Sinful Like Us

by Ritchie, Krista

  Moffy stares faraway in thought.

  I glance at Thatcher. I thought he’d be looking between Maximoff and Farrow, but his eyes are on me.

  Butterflies flap in my stomach, and I fumble as I file the florist contact list, then I clear my throat. “Um…” I shake my head. How strange and wonderful it feels to be seen—but for the right reasons. Not maliciously or perversely but adoringly. Lovingly.

  Protectively.

  Carefully.

  I grab onto words that flit past my brain. “You still have time to decide, Moffy.”

  “Yeah.” He nods, focusing back on us.

  Thatcher threads his arms. “Have you two picked a date yet?”

  Last I heard, they were still up in the air.

  Maximoff rotates his stiff shoulder. “Farrow has always wanted a winter wedding, so we’re thinking a couple years from now. It gives us time for this.” He gestures to the binder.

  I tell him, “I can simplify for you.”

  “He’ll need that,” Farrow teases.

  Maximoff groans. “You’ll need that more than me.”

  He smiles with the tilt of his head. “You can think that all you want, wolf scout.”

  Before I close the binder, we talk a little more about vendors, and then we land on the topic of the upcoming trip to scout a wedding location.

  “Hawaii?” I repeat the fake destination as Maximoff stealthily shows me his phone screen with the real location.

  Scotland.

  Behind me, Thatcher and Banks lean forward and see the country’s name too. A winter retreat in the Scottish Highlands with my boyfriend—I take a breath and smile. Brimming with excitement, I rock back on my heels and collide into Thatcher’s hard chest with a thud.

  I freeze.

  This is all allowed, Jane. We’re together, and the security team doesn’t have to sign off on our public interactions as part of a ploy anymore.

  He clutches my hips, and my lungs expand. While I lean against his body, I weave my arms behind him and slide my hand down his back pocket.

  His peach-perfect ass is all mine.

  Maximoff sends me a confused look. “I thought you were sad about leaving him during the trip.”

  I crane my neck up at the Moretti brothers. “Do you want to tell them or shall I?”

  “You,” they say.

  Banks curses under his breath as they speak at the same time again. And quietly, I unleash the twin swap plan. By the end, Farrow is grinning so wide that his smile reaches cheek-to-cheek.

  “Just say it,” Thatcher cuts in.

  “You like breaking the rules for her,” Farrow tells him matter-of-factly.

  Thatcher looks only at me, and my heart swells. No man has ever made me feel like a rare beauty worthy of sacrifice. He’s never sought after my fame or fortune.

  He’s just sought after me.

  I open my mouth to speak. “I—”

  A drunken fool plows into my boyfriend’s back.

  “Merde,” I curse.

  Thatcher hardly sways. He’s quick to take my hand out of his pocket, to pull my arms safely in front of me, and just as the fool barrels into him with purpose again, Thatcher swerves onto this twenty-something man and shoves his chest. Like the violent rip of caution tape, the packed bodies explode with rowdy, hostile force.

  Pushing.

  Yelling all at once. “Get outta here!” can be heard above the jumbled, slurred mess.

  My heartbeat spikes.

  Banks is suddenly facing me and back-to-back with Thatcher. My boyfriend’s brother is guarding me.

  I see Tony out of the corner of my eye. Squeezing through the mosh pit of a crowd. “HEY!” he yells. “Knock it off, Gio!”

  He knows one of these assholes?

  “Morettis can’t come in here actin’ like they own the place!” Gio yells back.

  Male voices from all directions drown out his complaint. Thatcher and Banks included, shouting over him.

  Curiosity nearly goads me to stay and watch. Thatcher is more willing to argue here than if we were somewhere else. He outwardly blazes, and he glances back and communicates with his brother.

  I swallow my speeding pulse. “We need to leave!” I shout to Moffy, and I grab my fur coat off the stool. Once I look up at my best friend, I pale.

  His red-hot fixated glare is all too familiar. He’s hyper-focused on three young guys in green Eagles merch. They berate Farrow, who’s as cool as can be. He couldn’t care less, only a hand outstretched to keep them from shoving. But he shoots Moffy a warning look to stay back.

