28. Brooding #3
“This is…a different kind of love, Cole.” Hudson’s controlled in a different way now—quieter, maybe. “You and her. If you don’t fight for it now, you’ll lose it forever.”
“I’ll never stop fighting for her. I never have.”
“Good,” Fen says. “Because the fight is just beginning. Now that she knows the truly fucking terrible thing you’ve been trying to shield her from, the emotional wreckage will take time. Hud, I’m assuming you’ve got the legal side of this covered?”
Hudson nods. “I don’t trust Tommy Mercer as far as I can throw him, but so far, it appears that he finally did right by her because her name isn’t appearing on any of the defaulted loans. But I doubt any of that happened…legally.”
“That’s what I’ve always feared most,” I admit.
“I’m working on it,” Hudson promises.
“And now that I have all the pieces, I’m going to do my actual job. Unlock your phone, Cole.”
I do, then hand it over to him.
Hudson and I lean in as Fen opens Instagram and types in Natalie’s name.
It’s a sucker punch I wasn’t ready for.
“Fucking hell,” Hudson growls. “I threatened her with the illegal shit. I didn’t think I’d have to threaten this too. She’s lost her damn mind.”
Natalie’s taking a page out of Grace’s fucked-up handbook.
She’s posted a picture of herself—her face arranged in studied devastation.
“What the hell is wrong with our generation?” Hudson growls. “This is why I don’t do social media.”
Fen flicks to the next slide, and her fictional tale unfolds.
“How is this happening again?” I demand. “Does no one take accountability anymore?”
Fen raises a brow.
“I’m taking accountability!” Shouting isn’t called for, but I haven’t slept.
“Now,” Hud mutters under his breath.
She’s pitting herself against Junie—someone with a public history of unstable behavior—regardless of the truth.
Fen moves to the next slide.
Natalie’s tagged Junie’s I’m.Not.Sorry account on a photo of her disabled brother. She’s making sure that anyone who saw Junie’s TikTok will draw their own conclusions about who has a vendetta and whose brother is now paying the price.
“That bitch,” Hudson growls.
“She just tagged Junie an hour ago,” Fen says. “She’s desperate.”
My gaze snaps back to Junie’s apartment.
She’s had this notification for an hour.
She’s seen this. Junie’s up there alone, in the dark, knowing the woman who tormented her in school, who blackmailed me, is now weaponizing her disabled brother in the war she’s waged against Junie for longer than I’ve realized.
Junie’s going to have to decide what to do with that. And I can’t protect her from it.
“You can’t try to fix this, Cole.” Fen’s tone has gentled, but he doesn’t leave any room for argument. “Junie will survive this, but you have to let her.”
“What do we do in the meantime?” Hudson asks. “Because this defies reason. How is it even possible for it to be happening again?”
“Don’t engage, don’t comment,” Fen says.
“Don’t even look at it again until I tell you to.
The strategy here is to let Natalie dig herself a deeper hole, and I know that goes against your every instinct, Cole, but it’s tactical.
Trust me. I’ve already confirmed that the Meridian story will break early Tuesday morning.
” He waggles his brows. “I’m not above a little bribery for our Spite-Berry, and when it goes live, Natalie’s post will age very, very badly, very, very quickly.
I already have the statement drafted that will go out under your name when that happens. Are you with me?”
My gaze hasn’t left Junie’s dark windows. “I’m with you.”
“Good.” He stands and looks across the driveway. “She still in there?”
“Yeah.”
“You’ve been stalking her window?”
“All night.”
Fen exhales. “We’ll get her back, Cole. Not today. Probably not next week. But we’ll get her back because she’s family and you’re family and that’s what we do.”
I have no doubt that we’ll keep the family together. I just don’t know what my relationship with Junie will be when that happens. One option is eternal light, and the other? Well, the other option will just be a different shade of hell made from the same foundation as my last six years.
Nolan doesn’t arrive until almost nine that night. I’ve only left my position to shower, and that was just because Hudson forced the issue.
My friend has been on planes for nineteen hours. Tokyo to Detroit to Charleston, with a layover so tight he had to run through two airports—at least that’s what I heard from the Juniper & Her Berries group chat.
According to Fen, Hudson not-so-subtly told Nolan it was time to come home last week after both Junie and I asked him for help. He rallied the troops before he understood the war.
By the time Nolan rolls out of the rideshare in the dark, his shoulders are slumped, and it’s not from the weight of the small carry-on in one hand or the phone charger dangling from the other. He’s hampered by truth.
The driveway floodlight catches him, and he pauses to look up at me.
He doesn’t say you fucking idiot. He doesn’t call me a coward.
Nolan simply walks up the driveway with the slow, careful gait of a man whose body has been crammed into an airplane for too long and whose heart is being pulled in two different directions—north, where his sister’s been broken in public twice now, and south, where his best friend is waiting to have their first fully honest conversation in years.
He climbs the porch steps in silence and sits next to me. “Hey, Cole.”
“Hi.”