’m an open book. Flip the pages till you get to the good parts,” she says, giggling.
We laugh.
We’re a bunch of happy drunks.
“Truth or dare, Arianne?”
“Truth,” she says. “I didn’t like the last dare.”
“Have you ever watched another couple have sex? Porn doesn’t count.” I just threw that last part in there to add a little spice to the evening.
“Oh, that’s an explosive one.” Phoebe’s eyes widen.
“No,” Arianne says. “But…” She leans in and motions for us to mimic her. “This doesn’t leave this room.” He circles her finger between us.
“My lips are sealed,” I say, even though I have no idea what’s about to come out of her mouth.
“I’ll go to my grave with your secret,” Phoebe says.
Arianne looks left, then right.
Maybe she’s a little too tipsy to remember no one else is in the house.
“Beckett says there’s a room dedicated to exactly that at Dark Compulsion. You can watch couples get down and dirty all night long...” Her cheeks flush.
I furrow my brows. “What’s Dark Compulsion?”
“An exclusive high-end adult club hidden behind the Quintus Hotel, where the crème de la crème goes to play,” Arianne says. “Beckett is a member… so are all the guys in his entourage.”
Whoa.
Phoebe’s brown eyes are huge. “A kinky club?”
My cheeks flush as my mind conjures some pretty X-rated scenarios involving a strapping, tall roommate with gorgeous blue eyes and sexy body art.
“Is Rhys a member?” Shit. I blame the alcohol for that lapse in judgment.
Talk about outing yourself.
Arianne cocks an eyebrow. “Are you two…?”
“Yeah, I’ve been wondering about that as well since yesterday,” Phoebe says. “Are you banging the one-hit wonder turned COO?”
Arianne’s eyes bulge out of her skull.
So do mine.
“What?” Phoebe says. “Just because I have the courage to ask the question you’re too chicken to ask, doesn’t mean you should reprimand me.”
“I did it with a lot more tact,” Arianne says.
“My question is legit,” Phoebe says. “Why else would Rhys finance Keira’s shopping trip?”
“That’s none of your business, Phoebe Pedersen.” Arianne frowns her discontentment.
They’re talking as if I’m not in the room.
“He’s like a big brother,” I say. “And remember, I landed in LA without much.”
Phoebe shoots me a suspicious side gaze.
“I can assure you, my brothers would never finance a shopping spree to the dollar store, let alone high-end designer shops. Had I landed somewhere in the world with nothing more than a backpack and the clothes on my back, my brothers would’ve recommended I hit thrift stores. ”
I can’t help my laugh.
Phoebe is hilarious, and she has zero filters.
“You just don’t know when to quit, Phoebe.” Arianne moves her attention to me. “To answer the question that started this inappropriate line of questioning…” She glares at Phoebe.
Her best friend shrugs.
“I didn’t ask Beckett if Rhys was a member or not. I assumed he was since all the guys hang out together.”
That’s where he finds his uncomplicated hookups. Noted.
“I was curious.” I shrug, doing my best not to look affected.
“If I’m not allowed to ask about her relationship status with the billionaire mogul, can I at least ask about something intriguing I read online about him?” Phoebe narrows her eyes at Arianne.
“As long as it’s not a personal question,” Arianne says.
“Thank you, Mom.”
Phoebe’s mocking tone and facial expression crack me up.
She shifts her focus to me. “Is it true Rhys started rapping, and I quote, As a personal challenge to prove I was more than my dyslexia. It was a middle finger to the condition that robbed me of my confidence?”
“Oh yeah, I read about that as well,” Arianne says, a glint of curiosity shining in her eyes.
“Rap music was Rhys’s metaphorical fuck you to his neurodivergent disorder,” I say. “He struggled with words. Rap music is a flurry of words coming at you in rapid succession. Mastering rap was his way of taking control.”
“Interesting perspective,” Arianne says.
“Unlike a book, he could memorize words of a rap song,” I say. “He’s still dyslexic—he’ll always be. It’s not a disorder he can ever change or get rid of, unlike his stuttering––”
“He used to stutter?” Arianne brings a hand up to cover her mouth. “Sorry I interrupted you.”
“My earliest memories of Rhys don’t include his stuttering, but according to my brother, it was pretty bad,” I say.
“That’s how they became friends. Noah came to his rescue when two bullies were using Rhys’s face as a punching bag.
Noah fought them off and then swore he’d look after a scrawny Rhys.
Thanks to his mom’s crusade, Rhys gained control over the stuttering, but dyslexia is something he’ll have to deal with for life.
Reading was always a challenge for him, something he hated because it reminded him he wasn’t like everyone else.
To cope, he became a master at memorizing what he heard––from other people, the television, the radio, or music.
When he discovered rap, it was like a whole new world opened up to him.
He’d listen to the lyrics over and over and over again.
When he discovered he shined at it, he started seeing himself in a new light.
Noah said rap music changed him from an awkward shy guy to a bold, cocksure, and confident man.
Even his stage name—Hijinks—reflected that cocky side of him that was hidden behind his insecurities. ”
“What a story,” Phoebe says.
“Is Noah the same age as Rhys?”
“Yes, Arianne, they’re both thirty-one. They were ten years old when Noah became Rhys’s defender.”
“Ten?” Arianne’s eyes widen. “Isn’t that young to have the ability to fight off two bullies?”
“Noah was a beast-in-the-making from the womb. My big brother is six-seven.”
“That’s tall,” Arianne says.
“That’s a venti cup of goodness,” Phoebe says.
“Rhys’s stuttering and dyslexia made him an easy target. Noah taught him how to fight and defend himself for the times he wouldn’t be around. Thanks to my brother, he was able to go from a weak defenseless kid to a fearless warrior”
“That’s true friendship,” Arianne says. “Is your brother in the music industry as well?”
I shake my head. “Along with being my big brother, Noah became my guardian at a young age—”
“What?” Arianne stares at me, incredulous.
“When our mom died, our maternal grandmother became next of kin. When she died, Noah was forced to give up his NFL dreams. He had everything to make it pro, but I was a kid when we lost our last living relative.”
“What about your dad?”
“Our mom was a single mom.” I give her a sanitized version of the truth.
Phoebe nods. “Got it.”
“Had Noah not being of age, we would’ve ended up in foster care.
He wasn’t even old enough to buy liquor, but he became a parent.
My big brother hung his cleats and took on odd jobs to put food on the table and keep a roof over our heads.
I was only thirteen, so I couldn’t contribute.
Not that he would’ve let me if I could. He wanted me to focus on school. ”
“He carried a lot on his shoulders,” Arianne says.
I nod. “I liked to tease him and say that God gave him broad shoulders for a reason.”
Arianne and Phoebe offer a warm smile.
“What kind of work did he have to do to get by? He didn’t have much experience at the time. It must’ve been grunt work,” Phoebe says.
“My big brother worked in the movie and TV industry because the hours were flexible. Since he was below the line, aka he was part of the crew of people that moved stuff around on a set, the work didn’t require overtime.
Over the years, he collected a bunch of online degrees and worked his way up the food chain.
Now, he’s a special effects supervisor for . ”
“Both Noah and Rhys are resilient,” Phoebe says.
“Yes, they are.”