  And then they spit on Farrow.

  “Moffy, no.”

  He launches forward. I drop my coat and clasp his waist.

  “MOFFY!” He barely even notices me pulling him, and so I leap onto his back.

  “Janie?” He stops in place.

  Someone hollers, “Look, cousins screwing cousins!” My stomach lurches, but I try not to listen because if I let go of him, he’ll—

  Tony suddenly tears me off of Maximoff.

  “No!” I scream and kick my feet out.

  I’ve been ripped off my best friend plenty before; it’s protocol—and every time, I yell about not leaving him behind. But in this moment, only one word escapes my lips.

  No.

  I yell it again.

  Tony cages me to his chest. I squirm against his stronghold, and my panicked eyes land on Thatcher.

  He’s already coming towards me.

  He heard me scream.

  Moffy sees me struggling. “Let her go!” he shouts at Tony.

  I flail my feet, and my heel makes contact with my bodyguard’s crotch. Tony grunts, “Fuck.” He sets me down and doubles over.

  “Moffy!” I bolt to catch his arm. Now that I’m fine, he’s already leaving for Farrow, who does a fantastic job restraining the pushing crowd.

  “Jane!” Thatcher cuts off my path and shields me. “Jane!”

  I lose sight of Moffy. “I can’t leave him!” I put my hands on his chest to push him backwards. But my strength doesn’t outmatch his, so I use all my weight and jump on my boyfriend.

  He catches me in a front piggyback. My legs instinctively wrap around his waist—his hands cup the backs of my thighs.

  Hoisting me higher on his tall build.

  Oh.

  My.

  God?

  I hold his neck, and our eyes sink into each other. As though the world falls hush around us, as though meeting the safety I’ve always craved has the power to stop time and grow impossible gardens. As though we’re Adam and Eve and whatever sinful deed we commit, we’ll commit together.

  Wild pieces of my hair stick to my lips. His narrowed gaze is full of purpose and potency.

  He breathes hard.

  I breathe harder. “Thatcher.” I can’t leave my best friend. I can’t leave him, and I’m not ready to be dragged out of this bar like I always am when Maximoff fights.

  “You’re my eyes,” Thatcher says strongly. “Watch Banks. He’s helping Farrow and Maximoff. Copy?”

  “Yes.” I inhale. “I’ll be your eyes.” I scrutinize Banks. His arms are extended, and he barricades the angered bar patrons from physically confronting Maximoff and Farrow.

  My pulse decelerates for the first time, and I realize it’s because I’m in Thatcher’s arms.

  He takes charge and yells at Tony. “Tell your friend to mind his own fucking business! Or take him out of here!”

  “My friend?!” Tony unleashes a bitter laugh. “Gio and I haven’t been friends since we were sixteen! If it were up to me, I wouldn’t even be in this shithole!”

  I can practically feel Tony gesturing to the rustic green bar sign above the televisions.

  The one that reads: South Philly Brew.

  Thatcher has spent countless nights at this sports bar with his family. He’s told me about how his uncles would buy Banks and him beers when they were teenagers. Yes, even underage, and they’d watch football and blow off steam
.

  He’s rigid against me, boiling. “You grew up in this shithole like the rest of us!”

  “And I made it out! Unlike you!”

  I cringe, hating every little jab that Tony loves to take. South Philly is a beautiful place, and I want to turn and defend Thatcher to the death, but I made a promise to watch Banks.

  Not coming to my boyfriend’s defense—it hurts like a billion blades in my stomach, but I force myself to stay pinned to his brother.

  Ohh…

  No.

  No.

  My eyes grow as a thin guy in a winter beanie stands on a chair, a plastic shopping bag in hand. What did he buy?

  For what purpose?

  “Gio, sit down!” Banks yells.

  “Thatcher,” I warn.

  He swings his head, and immediately, he lowers me to my feet, his towering height shielding me.

  Zeroing in on the target, Thatcher yells, “Che cozz’!”

  He’s taught me enough Italian that I remember the translation: What the fuck are you doing?

