Chapter 7
Taio
“I just want it on record,” Cam announces, adjusting his mask for the fifteenth time, “that when you said ‘guys’ night,’ I pictured a bar. Maybe a steakhouse. Possibly a strip club if we were feeling inspired. Not…” He gestures at the open field around us. “Whatever the hell this is.”
“Strip club’s still open, Cam. Feel free to see yourself out.
” Forrest points to the arena entrance with his pen, not looking up from the tactical map he drew on a napkin.
An actual tactical map. With arrows and positions and what I think might be enemy sight lines.
“A plan builds trust. Trust builds cohesion. Cohesion wins battles.”
“We’re not in a battle. We’re grown-ass men playing paintball in Jersey who had to get dressed in a gym locker that smells like old cheese and a tire fire.”
Forrest taps his temple, eyes still glued to his unimpressive map. “The battlefield is a state of mind,” he murmurs.
Cam turns to me. “He’s been like this for twenty minutes. I’m starting to worry.”
“Hawk?” I ask. Forrest actually makes eye contact with me. “Is Sora letting you out of the house enough? You know…like for fresh air?”
“Is Hawk like a cool battlefield nickname?” Cam asks, suddenly looking intrigued. “Do we all get nicknames?”
Saylor materializes beside us, crouched low behind a stack of inflatable barriers, already in full tactical mode.
“His name is Forrest Hawkins, you eager-ass puppy. No one is getting cool ops nicknames. We’re not taking a blood oath.
Quite frankly, your presence here is optional, especially with all the bellyaching. ”
“Harsh, Say,” Forrest adds.
“He did just call him a mama’s boy two days ago,” I mumble.
“Right.” Forrest turns his gaze to Cam. “Sorry. Justified.”
“Do we at least head to a bar afterward and get our drink on?” Cam asks.
“We are.” Forrest points to me, Saylor, then himself. “Jury’s still out on if you’re invited. Let’s see if you hit your targets first. I’m going to test our radios.” He paces a few feet away.
Saylor, being a good sport, picks his walkie-talkie up in full support of Forrest’s over-the-top leadership.
“Bravo Team, this is Alpha Leader.” Forrest’s voice crackles through the cheap walkie-talkies he insisted we needed. His back is turned but he’s standing ten feet away. We can see him clear as crystal against the dusky sky. “What’s your twenty?”
“We’re right here, Hawk. Turn around and you’re looking right at us,” I gripe, my tone suddenly matching Cam’s because I’d like to be doing anything else than playing paintball today.
I’m too distracted, worried about the growingly menacing headlines that have been swarming, just as Charlie predicted two days ago.
“Radio protocol—” Forrest starts. He’s interrupted by a loud grumble from Cam.
“I swear to God, if you say ‘radio protocol’ one more time, I’m defecting to the other team.”
“Great. Do it. Gives me a really interesting target,” Say gripes.
I should be paying attention to this. I should be fully immersed in the primal art of pelting strangers with neon-colored paint projectiles while Forrest channels his inner G.I.
Joe, complete with unnecessarily intense hand signals and useless information on military equipment.
This is our sacred ritual. When we’re playing paintball, we’re no longer grown men with real problems and responsibilities.
We don our plastic armor that makes us look like we’re acting out a scene in Call of Duty, and pretend for a couple hours that the solution to all our shitty baggage is annihilating the opposing team.
Even after Forrest abandoned our apartment and the escort business for domestic bliss, the ritual remained.
We’re friends who’ve seen each other at our best, worst, and most ridiculous.
This is supposed to be an escape, but I’m chained and trapped by the guilt of what happened on that balcony.
I shouldn’t have touched her. I shouldn’t have gift-wrapped her for the wolves with their telephoto lenses and clickbait headlines.
Charlie was clearly barely holding herself together with tape and prayers. I just set her world on fire in the worst way.
“Taio.” Forrest’s voice cuts through my spiral and suddenly I’m staring at his boots. “You with us?”
I rise, then huddle into the team circle with all the renewed enthusiasm of a cat being forced to attend its own birthday party. My paintball gun dangles from my fingers like an overcooked noodle. “Yeah. Sorry. What’s the plan?”
“Cam takes left flank. Saylor takes right. You’re with me up the middle. We breach in thirty.”
Cam blinks. “I don’t know what any of those words mean.”
Forrest rolls his eyes so dramatically his entire head follows the motion, like a human-sized bobblehead. “Just go left and try not to get shot.”
“Which left?”
“There’s only one left, Cam,” Say grunts out.
