Chapter 9
Chapter
Nine
BUBBA
W e skipped the diner entirely and headed back to Archie’s place.
Probably better to sort this out in private.
I was grateful for the extra time on the bike, alone with just the music playing inside my helmet.
We made an odd little caravan, Archie’s deep orange Ferrari followed by Jake’s bright yellow Jeep Compass with me and my rather ordinary bike bringing up the rear.
Archie slid his car into the garage while Jake pulled into the circular drive and rounded the fountain in front of the main doors.
I parked off to the side in the shade of the trees.
My hair stuck to my head when I peeled off the helmet.
At least when I was moving, the air flow helped to cool me off.
After setting the helmet aside, I stripped off my backpack, then my jacket. Jake and Coop were arguing inside the still running SUV. I studied them for a beat, debating whether I wanted to interrupt or not.
Jake slammed the palm of his hand against the steering wheel three times, his face a tight mask of anger. Unsurprisingly, Coop didn’t flinch nor did he back down. Of all of us, he tended to be the most even. The front door opened and Archie stuck his head out.
“Did you guys get lost?”
“No,” I said, carrying my jacket and backpack as I headed inside to the blessed air conditioning. “They’re wrapping up some aggressive negotiations in the car.”
Archie slanted a look past me toward the car, rolled his eyes, then closed the door. “Come on, they know where the game room is.”
Not waiting for me, he snagged his own backpack and took the stairs two at a time. I caught sight of Jeremy, the Standish’s butler, house manager, or whatever his actual title was, standing in the archway separating the kitchen from the open formal dining room.
After lifting my chin in a brief greeting, I followed Archie up. Jeremy would let the guys in once they got done with whatever debate they were fighting out in the car. Probably better to let them sort it out there before we added more kindling to the fire between all of us.
Archie was in the game room, already pacing, by the time I got there.
Three of the televisions were on, one paused mid-game, another played music videos, and a third mirrored Archie’s laptop screen.
It had a webpage open to Instagram, featuring Frenchy’s page.
Most of the recent pictures all featured Frankie.
“When did this shit happen?” Archie demanded as soon as I walked in.
I dropped my backpack on one of the sofas and left my motorcycle jacket on top of it. “This summer, apparently.”
The dry response was the only one I had. Even as I tried to study the guy in the photos, it was the smile on Frankie’s face and in her eyes that arrested me. She looked so goddamn happy. Hand on the trackpad, I scrolled down the screen.
How had I forgotten how truly blinding that smile of hers could be? How long had it been gone for me to forget the breathtaking force? A part of me wanted to punch the guy in the face for having an arm around her, even more when I saw one of him kissing her.
“Do you see the problem?” Incensed, Archie continued to pace the room. There was a barely restrained violence wreathing him. I glanced at him just as Jake and Coop hit the opening to the game room.
The temperature spiked as Jake zeroed in on the big screen.
“Son of a bitch,” he swore, stalking forward.
Coop let out a long sigh as he slid his hands into the pockets of his shorts. “Guys…”
Straightening, I caught Coop’s eye and shook my head. Based on Jake’s reaction, he wasn’t ready to listen to reason. Not yet. Archie was just a seething black hole of tightly wound fury. The two of them in the same room was probably an epically bad idea.
Yet, here we were.
“How the fuck did she meet him in San Antonio?” Jake demanded as he scrolled. “And when…”
“First post is from June.” The flat answer from Archie held everything from recrimination— why the hell hadn’t we known —to pure fury— what the fuck were we going to do about it?
“Dammit,” Coop muttered and scrubbed a hand over his face.
“How did you miss this?” Jake whirled to glare at Coop. “You said you were still keeping an eye out for her?”
“I was and am.” Instead of irritated, Coop sounded a hell of a lot more patient than I felt. “She didn’t bring him back to the apartment. She also has a car and wasn’t really interested in talking to me any more than she was with the rest of you.”
That stung.
“Whose fault is that?” Archie pounced.
Without missing a beat, Coop just shot him a bland look. “Didn’t you ask her?”
Coop didn’t respond to either of the twin glares he received from Jake and Archie.
“You know what, we can figure out the rest of that after we get rid of the asshole.” Folding his arms, Jake fixed a look on Archie. “What else do we know about him?”
“Exchange student from France. He’s staying with the Butlers. Standard exchange terms are one semester at best. We can look at making it too uncomfortable for him or we can check into getting his student visa revoked…”
“Are you serious?” I asked, and ignored the stink-eye Jake gave me at the interruption.
“Yes,” Archie replied. “I have some calls in to get more information on him. I’ll have a full background check by tomorrow at the latest.”
