Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
BUBBA
Iparked my motorcycle near the curb next to Frankie’s sedan. I didn’t need to admit to myself that I was waiting for her with the engine still humming, but I was. Jake pulled up behind her car in his SUV with Coop beside him.
Archie glided up in his Ferrari, smooth as ever, the engine purring like even the car knew the world was all a stage and he owned it. My chest tightened—Frankie wasn’t here. Dismounting, I walked over and Jake rolled his window down.
“She’s with Rachel,” Jake said, almost casually.
He didn’t elaborate beyond that, and I didn’t press.
Knowing Jake, whatever he was hiding, he’d spill it in his own time.
Honestly, after the last time shit went sideways with him, I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t punch him if he did something equally stupid this time.
“Yeah. That’s all I know too.” Coop just shrugged. It hit me that he was not himself. He hadn’t been in a few days, but particularly after the weekend. Gone were the easy smiles, smartass banter, and upbeat attitude.
Archie left his car to join us, his sunglasses reflecting the last of the afternoon light.
“She’s with Rachel,” I told him when he automatically glanced at her car.
Without a doubt, scanned the area where students were still streaming out of the school.
He was likely calculating the odds of every possible scenario.
He didn’t say a word. He never did. He was always waiting. Always watching.
He didn’t answer immediately, his unreadable expression didn’t give a lot away. But I didn’t need to guess at his feelings or thoughts. It was always about Frankie with him.
“If she’s with Rachel,” I said. “Then now is a good time for us to talk.” As much as I wanted to see her, we couldn’t have this conversation with her there.
One, it would hurt her. Two, this was our mess and we needed to be the ones to clean this up.
Especially if we wanted any kind of a chance with her.
And right, wrong, or indifferent, I wanted that chance with her. I wanted to know if we could work.
“Yeah,” Archie said. “Diner.”
Jake gave a thumbs up and pulled away. Archie went to his car and I hopped back on the bike. I gave her car one last look before I walked the bike back, then followed Archie out of the lot. The ride from the school to the diner wasn’t a long one.
Once there, we all piled into the place and our favorite booth in the back corner. The big round one made it easy to park Frankie in the middle so we could all reach or see her easily. Today, it made for neutral ground for the four of us.
None of us bothered with bags or backpacks. I’d stored my backpack, jacket, and helmet in the back of Jake’s SUV. The tension was thick, unspoken, like static before a storm as the waitress brought us glasses of water, took our order, then headed back to turn it in.
“Let’s get this out,” Coop said quietly, breaking the silence. “We need to talk. Everything. Summer, the game, social media, attorney, all of it. And… Frankie.”
Aggravation rolling off him in waves, Jake snorted.
“Right. That should be fun.” His irritation didn’t seem pointed at any of us so much as at himself.
That was obvious in how he sat forward, twisting a water glass in circles, grim attention focused on it and the beads of condensation sliding down the outside.
Coop glanced at him, jaw tight. A wealth of thoughts seemed to travel over his face before he took a deep breath.
Those two had been friends the longest, with each other and with Frankie.
Sometimes, what went on between them wasn’t always accessible to the rest of us, and at the same time, they weren’t cutting us out.
When the waitress brought our drinks and plates loaded with burgers and hot fries, we all went quiet and waited. As soon as we were alone again, Coop swept a look over all three of us.
“I went to see her over the weekend.”
The words landed on the table like a landmine. Jake’s eyebrows shot up. “Wait—what? You went?”
“Yeah,” Coop said, voice low. “She was… miserable. And she called me on the carpet about what happened with the girls. Rachel was there, looking after her. I didn’t just go to annoy her—I spoke to my dad. He said I needed to own it. Face it. Take responsibility for my choices.”
“Your dad?” Jake blinked, incredulous. “Since when do you and your dad…?”
Cheeks flushing, Coop shrugged even as he added salt to the already salty fries.
“We don’t—but Mom and Trina are both pretty disgusted with me and the one person I would normally talk to is the one person I am not discussing this with.
So I went to see him. Shockingly, I think he gave me good advice.
But this… he told me to be straight with her. I tried.”
