Because a future without all of them isn’t one worth living.
Chapter 9
Clara
Amidnight meeting isn’t typical, but no one questions it. Instead, Walker gathers up the last of the leftovers from his two weeks of obsessive cooking, making me a plate before squeezing on the couch with RJ and Jansen, me perched on his lap.
Trips avoids his chair, sitting on the floor across from us, his face cleaned of blood, but a bruise forming across one cheek, his hair lank across his forehead like he couldn’t be bothered to fix it.
It’s a sentiment I get.
After a moment of reveling in the warmth surrounding me, I crawl out of the safety of Walker’s arms, planting a kiss on the lips for each of the guys on the couch before moving to Trips’ chair. “You guys need to know what happened, exactly, so we canfigure out a way free of this,” I say, curling up on the chair, the plate resting on my legs, a few bites of bread making it into me.
The scent of Trips’ cologne permeates the leather, and despite everything, it comforts me in a way the man can’t. Not right now.
I force another bite of bread, gathering my thoughts. “I guess I’ll start at the beginning. Things were going well when we first got there. After the dance, though, Trips’ dad separated us from the party and brought us to his office. He had pictures. Of our crimes. Of us.” I meet the gaze of each of them, Walker confused, Jansen ashamed, RJ angry, and Trips, aching with so many ‘almosts’ that it hurts just to hold his gaze. “He brought up more about my past, about whatever you guys were doing before this year that I honestly didn’t entirely understand, as there’s a lot we haven’t shared. And then he took out that ring, and told us we were getting engaged today, and getting married over spring break. Otherwise, it’s jail. For all of us. Maybe even Trips. That part I couldn’t tell.”
I swallow past the lump that’s built in my throat, trying to get to the next part. But Trips jumps in. “He got suspicious after the Guthrie job and started digging. The damn GTS you stole, Jansen, that was what started this.”
The pointed fault has the darkness that’s been hiding inside of Jansen bleeding out, obvious in a way I wish I’d never seen. But I can’t force it to disappear. Not when my own darkness is a miasma surrounding me that I can’t hold back. It’s oozing, the room hurting along with me.
“Tell me more about the Guthrie job. He started talking about the boys I was nannying this summer, and I can’t figure out how the two things link together.”
“Some kid pulled the fire alarm, and our job went to shit,” RJ says, his fury still humming under his skin, his words sharper than I’ve ever seen, pointed at Trips like a weapon.
“Shit,” I mutter, dropping my head to my hands. “So, that’s my fault, too.”
Jansen’s back at my feet, setting the plate on the coffee table, forcing my face to his. “No. It’s mine.”
“Can you explain?” Walker asks.
I can’t look away from Jansen, his darkness and mine soaking each other, feeding each other, whether for good or ill, I have no idea. But I can’t look away. I just can’t. “I nannied for twin boys this summer. They were shitheads, but their mom thought they were angels and insisted we do things that the boys hated in the name of ‘culture.’ At the end of the summer, we were forced to do a theater tour at the Guthrie. One boy dared the other to pull the fire alarm. It was pure chaos. The mom blamed me, as no son of hers could possibly be at fault.” I turn to Trips. “You dad, he wasn’t serious about kids, was he?” I ask, that question falling out of me without prompting.
“Kids?” Walker asks.
Trips moves his gaze from the floor to the ceiling. “He doesn’t joke when he’s making a deal.”
“Thank God for birth control,” I mutter.
“Don’t doubt he has your medical records, Crash. He must have them to know so much about your knee injury.”
Panic without an outlet bounces around under my skin, but I force it down.
“Please explain,” Walker says, the panic I’m barely containing coming out in his voice.
Trips answers before I can. “He wants a kid out of us. With a timeline, of course. The man will shape the world into whatever he fucking wants it to be. As my brother and I are failures, and God forbid a woman takes over his blood-soaked empire, he’s demanding a blank slate to start again. Like I’d ever fucking give the man a moment alone with any child. Let alone mine.”
The silence in the room is tight like a rubber band, no one knowing how to undo it without it snapping back on us, leaving a sting.
Jansen takes my face, directing me to look at him, and I can’t read the emotion there, my own too strong a filter, coloring everything I see around me.
“Do you even want kids?” he asks, a question that seems wholly unnecessary right now, but apparently is important enough for him to ask it.
“I’m twenty years old. I haven’t thought about it. Not seriously, anyway.”
“There’s no way in hell my father is getting another kid to fuck up.” Trips’ fury sparks, but I have nothing to give him. No help to offer. I’m fresh out.
I’m not going to worry about that part of the ultimatum. It’s impossible anyway. There’s no reason for that to be the focus. “Anyway, important details. The documents, including the photos, are kept in a locked drawer in his office. It includes Chicago, which we knew he was onto, as well as the New Year’s masquerade, the cars Jansen and I boosted this break, and an ambiguous photo of us handing papers to Officer Reed. It also includes intimate moments between all of us. Nothing like Bryce,” I scramble to add, the idea of Trips’ dad having photos like that nauseating, “But yeah. He knows I’m involved with all of you.”