“Do you care how we get rid of him?” Jake challenged me and I got it. He was pissed and he wanted somewhere to pour all of that anger.
“Yes,” I told him and didn’t shake my head at the shock rippling over his face and Archie’s. “I care because whether we like it or not, she’s clearly into him.” I waved a hand to the screen. “If we just get rid of him, that's going to hurt her.”
“Not to mention what she’ll do if she finds out.” The quiet observation from Coop landed like a grenade between all of us. Jake swore and stalked away where he punched the wall.
Archie just sighed. “I also called my attorney about what options we have if just getting him kicked out didn’t work, maybe we can make him an offer for a different school or location in another state.”
I rubbed both of my hands over my face. That was not any better than just getting him kicked.
“I didn’t really get to talk to her about him or any of this today.
” Math had been too busy and lunch had been tense.
I’d wanted to show her the bike, which was why I’d headed toward her parking spot after school, but that hadn’t worked out well either.
“Yeah,” Coop said slowly. “I talked to her some this morning, but she was in a mood to fight. Probably didn’t help that I teased her about the boyfriend before I realized he was real.”
“She is pissed,” Archie muttered. “At us.”
“Why?” Jake demanded, facing us again.
“Because of that bitch Rachel.” Archie paced over to the drink fridge in the corner bar. He pulled out a soda and unscrewed the cap. “She told her we’d blocked everyone who ever wanted to date her.”
“She didn’t want to date.” If Jake spit the words out any harder, I was pretty sure they would catch fire.
“I’m aware.” Archie took a long drink. “That was why she stopped talking to us. She believed Rachel. She believed her and then she went to San Antonio and this guy makes moves on her.”
“To be fair,” I said, already aware that I was going to get some shitty looks. “We did make sure some guys didn’t ask her out.”
“No,” Jake countered. “We made sure the dickweeds left her alone. If she doesn’t want to date, she doesn’t need to deal with assholes chasing her. Besides, most of them just wanted to nail some ass, it had nothing to do with her.”
While he wasn’t wrong, I couldn’t escape the fact that we had made sure that the guys at school left her alone. Jake handled most of it. Archie had some. If anyone got really persistent, well… We all dealt with it and that was that.
“She’s pissed about us dating too,” Coop volunteered.
“Since when?” Jake scowled.
“She mentioned that,” Archie admitted and I studied him. He was staring at his drink, as if he could decipher the answers from the bottle’s ingredients. “But she never cared before. Just reminded me that she’d always been supportive of us dating.”
He chewed the words like they left a rotten taste in his mouth and he had to talk around them. Arms folded, I leaned against the side of the sofa. “What else did she say?”
Archie shook his head. “She’s just mad. We can fix this, we just need to get rid of him. If she wants to date, we can do that too.”
“Has it occurred to you that maybe she didn’t want to date us ?” I hated the idea. I hated even bringing it up. But here we were. “It’s not like we haven’t all asked.”
Archie might have been the last to roll into our friend group in freshman year, but he’d been interested in her from day one. We all told him she didn’t date, but it hadn’t deterred him.
If anything, he seemed to relish the challenge. Admittedly, I’d watched his attempts in both amusement and fascination. One, he didn’t give up, and two, she just didn’t respond like the other girls did. Even when he invited her directly, she always made sure to include all of us.
The fact she didn’t respond any differently whether it was Coop whom she’d known the longest or Archie just after we’d all met him, said a lot. She wasn’t into guys. If one of the girls tagged along, she always seemed fine with it.
The first time I asked out Sharon, I swore Frankie had her fingers crossed for me. I wasn’t even sure how she’d known I asked in the first place, but she’d been enthusiastic.
“No,” Archie said bluntly. “That didn’t occur to me. We’re her best friends. We’ve always looked out for her. You guys did before I got here and I’ve been invested since the day I met her.”
That was one description for it.
“I’m not giving up now.” Like he needed to declare that? Still, Archie lifted his chin. “The only question I have is, are you all in or out?”
“In,” Jake said without hesitation. Coop answered half a beat later, but with more skepticism to salt his enthusiasm. When they looked at me, I had a hard time doing more than shrugging.
“I’m not out, but I’m not going to sign off on hurting the guy to get rid of him, especially if it hurts Frankie.” I had a hard line and that was it. I also wanted to talk to her. Needed to find out what we missed or if we’re all just off base.
“We all care,” Jake reminded me. “Let’s not forget that.”
“No one has forgotten, Jake,” Coop said with a sigh.
“Except Frankie,” Archie admitted. “She doesn’t seem to think we do.”
That… Yeah, on that, I didn’t disagree, we needed to fix that.