Chapter Thirty-Two
Lady Phoebe
“We need to debrief,” I tell Arthur, hoisting myself up onto the counter.
“They made smoothies,” he says, throwing a thumb behind him.
I roll my eyes. “I don’t care about smoothies, we need to chat.”
“About what?”
He reaches behind me, one hand going to my waist so I don’t fall off, grabs the salt and cracks it onto his full English.
“Connie and Spencer?” I hiss, hitting his arm.
Thankfully, everyone else is sitting outside eating their breakfast. I only just woke up, maybe hoping to still have Arthur laying beside me but he wasn’t.
He was out here, shirtless, wearing trunks and a pair of sandals I brought him years ago.
“What about them?” He asks, tucking into his food.
I lean my head back against the cupboard. “Are you being serious right now?”
He shrugs.
“Last night!” I remind him.
“Oh,” he nods, swallows. “I haven’t spoken to him. I think he’s still in bed.”
“Yeah, so is Spencer. Not very like her, is it? I don’t think she’s slept in past five a.m. since she was a baby—and even then I bet she was up at one minute past, playing the violin or something.”
He laughs, smiles in this fresh way that makes my heart thump. He looks fantastic this morning. Messy hair, red cheeks, sunburnt nose, boxer band peeking through the top of his trunks.
Jesus.
“The Sun is going to lose their shit when you go out.”
“Why?”
“Look at you,” I wave my hand up and down. “You know how they go when you look all ruggish and…”
“Sexy?” He offers.
“I hate that word.”
He cocks his head. “But if you didn’t would you say I was?”
“You’re just fishing for it now.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You know you are!”
Frowns, leans on the counter, folds his arms across his bare chest. “Know I’m what?”
“Shut up.”
“Just say it!”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because the way I feel about that word is the same as the word ‘moist’.”
He scrunches his face up. “Never say that again?”
“What? Moist?” I tilt my head. “Why? I love that word—”
Arthur goes to grab me but I jump down from the cabinet and go running through the living room and out onto the deck. He comes after me, catches me from behind, starts attacking my sides.
“Stop!” I scream, wriggling. “I’m going to wee!”
“Oh, hello.”
We both stop, Arthur puts me down, George stands there, hands on hips. “Not interrupting, am I?”
I stand there, trying not to laugh. “No.”
He raises his eyebrows at Arthur. He shrugs. “No.”
George squints at us, sort of tilts his head. Arthur reaches around, squeezes the back of my neck and I collapse into more fits of nauseating laughter.
George clears his throat, nods at Arthur. “Need you for a minute.”
“Why?” I ask.
Arthur goes serious then, completely polar opposite of how he was just a few seconds ago. “It’s nothing.”
I step in front of him, my back to George. “You better not be getting involved with them.”
He rolls his eyes. “Obviously I’m not.”
“Hm.”
He flashes me a quick smile, bends down, pecks a small kiss on the side of my mouth and then walks off, his hand sliding around my waist until he’s too far away to touch me anymore.
Makes me feel warm.
Like that was normal for us.
In some way it is. In other ways it isn’t because I have a boyfriend.
I go back inside, grab one of the smoothies the chefs made and go up to the top deck where Athena is sitting at the table.
“Good morning!”
She looks up. “It is for you, isn’t it?”
I frown.
“You and Arthur!”
“I’m not following…”
“Well he certainly was, into your bedroom.”
“How do you know that?”
“Oh,” she waves her hand airily. “I only held a glass to your bedroom door all night.”
“Perv.”
“So he was in there?” She gives me a look.
I nod slowly.
“Did you…”
I nod again.
She slaps my arm. “My god, you little minx! You have a boyfriend!”
I roll my eyes. “So what? It’s only Arthur.”
“Exactly!” She sits up. “It’s Arthur!”
“Hey, Athena?”
“Yeah?”
“Who’s better in bed? George or Albie?”
“Oh my god!” She throws her arms up. “You just had to go there, didn’t you?”
I nod, smile but I actually do want to know—we all want to know.
“You gonna tell me, then?”
She huffs, pulls her knees up to her chest and looks away from me. “No.”
“Why?” I nudge her. “Is it Albie? You know what they say about the quiet ones.”
She side-eyes me. “You know, for a ‘lady’”—yes, she actually does use quotation marks— “You have a very vulgar mouth on you.”
“I grew up with Connie and George, what do you expect?”
