51. Phoenix St. Pierre #2
“I’m not here for Harriet,” she tells us. “I’m here for her boyfriend. Benjamin.”
“It’s Ben,” Tom says. “Just Ben.”
“I must’ve read it wrong then.” She shoos her hand. “Doesn’t matter.”
Tom doesn’t ask where Hope got her sources. Probably because Ben and Harriet upload couple pictures on social media, which tabloids started reposting. But Tom said they’re minor headlines—that Ben isn’t famous enough like their parents to garner a constant paparazzi presence and rabid fanbase.
Harriet’s mom canvasses the bookshelves and view.
I head back beside Tom and put a hand to his shoulder. “Go get your phone,” I whisper.
“I’m not taking my eyes off her, dude,” he hisses.
“Fine, I’ll get mine.” I’m about to move when Hope locks eyes with me and Tom.
“I wanted to warn her boyfriend,” she says. “But I might as well warn you two since you seem to know her.”
I glare. “Warn us about what?”
“Harriet is…to put it bluntly—a whore.”
The fuck.
Tom glowers. “Excuse me?”
I run a hot hand against the back of my neck. Acid in my throat.
“She’s a whore,” Hope says more confidently, brows arching.
“She has seduced my boyfriends, neighborhood boys, any man with a dick between his legs. Something is not right with her—and she will cheat on Benja—Ben. She will cheat on Ben the first chance she gets.” Her cheeks redden a little as she looks between us.
“Tell me I’m not too late. Has she propositioned you yet? ”
“We’re gay,” I snap.
“That wouldn’t stop her.”
My eyes sear.
“Get out,” Tom says fiercely. “You need to go. Like right now.”
Hope digs out her phone from her purse. “If you’d just let me know where she lives so I can warn her roommates and her neighbors.”
“Lady, you need to fucking leave,” I sneer.
She flinches at my tone and focuses more on Tom. He looks like his head is on fire. She’s not going to find comfort with him. He walks her to the door, and luckily, she picks up her pace to reach it. I’m not far behind.
Hope suddenly pauses in the kitchen. “Can I leave my number for Ben? Harriet has me blocked.”
“I wonder why,” I say sharply.
Her strong convictions mortar her face. “You think I’m being cruel now. But I’m saving everyone from worse pain. She is a parasite. She always has been.” Her attention pins to Tom. “I’d think your family was smart enough to not keep company with a person who could ruin their reputation.”
“You don’t know my family very well then,” Tom tells her into a seething glare. “We thrive in ruin.”
Her lips flatline, and she looks to me, but my expression is more caustic than Tom’s.
She flinches back toward the door, then exits into the hallway. “I won’t mind if you told her I dropped by. Maybe it’ll dissuade her from acting ou—”
Tom shuts the door on her face. He latches the lock.
When he rotates to me, I say, “The fuck was that.”
He smears a hand across his jaw in a deep wince. “I can’t even imagine hating your kid that much. Holy shit.” He shakes his head. “I can’t tell Harriet.”
“You have to tell your brother,” I say. “You can’t keep that from Ben. That’s his girlfriend.” He’d know whether it was appropriate to keep Harriet in the dark on this. More than Tom or me.
Tom wavers. “I…” He pinches his eyes closed. “Ben doesn’t need stress right now. Fuck.” We move fast back into his bedroom. Scrounging around the twisted sheets, we find our phones, and neither of us sits down.
I side-eye the cockatoo hopping on the floor, a toy baby ring in his beak. Looks like something a teething toddler would gnaw on. It almost makes me laugh.
Tom dials a number, leaving it on speaker.
“Make this quick.” I recognize Charlie’s sardonic tone. “You have two minutes before I lose service over the Atlantic.”
“Where are you going?” Tom asks.
“Rotterdam.”
“Turn around.”
“I’m not turning around.”
“We have a problem.”
“The sky is blue.”
“Charlie,” Tom expels a breath. “Harriet’s psycho mom just showed up and called her a whore. Warned me that Harriet was going to fuck everyone in this apartment and cheat on Ben.”
“And is she wrong? Harriet has already offered me a blow job.”
“What the fuck?” My muscles stiffen.
Charlie sighs in exasperation. “Your boyfriend is on speaker. That’s great.”
Tom presses his hand to his forehead. “In exchange for protecting Ben, she offered Charlie a blow job,” he explains for me.
“Okay, context is key here. Fuck, Charlie. Really—how is Ben going to react when he hears this? Do you know what someone with magical thinking would do? Because I don’t.
And maybe he’ll think he’s doomed Harriet to death and pack his bags and disappear to fuck knows where—”
I put my arms around Tom, folding him into my chest, and it immediately cuts off his rant.
His breathing staggers. My fingers slip to his wrist. His pulse is thumping out of control.
“Stop trying to predict what Ben is thinking,” Charlie says. “How about we start with that?”
Tom closes his eyes. “And then?”
“And then you have a show tomorrow,” Charlie tells him. “And if you don’t want your relationship to be public—you might want to practice not calling each other boyfriends. I’ve heard that word fifteen hundred times in the past forty-eight hours.”
Tom almost smiles. “Good advice, Charlie Keat—”
Charlie ends the call.
Tom narrows his eyes. “He lost service, right?”
“Sure,” I say into a nod. Our eyes meet in a strong beat. I haven’t let go of him. “Harriet?”
“Needs help, dude,” Tom takes a tight breath.
“Charlie and Beckett already tried to nudge her into therapy, but she’s not ready.
And I don’t know all the details of her upbringing, but I know she uses sex transactionally.
It’s why she barters with blow jobs, or she did before she started dating Ben. ”
“Did not expect that,” I admit. “She’s head-over-heels for your brother.”
“Since she’s your new bestie, maybe she’ll start talking to you about it.” He frowns. “I can’t imagine just keeping all the bad stuff in. I’d explode.”
His pulse slows against my fingers. So I gently ask, “Ben has magical thinking?”
Tom swallows hard. His gaze shifts to the floor.
“A form of OCD,” he says, and he starts explaining everything.
How it’s not like the OCD that Beckett has.
How Ben disappeared last year. Tom goes into great, painful detail, and I just listen while he breaks his ribcage open and pours out his hurt.
Tom has carried the responsibility of making sure it doesn’t happen again.
The weight of that is a heaviness he bears.
It’s one I know.