  “Just bought this for you, Moretti!” Gio digs his hand in the shopping bag. “So you can tie up your rich bitch!” He chucks an object at us, but Farrow intercepts first and catches what looks like restraint cuffs, meant to tie a submissive to a bed.

  I boil. “I do not like BDSM!” I shout at the top of my lungs, as though the whole world will hear me.

  “Prove it!” He points from me to Thatcher, as though we’ll fuck in front of everyone.

  My face twists in disgust and ire. I loathe this redundancy more than anything, how I always find myself here, shouting the same phrase and meeting the same unwelcome result.

  It is infuriating.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?!” Maximoff almost charges at the guy.

  Farrow puts Moffy in an arm-lock and whispers rapidly in his ear. Banks is pushing other men back from us.

  And Thatcher—he could spark infernal damnation in a single glare. “She has nothing to prove to you.” He projects his voice without yelling.

  I touch a slow-growing smile on my face. I can’t believe I’m smiling. I perch my hands on my wide hips, chin raised, and then—

  Boom!

  I flinch.

  Thatcher clasps my hand and draws me behind his back. Every head whips to the noise behind the bar as an older gray-haired gentleman bangs a baseball bat to the counter.

  “EVERYONE OUT!” he yells.

  Complaints gather from whispers to shouts.

  “I SAID OUT! I OWN THIS DAMN BAR. I SAY YOUSE GO, YOUSE GO!” He points the bat at the door. People begin to shift, and I snatch my wedding binder before another pair of hands do.

  “You wanna lose business, Jerry?!”

  “I’m losing nuthin’. I get ten grand just to get you shitheads outta here!” He suddenly aims his bat towards me and Maximoff. “Youse can stay. Everyone else, go!”

  Ten thousand dollars?

  I go cold. This makes little sense.

  People shoot us nasty glares and huff on their way out. I hear rich bitch! yelled at me, as though this is my doing. Snowy gusts blow inside as bodies exit, the bar slowly clearing. Leaving behind a beer-spilt floor, crooked chairs, and littered tabletops.

  Moffy and I exchange a tentative look, and I sense our bodyguards talking amongst themselves and hawk-eyeing all the passing, disgruntled people. I hug the binder and lean into my best friend. “Did you pay the owner to clear out the bar?”

  “No.” His fingers weave through his thick, dark brown hair. “Did you?”

  “No. I wouldn’t. It’d be easier to just leave.” We’re uneasy, and I say what we both know. “Our bodyguards wouldn’t spend ten grand to evacuate a room full of assholes. There are only a handful of people who would.”

  His shoulders square, ready to protect and defend even though he’s not a bodyguard.

  “Charlie,” I declare. “He would.”

  Maximoff licks his lips. “As cool as it’d be for telepathy to be real, Charlie isn’t telepathic. Your brother couldn’t have known this mayhem broke out at this moment.”

  “What if it’s online?” I theorize. “Someone could’ve recorded and posted everything.” I take a seat at the bar, setting my binder back down, and we take out our phones and do a quick social media search.

  My frown deepens.

  No peep. Nothing about the eldest Cobalt and eldest Hale in a South Philly bar fight.

  Banks plops down on the stool beside mine. He just intercepted the path of a drunk middle-aged man, who probably would’ve sat next to me.

  “Thank you,” I whisper.

  He just nods and reaches over the bar for a beer bottle. He motions to the owner, who gives the okay for him to take the beer.

  “It can’t be Charlie,” Maximoff concludes. “Jesus, does he even know we’re here?”

  “He does,” Thatcher says, coming closer to the bar with Farrow.

  I rotate on the stool. “What do you mean?” I rush to obtain whatever knowledge they’ve acquired.

  “Charlie texted me earlier.” Thatcher squats and collects my trampled fur coat off the floor. Dirtied. He splays the filthy thing on a vacant stool. “Your brother asked where I was. So I told him.”

  I’m wary. “That was all he wanted?”

  Thatcher nods.

  My neck elongates, tense and very cautious of what’s about to occur. “Charlie is coming here.”

  Maximoff shakes his head, uncertain. “It doesn’t make any damn sense, Janie.”

  “I know my brother,” I say. “He’s bought out this particular bar, and he’ll be here in dramatic glory.”

