Ten.
Nothing.
I locked the screen and shoved the phone back in my pocket.
Time to face the boys.
Time to try and hold the world together with duct tape and sarcasm while everything underneath kept shifting.
But if Frankie needed me?
I’d drop it all.
Even if it meant burning the rest of it down.
Chapter
Four
BUBBA
Icould still hear Sharon’s voice over the wind, cutting clean through the roar of the bike like a knife made of ice.
"You think what’s out there is bad? That’s the preview, sweetheart."
It was the way she said it. Not even angry. Not loud. Just calm, surgical. Like someone who knew they’d already won and was just dragging out the moment before they showed the blade.
I leaned harder into the turn off Lakeview, tires whining on the hot pavement, my jaw tight. I didn’twantto think about what more she had. But I knew. God help me, Iknewthere was more.
The videos already circulating—grainy, handheld, enough to identify us if you knew where to look—they were bad. A few stills from the pool parties at Archies, others from the lake house, another from the dock, a video clip from that party in June, me laughing with my shirt off, Sharon in that ridiculous collar we’d used as a joke, but at times we pretended it wasn’t a joke. The revelations that bit with that bit of sensual play told me what I wanted more of, but also proved that she wasnotthe one I wanted it with.
So much of what we’d done blurred the line between edgy and flat-out deviant. It was stupid, reckless, and at the time, it had felt like the most thrilling summer of my life. Now it just made me feel sick.
We’d filmed too much. Pushed too far. And not just with each other. There were things—nights—that I still didn’t let myself think about in detail, but the memories were waiting behind every quiet moment, every reflective surface. Sharon had kept receipts. Of course she had. She always played the long game.
The bike growled beneath me as I downshifted at the gate to Archie’s. They were wide open so I didn’t need to announce myself. He knew we were coming. Once I made it up to the house, I thumbed the kickstand down and killed the engine, letting the sudden silence wrap around me like a heavy coat. Sweat trickled down my back under the jacket. The day was already sweltering, heat coming off the pavement in oily waves.
I checked my phone. One new text.
Archie:
Pool. Come around back.
I started walking, gravel crunching under my boots, eyes darting around like Sharon might slink out from the hedges in that sleek little black dress she’d worn when she’d told me I was either with her or against her.
That conversation with my father hadn’t helped.
He hadn't yelled, which was worse. Just stared at me with that tired, stony expression, like he was looking at something he could barely stand to touch. Like I wasn’t his son anymore, just a liability that had to be managed.
“This doesn’t go to your mother,” he said flatly, voice low like he didn’t want the walls to hear. “Do you understand me? She doesn’t need this stress. Andyou—you fix it. Quietly. No morecalls. No lawyers unless absolutely necessary. Donotmake this worse than it already is.”
He never asked if it was true. Because he knew. And I think I did, too.
After pulling off my helmet, I made my way around the house, cutting through the narrow path past the pool house and toward the backyard. The stone pavers were hot enough to cook an egg on, and the air smelled like chlorine and citrus. At least Archie had fans going. Big ones. Industrial.
Archie sat under the shade of a wide umbrella, legs crossed, a sweating glass of something that looked too healthy for the occasion in one hand and a stack of paper in the other. His eyes flicked up when he saw me. No smile.
He looked like a general, all right. Girding for war. Or maybe one who already knew the battle had been lost, and was just planning how many bodies he could get out before they burned the place down.
