Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
BUBBA
Icould still hear Sharon’s voice over the wind, cutting clean through the roar of the bike like a knife made of ice.
"You think what’s out there is bad? That’s the preview, sweetheart."
It was the way she said it. Not even angry. Not loud. Just calm, surgical. Like someone who knew they’d already won and was just dragging out the moment before they showed the blade.
I leaned harder into the turn off Lakeview, tires whining on the hot pavement, my jaw tight. I didn’t want to think about what more she had. But I knew. God help me, I knew there was more.
The videos already circulating—grainy, handheld, enough to identify us if you knew where to look—they were bad.
A few stills from the pool parties at Archies, others from the lake house, another from the dock, a video clip from that party in June, me laughing with my shirt off, Sharon in that ridiculous collar we’d used as a joke, but at times we pretended it wasn’t a joke.
The revelations that bit with that bit of sensual play told me what I wanted more of, but also proved that she was not the one I wanted it with.
So much of what we’d done blurred the line between edgy and flat-out deviant. It was stupid, reckless, and at the time, it had felt like the most thrilling summer of my life. Now it just made me feel sick.
We’d filmed too much. Pushed too far. And not just with each other.
There were things—nights—that I still didn’t let myself think about in detail, but the memories were waiting behind every quiet moment, every reflective surface.
Sharon had kept receipts. Of course she had. She always played the long game.
The bike growled beneath me as I downshifted at the gate to Archie’s.
They were wide open so I didn’t need to announce myself.
He knew we were coming. Once I made it up to the house, I thumbed the kickstand down and killed the engine, letting the sudden silence wrap around me like a heavy coat.
Sweat trickled down my back under the jacket.
The day was already sweltering, heat coming off the pavement in oily waves.
I checked my phone. One new text.
Archie:
Pool. Come around back.
I started walking, gravel crunching under my boots, eyes darting around like Sharon might slink out from the hedges in that sleek little black dress she’d worn when she’d told me I was either with her or against her.
That conversation with my father hadn’t helped.
He hadn't yelled, which was worse. Just stared at me with that tired, stony expression, like he was looking at something he could barely stand to touch. Like I wasn’t his son anymore, just a liability that had to be managed.
“This doesn’t go to your mother,” he said flatly, voice low like he didn’t want the walls to hear. “Do you understand me? She doesn’t need this stress. And you—you fix it. Quietly. No more calls. No lawyers unless absolutely necessary. Do not make this worse than it already is.”
He never asked if it was true. Because he knew. And I think I did, too.
After pulling off my helmet, I made my way around the house, cutting through the narrow path past the pool house and toward the backyard. The stone pavers were hot enough to cook an egg on, and the air smelled like chlorine and citrus. At least Archie had fans going. Big ones. Industrial.
Archie sat under the shade of a wide umbrella, legs crossed, a sweating glass of something that looked too healthy for the occasion in one hand and a stack of paper in the other. His eyes flicked up when he saw me. No smile.
He looked like a general, all right. Girding for war. Or maybe one who already knew the battle had been lost, and was just planning how many bodies he could get out before they burned the place down.
I walked over and set my helmet down before I peeled off my jacket, the heat catching up with me all at once. I dropped into the chair across from him, heart still thudding from the ride—and the guilt. Mostly the guilt.
“Hell of a morning,” I muttered.
Archie didn’t answer right away. Just passed me a folder. I didn’t have to open it to know what was inside.
“Sharon’s making her move,” he said, voice clipped, military-clean. “And she’s not playing games anymore.”
I nodded, the bile already rising in my throat.
The worst part wasn’t that she had dirt.
The worst part was we gave it to her.
And I had no one to blame but myself.
I flipped the folder open.
The first page was tame—by our standards anyway. A printout of one of the video stills, us all laughing, soaked from the lake, sunburnt and stupid. Sharon had written a note in the corner in that impossible, neat handwriting of hers:
July 6th. Don't forget who was filming.
I turned the page.
Worse.
A photo from the dock party. Darker lighting, our faces just barely visible in the background while Sharon posed in the foreground—on purpose.
Her eyes were on the camera. Not smiling.
Just looking. Like she knew exactly what this would become.
Like she was leaving a breadcrumb trail for us to choke on.