“Yeah, that is true, actually.”
I nudge her again. “So are you actually not going to tell me?”
“Of course I’m bloody not!”
I finish the rest of my smoothie, push the glass away and then rest my chin in my hand, staring out onto the sea as we make our way over to my house for the rest of the summer.
“George dragged Arthur away from me for something.”
“Yeah?”
I turn to her. “Do you know what about?”
She shrugs her lips, shakes her head. “I never know their business.”
“George doesn’t tell you?”
She looks at me like I’m crazy. “If he told me, I wouldn’t be safe.”
I sit up straighter, stare at her. “And you don’t ask questions?”
“I know he’s in the racket business—”
“Racketeering.”
“—Whatever, but that’s all I need to know.”
“You’re not scared?”
“About what?”
I laugh. “I don’t know—your safety, your life, your future kids?”
She shakes her head, swift and sure. “No. My parents wouldn’t let me go with someone like him if they knew he wouldn’t be able to keep me safe.
I’m already a target, Phoebe. I’ve had a red dot on my back since the day I was born with my dad being who he is and the twins around.
Everyone knows that me and him are dating, it’s not a secret.
But I think you forget that I grew up in the same space as him.
It’d be different if someone like you started dating him—don’t get any ideas, you nymph—because you truly have no idea.
What’s the worst that could happen to me?
I get killed? I have a hundred men who would jump in front of a bullet for me. ”
My eyebrows jump to my hairline. “So is it like real James Bond stuff?”
She throws her head back, laughs. “No! It’s more kept within their own community nowadays. They’re not worldwide drug lords.”
“You sure about that?”
She looks uncertain for a second. “Fine, they’re not world wide villains, then.”
Arthur walks past us, Athena gets up to leave but he doesn’t stop.
Doesn’t even look at me. Head down, speed walks right inside.
My heart crawls up my throat because surely he wouldn’t get involved with them, would he?
That isn’t him. There’s too much on the line for him.
But then again, I never thought he’d start shooting heroin so maybe he would?
But why? The twins would never involve any of us, anyway.
I want to go after him, talk about it but then I remember that isn’t really my place anymore. I think my place for him is to just be there, naked and waiting like I would in school. Not just a body—no—but maybe just an antidote to dilute the poison in his brain?
? ? ?
Both Connie and Spencer emerge from their respective bedrooms just as we pull into the dock in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. No one says anything to them and they say nothing to us so we all start busying ourselves by loading our combined sixteen luggage cases into the town cars waiting for us.
“Do you not think it’s a bit extra that we didn’t just drive from Monaco over here?” Arthur asks me.
I throw him a look over my shoulder. “No?” I tilt my head at him. “Nice sunglasses.”
He smiles, slides them off the top of his head and onto his face. “Someone with excellent taste bought them for me.”
They are really nice sunglasses, anyway.
Vintage—1980–gold and black aviators and I know that they’re only sunglasses but at the same time, they’re not?
I buy—or bought—him lots of stuff. All kinds of things.
Expensive, cheap, wearable, inanimate, meaningless, edible, fragile—doesn’t matter.
I buy everyone I love lots of things because that way, they’ll always have it.
Sure, they might lose it but you can always find it or rebuy it again.
You can’t find or rebuy lost memories. My gifts are like physical reminders of memories.
I bought those glasses here, actually—that’s the memory attached to them.
We were fourteen, staying here for a week during the summer before going into year ten and probably way too young to be in a different country all on our own.
But everyone’s parents agreed because well, it was me, my house—and really, none of our parents have ever had the time or patience to say no about anything, even when they really should’ve.
Anyway, me, Spencer and Bliss went out to the little town one afternoon, stumbled across this vintage shop and there they were—sitting at the till behind a glass case.
Me and Arthur weren’t even dating at that time but I picked them up for him anyway and I remember the whole way back, I felt so grown up and so mature for spending so much money on something for him.
I was really honestly very proud of myself.
When we got back to the house, I got them out of the bag ready to show him and came skipping through to the front room only to see Connie sitting on the couch.
“Where’s Arthur?” I asked him.
Connie shrugged and I didn’t see it then but when I look back at this memory—It’s clear. Connie was off his face, too.
I stormed upstairs, checking all the bedrooms before reaching mine. I heard the sounds of vomiting and rushed into my en-suite, stopping by the door when I locked eyes on his pale, sweating, shaking frame crouched by the side of the toilet.