  It has to be Charlie.

  Maximoff turns to Farrow. “Ask Oscar if Charlie is coming here.” Oscar Oliveira is Charlie’s 24/7 bodyguard, and so he’d know more than just where Charlie is.

  He should be with him.

  Beside him.

  Protecting him.

  Farrow blows a bubblegum bubble and pops it in his mouth. “You’re five steps behind me, wolf scout.”

  Maximoff growls in frustration. “Farrow—”

  “I already tried. Oscar is off comms. Most likely because Charlie asked his bodyguard not to share with the whole class.”

  Thatcher looks grim, from the door to us.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “Earlier, I heard that Eliot and Tom left New York and have been heading to Philly.”

  “It could be a coincidence,” I note.

  Farrow rests a boot on a stool rung. “Or your brothers are up to some shit.”

  “They’re not up to some shit,” I defend, more hotly than I mean to.

  He raises his hands.

  Thatcher’s concern bears down on me. “What’s wrong?”

  I take a strained breath. “I’m afraid my siblings are being coy in order to give you a hard time.” Admitting this is difficult because I would love to just roll out a beautiful, luxurious red carpet for Thatcher.

  But this is not the Cobalt way.

  It’s very possible Thatcher’s introduction into my family will be grueling, taxing, and of the most theatrical, over-the-top caliber—and I need to save him from this, don’t I?

  Possibly that’s what I can offer him, an open window into my family that he can easily crawl into. But how?

  Life is chess. And I need to be ten moves ahead of Charlie.

  “Jane.” Thatcher draws my gaze upward. “I can handle whatever they throw at me.”

  Even if this were true, I have to help him. “Ensemble,” I say deeply, a word meant for my family, and I want that to include him.

  Together.

  His chest rises, and he nods.

  I type on my phone, my sibling group chat relatively quiet tonight.

  I send: How many of you are coming here?

  “What in the ever-loving fuck…? Where’s everyone going?”

  I look up.

  Sullivan Meadows, my twenty-year-old cousin, suddenly arrives. Her bodyguard Akara Kitsuw
on safely leads her against the grain, and they enter the bar while masses barge outside.

  Sulli unzips her puffy teal jacket. “Are we supposed to be here?”

  “It seems that way,” I tell her. “Someone’s bought out the bar for us.” Much earlier, I invited Maximoff, Sulli, and Luna—my three cousins who live with me in the old townhouse—to join Thatcher and me at the bar. I haven’t heard back from Luna, so I suppose she’s busy tonight.

  Akara fixes his mic on his red windbreaker. He speaks in short glimpses to the other bodyguards. Including Tony who hovers far too close. His proximity might as well light Thatcher’s eyes on fire.

  My phone buzzes.

  Have I missed something? Where is everyone going? – Audrey

  If my little sister has no clue about what’s happening, then it’s likely that Moffy is right. Charlie isn’t coming here.

  None of my siblings are.

  “Oh hey, you don’t have to get up for me.” Sulli knots her long brunette hair in a messy top bun. “Really, I can just fucking stand or take another stool.”

  Banks has already risen. “It’s not like you’ll block my view or anything.” He’s six-seven to her six-foot. “Go ahead.” He’s offering her the seat beside me.

  “Thanks.” As Sulli sits, she watches Banks and Akara clasp hands and pat each other’s back in greeting. To me, she says, “I heard we’re going to Scotla—I mean, Hawaii. Fuck, I suck at code names.”

  I smile and scoot closer. “Have you decided on whether you want to bring Will Rochester along?” Sulli and Will have been dating privately, and she’s admitted that they probably would’ve kissed at Hallow Friends Eve if the party hadn’t been cut short. Will hasn’t pressured her to move faster or made her feel badly for ending the party early—a party that he threw for her.

  So far, he seems honorable and decent.

  Yet, surfacing his name suddenly silences the bar. The door bangs shut, the last stranger leaving.

  She catches a look that Banks and Akara give each other. “What? You don’t think I’ll invite Will? That I’m chicken shit scared?”

  Akara grimaces. “No. That’s not it, Sul.”