The next image made me drop the folder onto the table.
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered, pushing back in my chair. “We can’t use this. We cannot use this.”
Archie didn’t flinch. Just sipped from his stupid fruity looking drink and leaned back. “That’s not for you to decide.”
“You think this makes it better?” I jabbed a finger at the open folder. “Some of this is x-rated, man. X-rated. That’s not just bad optics, it’s career-ending. It’s reputational suicide.”
Archie’s voice dropped an octave. “You think Sharon’s worried about optics?”
I stared at him. “You know women don’t get the same goddamn latitude we do. They don’t come back from stuff like this.”
“She’s not planning on coming back. She’s planning on winning.”
I stood, pacing, trying to out-walk the weight settling in my chest. The heat clung to me like guilt.
“She’s gone nuclear, Bubba. That first drop was just a warning. She’s got more, and you know it. If we don’t hit back, she owns the narrative. She owns us.”
“And if we do this?” I asked, turning back. “What then? We look vindictive, desperate. Like the kind of assholes who leak revenge porn because we got dumped by someone smarter than us.”
Archie’s eyes narrowed. “She didn’t dump you. She targeted you. Don’t romanticize it.”
I rubbed the back of my neck, sweat and shame thick under my palm.
“You don’t get it,” I said. “You think we can just bounce back from this because we’ve always bounced back. But if we go there—if we do this—we don’t just lose a PR battle. We lose everything. Not just our careers. Our names. Our families. Our futures.”
I looked down at the folder again.
“Sharon throws a grenade, and we’re supposed to drop a damn bomb?”
“You fight fire with fire,” Archie said evenly. “You know that.”
I let out a dry laugh. “Yeah, but you don’t set yourself on fire in the process. That’s not strategy. That’s a goddamn death wish.”
Archie leaned forward now, both elbows on the table. “Then what? What do you suggest? We just take it? Let her bleed us out drip by drip?”
I didn’t answer. Because I didn’t know.
But I knew what I wouldn’t do.
“I’m not using this,” I said quietly, pushing the folder back toward him. “Not like this. Not her like this.”
“She's not the same girl you started dating after that dumb fundraiser, Bubba.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “She’s worse. But that doesn’t mean we have to be.”
The silence that settled between us was thick and hot and full of everything neither of us could say out loud. Like how much we’d all wanted her. Needed her. Feared her. And now hated her—because she had the nerve to not just walk away, but to pull the pin on her way out.
Archie stared at the folder a long time before finally pulling it back toward him and closing it.
“What if you aren’t right?” he asked quietly. “Because I think you’re dreaming.”
“Right or wrong, I can’t make decisions for her and what she’ll do—but I can decide what I am willing to do.” A little shrug. I really didn’t want to have this argument with him.
Archie was decisive, sharp, and dangerous with how he could wield his intelligence. That he already had a plan and that it was mutually assured destruction didn’t surprise me. The worst part about it, he was right. This would probably shut her up.
But this was a step too far. If we did this, we couldn’t walk it back.
From the gravel path came the sound of heavy steps and then Jake cutting around the side of the house, eyes red underneath the brim of his cap.
He looked like a man who’d been sleeping with one eye open for weeks and living his waking time on the edge.
In his right hand he slung a baseball bat over his shoulder, the leather grip slick with sweat.
“Jesus,” Archie said under his breath.
Jake didn’t bother to slow as he reached us. He planted both feet, stared down at the folder on the table like it was a detonator, then looked from me to Archie and back again. There was an animal tilt to him, like someone who had run out of options and found anger the only currency left.
“What are we going to do?” he barked. His voice was flat, coiled tight. “You think that’s enough? You think printing pictures is enough? We should go over there. Burn the place. Make sure she never—”
He lifted the bat and gave it an idle spin. The motion was casual, practiced. The bat whispered through the air.
I felt something in me go cold and hard, a quick, ugly stone of memory: my father’s face when he said “Fix it. Quietly.” The weight of that order sat on my chest like a live coal. My mouth tasted of metal.
Archie started to answer, the words already forming—lean, precise, inciting—but I cut him off before he could hand Jake the green light.
“No,” I said. The single syllable landed heavier than I expected. Jake’s eyes flicked to me, surprised to find opposition.