“There’s also a right. And a middle. And frankly, I’d rather be at the bar around the corner, which is south.”
Forrest pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to control his exasperation. “Just follow Say. Do what he does.”
Saylor nods with enthusiasm. “Right in front of me, mate. Like a human shield.”
“Fine. But I want it noted that I’m here under protest.”
“Noted. Now move.”
We move. Or rather, Forrest and Saylor move with the fluid precision of men who take this way too seriously.
Cam wanders vaguely leftward, looking like a man who just time-traveled and is trying to orient himself with this strange new world.
I move like someone whose brain is three miles away, tangled up in memories of a cartoon Tweety shirt and a voice like heartbreak.
A paintball whizzes past my ear. Then another. The enemy team has spotted us. Easily. Probably because Cam is walking around like an inflatable tube man.
“Get down, we’re made,” Saylor warns about a second too late.
I take a hit to the shoulder. The impact stings—a sharp bloom of pain that’ll leave a bruise tomorrow.
Another hit. Chest this time. I roar more out of frustration than anything. Ten seconds into the match and I’m sat? What the fuck?
“Taio’s down!” Saylor shouts. “Hawk, it’s the three of us. Let’s just—” He stops short and I hear a cry of agony coming from my distant left. “Shit. Just two of us,” Say says through the radio. “Cam just got pelted.”
“Just leave me, bro,” Cam pleads through the radio with mock theatrics. “Finish the mission.”
“Yeah, we were going to, buddy. Ty—you good?”
“Yup, just headed to the loser bench,” I answer defeatedly.
I raise my hands and trudge toward the dead zone. Cam joins me approximately two minutes later, having been cornered behind a barrier and shot repeatedly while yelling “I surrender, I surrender” to opponents who clearly didn’t care.
Cam collapses onto the bench beside me, clutching his neck like he’s been hit by a sniper rather than a paintball.
“This is a war crime,” he declares, voice pitched uncannily like a toddler who was denied ice cream.
“That jackass in the blue mask saw I was surrendering and shot me anyway. In the neck! That’s fucking illegal.
” He yanks his collar down dramatically.
“Look at this monstrosity. It’s bad already, isn’t it?
” The welt is indeed impressive—angry red with a purple center, pulsing like it’s trying to communicate in Morse code.
“No, man. You can’t even see it,” I lie, just to stop his whining.
I’m already on my phone, scrolling through headlines with a growing knot in my stomach. The news has gotten worse since I checked this morning. Much worse.
CHEATER CHARLIE: Pop Princess Caught in Secret Tryst
Grayson Hayes “Blindsided” by Girlfriend’s Balcony Betrayal
Mystery Man Identified? Internet Sleuths Hunt for Charlie Riley’s Secret Lover
That last one makes my blood pressure spike, but when I click through, it’s just speculation. Someone thinks the mystery man might be a backup dancer. Someone else is convinced it’s her bodyguard. A third theory involves a member of a boy band I’ve never heard of.
No one’s identified me. My head was ducked during the hug—chin tucked against the top of Charlie’s head, face hidden from the cameras. All the photos show is my back, my shoulders, the dark shape of someone who could be anyone.
I’m safe.
Charlie is not.
#CheaterCharlie is trending. So is #FakeBarbie and #GraysonDeservesBetter. The comments section is a dumpster fire of strangers competing to say the cruelest thing about a woman they’ve never met.
The game ends with a shrill electronic wail.
Forrest and Saylor trudge back to us, their uniforms dirt-splattered but free of paint.
Their smiles are triumphant. They’ve somehow clinched victory despite being down to half strength almost immediately.
Forrest’s face carries the smug satisfaction of a general who’s just conquered a small nation, while Saylor’s already dissecting our failed strategy with military precision.
“If you two hadn’t abandoned your posts so quickly, we could’ve dominated them completely,” Saylor says, pulling off his mask.
Cam rubs his neck welt. “Stupid game you guys take way too seriously,” he mutters.
“All right, chump. Go put your big-boy pants on. We’ll take you out for a beer now.
” Forrest ruffles Cam’s hair like a child.
Cam swats him away and we all head to the locker room.
The space is cramped and smells like rubber and old sweat.
Cam is already lobbying for his favorite bar that he’s been grumping about all afternoon.
Saylor is half listening, stripping off his gear with practiced efficiency.
I’m on my phone again, and this time my face must give something away.
“Mate.” Saylor drops onto the bench across from me. “What’s got you so twisted up? You’ve been somewhere else all day.”