The Plan
DAPHNE
“So, you’re actually staying married?”
Frankie, Violet, and I decided to cook Hux a little welcome home dinner, in part as a thank-you for handling the legal situation with Cole while juggling everything else on his plate.
We’ve got all of his favorites: crispy fish tacos with homemade coleslaw, caesar salad, and raspberry cheesecake for dessert.
“Sure are,” Frankie replies. “We talked it out, and just thought that… well, you know, it’s…"
Huxley nods, smiling to himself.
I know he’s already feeling pretty smug about this; after all, he was right about Frankie and I, but that’s not what I’m focused on right now.
How the hell are we going to navigate co-parenting between two coasts?
Do we spend Christmas all together as a family?
Where does Violet go to school? What about Thanksgiving?
Easter? Fucking Arbor Day— does anyone celebrate Arbor Day anymore?
It’s all so overwhelming.
“What made the two of you finally decide to bite the bullet?”
Before either of us manages to respond, Violet cuts in.
“Probably all the kissing they did in the bathroom.”
“Dude!” Frankie snorts, almost spitting out his drink. “Simmer down!”
I guess we weren’t as quiet as we thought.
“Kissing in the bathroom, huh?”
I shake my head, fighting back a smile. It’s a losing battle.
“Can we focus? We have to have a serious conversation as a family— We need to figure out how the hell are we gonna do this. At least a good chunk of the time I’m locked up in a studio in New York. Frankie’s got his job here, the house…”
Frankie sets his fork down, his face scrunched up in thought.
“Actually, I’ve been thinking about taking a full-on sabbatical while I work on edits for the book.”
Honestly, he’d be a lot easier to take seriously if he wasn’t struggling to speak with all the food he stuffed in his mouth.
“You could do that in SoHo,” Hux offers. “Daph’s got a great office that overlooks the city, and she basically never uses it as far as I can tell.”
I roll my eyes, ready to defend my workspace habits, but Violet steps in.
“Frankie could just live with us!”
I can’t help but smile, reaching across the table to squeeze her hand. She’s such a bright, compassionate kid, and every time I look at her, I know Hux and I raised her right.
“Yeah, I mean, if that’s cool with you, it’s cool with me,” Frankie says. “I’m long overdue for a little adventure outside of this town.”
“We’ll make a city boy out of you yet, Goldilocks.”
A burst of sound scatters my thoughts as both Huxley’s and my phone go off at the same time. He reaches his first as I fumbling around in my bag, and I can see his dark brows knit together, his eyes flitting back and forth across the screen.
“Dad?” Violet asks. “What’s wrong?”
“Gimme a minute.”
I can tell he’s pissed.
It’s the same look he shoots the paparazzi when he catches them following V down the street.
“Hux?”
I’m praying it’s not what I think it is.
But then again…
“Cole’s threatening to release everything,” Hux grumbles.
“We got HotGoss to kill that article he was bragging about, but that won’t keep him from just throwing it out online.
That means the photos of you two outside the club, all that hearsay bullshit…
and now it looks like he’s saying he has screenshots of Frankie’s Ki— uh, a dating app profile that’s still active. ”
Suddenly, these fish tacos are the most unappetizing thing in the world.
“I’ve gotta make some calls to legal.” He snatches up his phone, his face twisted into a scowl. “I’ll be right back.”
I lean back in my seat, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath. I knew this wasn’t over.
Of course he’s doing this right before the grand re-opening.
“What are you thinking?” Frankie asks.
I sigh.
“I’m thinking that he’s doing his damndest to ruin my reputation in this town. He’ll use whatever ammunition he has to make me look unstable, and make you look like some sort of homewrecker. The worst part is that it feels like it might work.”
“Hey, so I— I threatened him the other day.”
Frankie’s voice is soft and filled with shame as he stares down at his plate.
“What? When?”
“When I went to pick up Joe’s guitar and that other stuff. We were both in the liquor store and I… I told him to stay away from the two of you. I’m sorry, I know I should have told you. This is probably all my fault.”
I shake my head, reaching across the table to put my hand on his.
“I think it was always going to escalate like this. It’s just who Cole is underneath it all: a spoiled, selfish asshole who can’t take no for an answer. The drinking just amplifies it, and makes everything so much worse.”
I grab my phone and go into my settings, unblocking Cole’s main number.
“What are you doing?”
There’s only one way we can actually stop this.
“I’m calling him.”
“What?!”
“Mom!” Violet groans, putting her head in her hands. “This is so stupid, you know how it always goes.”
She’s right, and normally it’d be playing right into his hands, but this time I’ve got something up my sleeve, too.
Frankie tries to grab my phone out of my hands, but I’m too fast for him, turning my back to him as it starts to ring.
“Daphne?”
Cole’s normally sardonic voice is all swelled up with hope.
“You’re not going to post the article. You’re going to retract everything, you’re going to stop going after Frankie, and—”
“Okay.”
