18
The sun pours through my window, and I reach for my pillow to cover my face, but I’m pinned to the mattress. I look down at the bundle of dark wavy hair and blink a few times. Do it.
I grind my teeth together, tempted to wake her up just to kiss her.
We had come home after the drive and laid in bed for a long time just soaking in the quiet.
I learned quickly that kissing her once was a mistake.
Not because I didn’t want to do it again, but because now it was all I could think about.
And the issue is, we have enough on our plates without my newfound need to be suffocated by Cress.
My phone vibrates on the table beside me and I stretch out, careful not to wake her as I grab it.
Unknown
Don’t get too comfy.
There’s a picture of the two of us outside the garage after we got home. Cress is leaning against the car, staring up at me, and I can still taste the strawberries on her lips from dessert.
2012
“Don’t get too comfy.” Koa slaps my head gently, ruffling my hair in his fingers.
“Why?” I lift a bottle of beer to my lips and watch him disappear through the living room into the kitchen and back again like he’s looking for something.
“‘Cause I need you to help me with something.” He clicks his teeth together and starts up the stairs two at a time. I peel myself from the couch to follow him and find him in my mom’s room.
“What are you doing?” I snap as he pops the lid on the jewelry box no one has touched in ten years. He fingers through it rapidly, on the lookout for something specific. That much is clear.
“Asking Cress to marry me.” He smiles, pulling out my mother’s wedding ring.
My stomach flips.
“What?” I blurt, my face twisted in concern and… anger? Koa is too busy with the ring to notice. A small diamond secured to a gold band, it’s nothing fancy but it went in there when she died and never came back out. It didn’t belong to him.
“Mama never got married, but I think if Yana was alive, she’d want Cress to have this.” He holds it up in my face and I don’t know what to say to him. “She was going on and on about us getting on with our life and needing a promise that means something.”
Needing a promise. It makes it sound like she’s begging for a diamond, but that’s not Cress. I bite my tongue.
I want to tell him to steal something—fuck, I’d help him do it.
But even the thought of having to watch him put that ring on her finger…
“I’m going to be sick.” I rush from the bedroom to the cramped washroom on the other side of the hallway and spill my guts into the toilet.
“What’s wrong with you?” Koa barks, moving after me.
I brace myself on the floor, pushing up from my crouched position to wobbly feet and wipe the corners of my mouth. “Must’ve eaten something bad.” I gag again. Koa is going to propose to Cress and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. It’s what she wants. “What do you need me to do?”
Koa looks around and then back at me, flicking the ring through the air and closing his hand around it. “It’s all good, you stay here. Sleep or something,” he says with a smile. “Keep your phone close, she’ll wanna call you!”
“Yeah,” I huff, trying not to tell him to fuck off. He disappears down the hall, and I stay rooted to the floor in the bathroom, unable to follow out of pure shock. He’s asking her to marry him. And she’s going to say yes. You’re losing her forever.
Rage consumes the shock. My hand flexes at my side. I could have stopped him, there’s still time… I move one step and stop. It’s what she wants.
‘She’ll want to call you.’ Selfishly, I don’t want that call. I dig my phone out of my back pocket and chuck it in the toilet before heading out to find some trouble to get into.
PRESENT DAY
I swallow tightly, shifting beneath her before leaving her in my bed to sleep a while longer. I pull on a clean shirt and some jeans with the intention to find Murphy but he’s in the hallway on his way to me when I exit.
“This is concerning.” He turns his laptop toward me with a clenched jaw. It’s a photo of him, Birdie, Jesse and Cress in the alley outside the nightclub. The text in the email reads: gutsy.
What the hell does that even mean?
“Fuck.” I show him my phone and he looks down at it, smiles and looks back up at me. “Shut the fuck up,” I warn and he shrugs, closing his lap top gently.
“Give me your phone. I’ll see if I can trace the number or the email that sent mine,” he says and I let him take it.
“Check with Bird and Rafe too. If we got them there’s a good chance they did too,” I say as he backs away toward Birdie’s room at the other end of the hall.
I go back into my bedroom and Cress is curled up in the sheets with her face hidden under the pillow away from the sun.
I kneel down next to the bed and lift the corner with a smile.
“Hey,” I whisper and she cracks an eye. “I hate to ruin your morning, but we have a problem.”
She tenses and sits up in bed.
“Where’s your phone?”
“I left it in the kitchen last night,” she says and I nod, standing up and moving toward the door.
Rafe is already there with toast in between his lips, staring at something on the counter.
I look around and spot her phone, palming it, and my stomach drops when the screen lights up to reveal the photo of her and Koa from their wedding.
I hear her coming down the stairs as I’m collecting my thoughts and I open the phone to check her only message.
Unknown
That was quick.
It’s a photo taken before we got out of the car, from a different angle. My hands tangled up into the back of her shirt, our faces together, cheeks red, our teenage make-out session backlit by only the light from the house. Shit.
“Someone was watching us?” Cress leans around me, her face turning to look at mine with worry and fear.
“Yeah, seems that way,” Rafe mutters, tossing his phone to me before he buttons up the thin short-sleeve shirt he’s wearing and runs his fingers through his hair as I look through everything. “Got me doing pick ups at Bobby’s. With an ominous: keep your family close.”
Birdie stomps down the stairs in a cloud of rage from being woken up. She’s in a shirt that’s twice her size and a pair of jeans. She turns to the stairs and snaps at the empty space. “Murphy?”
He follows with his laptop and lets out an exasperated sigh when he sees Cress’s text. “It’s all scrubbed. There’s zero identifying markers to who could have sent this. Every time I find a lead, it scrambles and disappears. This is hardcore shit.” He sounds unsure.
Murphy never sounds unsure.
“I need help,” he admits and Birdie snorts. “No, actually. This is above me.”
“Nothing is above you.” She scowls as Rafe hands her a box of fruit loops.
“This is.” Murphy is dead serious as he fixes the glasses on his face. “Yeah…” His thoughts are loud as he tips his head up to our brother. “Email me yours,” he says to Rafe.
“You too,” I tell Birdie.
“I didn’t get one.” She shrugs.
“What do you mean you didn’t get one?” I step away from Cress and lean over the counter at her.
“I didn’t get a text, or an email. Nothing.” She shoves her phone toward me like it pisses her off that she was left out of the blackmail. She finishes dumping the cereal in her bowl completely unfazed by my expression.
I check her phone and she’s right, there’s nothing. Everything inside looks normal. I set it down and Murphy picks it up, just as confused as me. What the hell could it mean? We all stand, staring at each other, scared, pissed off and confused.
“This is messed up,” Rafe sighs, sliding onto one of the island stools.
It’s more than that. It’s the worst-case scenario.
It means this whole time we thought we were ahead, we’ve been behind.
I look over at Cress, tucked down into her sweater, her hair still messy from sleep…
her lips are still red from kissing. She’s in even more danger now than before, and it’s my fault because I can’t control myself.
“Maybe they forgot about you?” Murphy’s optimism is laced with doubt.
“Nobody just forgets about Bird.” Rafe glares at him and Murphy swallows tightly.
“She’s basically Koa’s daughter.” Cress stares at her in complete and utter worry.
I look over at Birdie and can see her coming to a hundred conclusions without ever saying a word. It doesn’t make any sense—unless…
“It’s a threat.” Birdie is the first to say what we’re all thinking.