He picked up one of the fries stared at it.
“She listened, she didn’t have to, but she did.
Then she walked away and I left. I don’t know if she’s ever really going to talk to me again.
She was distant in class, but I’m giving her space too.
” Finished, he took a bite of the fry but he didn’t look happy about it.
Everything smelled fantastic but I had to nod as I slid a straw into my glass. The coke was perfect. “I agree, she needs the room and we need to give it to her.”
Jake grunted, unconvinced, but didn’t argue. Archie, of course, didn’t flinch. He hadn’t touched his food or his drink, he just leaned back in the booth and stared at each of us in turn. I couldn’t really get a read on what he was thinking. If anything, he seemed far more assessing.
Silence settled like a blanket over the table on the heels of Coop’s confession. The tension didn’t ease. If anything, it seemed to hum in the air, like the sound a fridge makes to let you know it’s just on and working.
I picked up my burger and took a bite. It was good, but I barely tasted it. Instead, I just chewed it because I needed to eat. Archie’s gaze seemed to sharpen as he frowned at his food. Finally, he too, started eating though it seemed a great deal more reluctant than my own choice.
“Mr. G suggested that Frankie may want to consider dropping AP Euro, today.” The words were bitter, edged in an offhand disdain for a teacher that Jake and Frankie usually enthused about. “Asshole.”
“Wait…” I stared at him. “Why?” Frankie had one of the best GPAs in our group. She was an overachiever. She never quit.
Well, she hadn’t ever quit anything before she dumped our asses. But we’d more than earned that even if I didn’t like it.
“She’s not had the best time with the last couple of tests.
” Jake shrugged it off. “She’ll be fine.
We’re studying this on our time. It’s not for a damn grade.
We’re studying it to take the AP exam.” Hostility underscored those last words.
“She took off and I didn’t catch her. I wanted to follow but I have a feeling, right now, she doesn’t want much to do with me. ”
“She doesn’t want much to do with anyone,” Archie said flatly. The sympathy some of us might have expressed was absent. “If you think he’s going to be a problem, tell me. Until then, we need to focus on other, more hot button issues—like Sharon.”
Sharon. The name alone made all of us tense.
I could see the wheels turning in Archie’s head.
He was the only one thinking five moves ahead while the rest of us were bumping around like kids in a bumper car.
His quiet was the storm before it broke—protective, shrewd, maybe a little possessive, and utterly dangerous if anyone crossed the line.
I used to find it a little unnerving and overwhelming. No teenager should ever be as directly confrontational and cutthroat as he could be. Not always was, just when we were attacked. Now I was just glad he was on our side.
On her side.
“It’s only been a couple of days but what did the attorney say?” What the hell had I ever seen in Sharon? It was the one thing I’d been kicking myself about since she dropped that first bomb.
“Cease and desists are being sent,” Archie said, before he finished a fry and washed it down with a drink. “He’ll notify us once they’ve all been served. Each of the social media platforms will be addressed individually, Sharon and her parents are going to each receive one.”
That snared Coop out of his guilt-laced fugue. “Why her parents?”
“Because technically, she’s a minor and three of the sites indicate she’s been a member since well before their minimum age requirements. We can make a case that they are responsible for what she does.”
“The counter argument is they could accuse our parents of the same thing,” I said slowly. Granted, I was eighteen in a lot of those videos, at least all the ones from the back half of summer. I was the only one who was eighteen.
“Doesn’t matter,” Archie said, waving that off.
“It does matter,” I countered. “My parents are already not happy with me, but I am the one who made those decisions. If I’d consulted them, no way in hell they would have agreed.”
“No way in hell would we have consulted them,” Jake said sharply, maybe too sharply. Not that I disagreed.
“It doesn’t matter,” Archie said, leaning forward. “What we did was salacious, what she did was arguably criminal.”
Arguably. I scrubbed a hand over my face. “Explain that to me like I’m five.” Because all of a sudden, I wasn’t hungry anymore. “We knew there were pictures and video.” I kept my voice down because yeah, we knew about it. “We have some.”
We had more than some.