I pause.
“Okay? That’s all you have to say?”
“Of course I’ll stop. All I ever wanted was to talk to you one on one, in person. I just want you to hear me out, Daph. Let me say my piece.”
“Alright,” I murmur.
It’s bullshit, of course. He’s had more than enough time to say what he needs to say, and when we were face-to-face the first thing he did was try and tear me down.
If my career’s taught me anything, it’s that the best thing to do is not give your haters attention.
They choke and shrivel up without the oxygen, but sometimes their flailing does a lot of damage before they go.
Sometimes you have to deal with things directly.
“Meet me at the Hi-Dive. Can you get there in an hour?”
“I’ll be there.” Cole pauses, just long enough that I almost end the call, before… “I love you, Daphne.”
I swallow the vomit threatening to creep up the back of my throat as the line goes dead.
“Frankie, I know you’re angry—”
His jaw ticks, and he stares out the window, his cobalt eyes burning so bright I feel like they could turn this whole building to cinders.
“You’re putting yourself in danger, Daph, and it’s particularly stupid because this is exactly what he wants! We should just let Hux handle—”
“Alright, it’s handled!” Hux calls, strolling back into the kitchen. "Wait, what’s going on?”
“Mom’s meeting up with Cole in an hour.”
Huxley looks dumbfounded, his eyes darting from Violet, to Frankie, and finally to me, staring in disbelief for a moment before popping out one of his hearing aids and inspecting it.
“Sorry, I think I gotta re-adjust these things because I must have misheard—”
“I said she’s meeting Cole at the Hi-Dive,” Violet repeats, raising her voice a few decibels.
“Baby, it was rhetorical,” I whisper.
“Oh.” Violet’s cheeks blaze red. “Sorry.”
“You’re not going,” Huxley grumbles.
“Yeah, I agree with Hux.”
I sigh, slumping back in my seat. I knew they would react this way, and I get it, but… neither of them know Cole the way that I do.
“I promise you, I’ve thought this out. It’s the only way to make him stop.” I glance up at Hux, who’s instinctively leaned up against the doorway to block it, his burly arms crossed over his chest. “He’s been a goddamn albatross around my neck for months now. I need to cut him loose for good.”
“You’re feeding into his delusions, Daph!” Frankie groans. “If you show up he’s just going to use the chance to try and manipulate you, and when that doesn’t work, it’ll be more fuel for the fire.”
“Frankie’s right. The only way to make him stop is to—”
“I can get him to admit to trashing the bar!” I blurt out, desperation in my voice as I turn to Frankie. “Remember what that cop said? If we had anything concrete, we could come to him—”
Frankie laughs, his voice shaking with disbelief.
“Daph, he’s not gonna buy it! Mason and Cole, and all those popular assholes we went to school with, they never stopped getting their special privileges. Everyone protects them because they’re the town’s golden boys, it never changed!”
“I don’t care anymore. If the cops won’t help us, I’m taking matters into my own hands.”
Frankie sighs, shrugging at Huxley.
“I tried, man.”
“I know I’m right,” I insist. “I can meet up with him, let him ramble, and record him. We’ll have all the evidence on tape!”
Frankie shakes his head.
“Washington is a two-party consent state. The cops can’t use it as evidence.”
The two of us stare at each other in silence, neither of us willing to budge. I understand his frustration, but I know this can work. All we need is a way to actually get the recording to—
“There’s an exception for people who are gathering evidence in a crime,” Huxley mumbles. He’s been scrolling frantically on his phone since I brought up the idea. “So long as it’s in a public place. Like a bar.”
Maybe he’s more on-board than I thought.
“Okay, so we turn on the open sign and have my phone recording in my bag to pick up audio. Maybe get someone behind the bar…”
“I still think it’s a bad idea,” Frankie murmurs.
“Frankie, if there’s anything you and I know better than anyone else, it’s that once a Carmichael woman sets her mind to something, there’s no going back.”
Huxley turns to Violet.
“How about it kid, you ready for your first stakeout?”
“Can we get ice cream?” Violet asks.
He grins.
“Hell, it wouldn’t be a stakeout without it.”
I glance over at Frankie, who looks like he’s already gnawed halfway through his thumb nail.
“Hey. Are you mad?”
I reach across the table to take his hand.
His eyes are stormy, and I can tell he just wants to keep telling me to back out until he’s blue in the face, but he knows Hux is right about this. There’s no way I’m backing down now.
“I’m just worried about you, Daph.” he rasps.
I force a smile— the same smile I give people when I’m crumbling inside and don’t want anyone else to notice. Deep down, I’m terrified that this is going to spiral out of control.
But I have to do it.
“I’ll be okay, as long as I’ve got you in my corner. Because you’re gonna be there for me, right?”
He nods, giving my hand a gentle squeeze.
“Always and forever.”