“But she posted hers,” Archie countered.
“We can quite categorically label it as revenge porn considering she basically threatened you directly, and then after you still turned her down, she posted it. While it may not say much about our characters…” Not that he sounded like he gave much of a damn.
“The point is, we can repair any reputational damage.”
“Says you,” Jake muttered.
“Yes,” Archie snapped back. “Says me. Unfortunately, we live in a world where power and money can do a lot more to rehabilitate our images than good deeds and good thoughts. We’re also male.”
“That’s a shitty excuse,” Coop said, rousing to give Archie a sour look.
“I don’t make the rules,” Archie retaliated. “I think they’re bullshit. Doesn’t mean I won’t use every advantage in our arsenal to make this go away.”
“Does anything get to you, Arch?” Coop studied him like he was truly trying to understand him. “We’re all sweating this, but you’re just—not.”
“Worrying doesn’t solve anything, it just leads to headaches and heartburn.” Rather than sound dismissive, Archie answered Coop directly. “Disappointment is bitter when it comes from people we care about. You three have your parents, mine are already a lost cause.”
He shrugged that off with the kind of indifference no one should have when it came to their parents. Then again—Archie’s parents were not ours and I wasn’t going to pretend otherwise.
“It makes me a little more sanguine about most of this, except for one thing…”
“Frankie.” I supplied and Archie raised his coke glass to salute before he took another drink. He could and would go scorched-earth for her, and anyone who made the mistake of thinking otherwise would go down in the same flames.
As much as I wanted to keep a steady hand on everything, keep us all balanced, I wasn’t entirely sure that was possible. Jake was raw, reactive, and far more prone to his temper right now. Coop? Fuck, Coop’s guilt was eating him alive. I couldn’t say mine was doing much better except…
“There’s not really much we can do right now, is there?” Everything was about the hurry up and wait.
“No,” Archie said with far more empathy than he’d had earlier. “Not right now. We’re doing what we can. Focus on what you can change, and ignore everything else.”
“I don’t want to ignore Frankie,” Coop said.
“None of us do,” I said. “That’s not even a question.”
“Except she doesn’t want anything to do with us,” Jake argued. “Just that French asshole.”
“Maybe not him,” Coop said slowly. “She was upset when he said he wasn’t going to ask her to homecoming.”
“Wait…” Jake scowled. “Why the hell isn’t he asking her?” Instantly defensive on her behalf. It transformed Jake’s morose mood immediately and I had to swallow a smile. Weirdly, the fact that in the middle of this fractured, chaotic, and messy situation, we were still all about her helped.
It was about keeping her safe, letting her breathe and doing the right thing even if we fucked it up before.
“Has she mentioned homecoming at all since last week?”
One by one, the others shook their heads and I picked my burger up. There was a real chance she’d go to the dance without us, if she went at all.
As much as I wanted to be there, I was wondering how did we make it happen without smothering her but still staying close enough to protect her.
“I’ll get us a car,” Archie said. “Let her know we can give her a ride if she wants. We can all go stag.”
Even Frankie was the implication and a huff of laughter escaped me. Archie didn’t let anything like uncertainty push him around, he just made a call and went with it.
“Cool,” Jake said. “Then she can get mad at you for being pushy if she doesn’t like it.”
“I can take it,” Archie said, then took another drink.
And I couldn’t really fault him. Even if she was mad, we’d be there. We could watch out for her.
“Think we should talk to him?” I asked slowly.
“Who?” Jake asked finally digging into his own burger.
“Mathieu,” I said. “Talk to him about how much the dance means and that she’d probably appreciate it if…”
All three of them stared at me like I’d sprouted a second head.
“Never mind,” I said. “Clearly, that’s a terrible idea.”
Archie snorted but a flicker of a smile finally lifted some of the gloom from Coop’s face.
“Look, if you want me to punch you,” Jake offered. “You don’t have to go out of your way. Just say the word.”
That pulled a laugh from Coop, faint, but real and Archie just rolled his eyes. I let it go, cause, yeah, I didn’t want to help out Mathieu. If he shot himself in the foot, his loss.