by Heather Long
Jake: Agreed. Is it right after school?
Archie: Yep. In fact, I recommend we cut out ten minutes early if we can swing it so we can get there ahead of them.
Jake: K.
Archie: Everything good? I tried to text Coop last night, and he didn’t answer.
Jake: He was beat.
Archie: Cool. Frankie said she didn’t have a bad day
but was tired when she got in. Everything good with her?
Jake: Dude, relax. Seriously. You’re going to give yourself an ulcer.
And I never knew how much of a thing that could be until this year.
Archie: Ha ha. Is she okay or not?
Jake: She is fine. We talked when she got in.
No complaints that she shared.
Archie: K. I’ll get coffee after I get Bubba.
We’ll see you three at school?
Jake: Arch, if you have a question ask.
Don’t do this fishing bullshit. It was a long night.
Archie: If it was a long night, then tell me what happened.
Jake: It’s not mine to tell, and before you have a shit fit in her direction,
it’s not hers either. Just dial it down a couple of notches.
And maybe grab food too.
Archie: …
Archie: Hangover food?
Jake: That’ll work.
Archie: Done. Do I need to pay to take someone out?
Jake: Don’t. Tempt. Me.
Archie: Just saying we have options.
Archie: Picking up breakfast and coffee for school. Miss you, babe.
Frankie: We need to work on your aim.
Archie: Ha ha. How tired were you after yesterday?
I know you said you were beat last night.
Frankie: My brain hurts. The amount of stuff the company does.
How does one person keep it straight?
Archie: They can’t. That’s why they have teams and reports.
I read the yearly stuff, even if it makes me want to gouge my eyes out,
since technically, I’m a shareholder.
Frankie: I wondered about that. And I have to tell you that
I spoke to your father yesterday. Don’t blow up.
Archie: …
Frankie: I would have said something last night,
but you sounded like you were in a good mood
and I walked into some stuff here that needed my attention.
It wasn’t bad. I’ll tell you everything at school.
Don’t lose your cool. It’s not bad. I promise.
Archie: Were you stuck in a meeting with him or did he approach you?
Frankie: He followed me to my car, but it’s not as bad as that sounds.
Archie: I’ll take care of it.
Frankie: Archie, don’t do anything until we talk.
Please. I knew this would upset you.
But I wanted to tell you before school.
Please don’t make me regret that.
Archie: …
Archie: …
Archie: …
Frankie: I’m sorry I didn’t tell you last night.
Archie: Is Coop okay?
Frankie: He will be.
Archie: You’re okay?
Frankie: I promise. I’m fine.
Though I did kind of tell your dad off.
Archie: I’m sorry. What?
Frankie: I told him he was a shitty father
and he needed to talk to you and not me.
Look, I will tell you when we get to school.
Promise.
Archie: Can I drive you and pick you up tomorrow?
Frankie: …
Frankie: …
Frankie: …
Frankie: Will it make you feel better?
’Cause you’re gonna be late to school if you take me.
Archie: It will make me feel loads better
to know he can’t corner you in the parking garage.
So yes.
Frankie: We’ll talk about it. No promises.
Archie: That is not a no.
Archie: Get your ass out here. We need to go.
I want to be there when they get in.
Bubba: Coming. What’s wrong?
Archie: Just…get in the car. I’ll tell you.
Archie: Grandpa. Tell me we have a plan.
Grandpa: I’m working on it. I have about half the board.
I only need two more members, and then we can remove him.
Archie: What does that do with Frankie’s internship?
Grandpa: Since I’ll be resuming my position until you can take over,
I’ll make sure it’s fine.
Don’t worry, Sprout.
These things take time, but once it’s done?
It’s done.
Archie: How much will it cost me for you to just pack up and disappear for good? Think about a number. You have until the meeting today to make a call. You’re not getting this offer again.
Chapter Eighteen
A Lifetime of (Broken) Promises
Archie and Ian were waiting when we got to school. Coop’s hangover was bad, but we’d gotten water into him on and off all night. That coupled with the morning painkillers, another shower, and some food, and he seemed semi-human. Jake and I’d both told him the exact same thing, we were there for him no matter what. I wanted to apologize for Maddy, but Jake’s words from the night before kept rattling in my head.
That and worry about what Archie would do with regards to his dad had me biting my tongue on all fronts, save one. I sent Mr. Wittaker a text to verify that we were still on with Maddy today. She wanted a face-to-face?
She was gonna fucking get one.
If she wanted to screw up and fuck around with my life? Fine. She’d done it my whole life. That she’d gone after Coop’s and now Archie’s families? Fuck. Her.
Coop still looked a little green around the gills, but he took the coffee Ian had in the tray and plucked a croissant out of the bag, then he was stuffing his face and kind of angled away from us. Even though it was another gray, brr-fucking-cold kind of day, he had on sunglasses. At Ian’s quirked brow, I just shook my head.
What Coop confessed to me and Jake would stay between the three of us until…
“Arch, remind me we need to order shirts,” Coop said after downing half of the coffee in his cup. We hadn’t even left the parking lot. “As the founding member of the My Dad Fucked My Girlfriend’s Mom Club, I feel bad I wasn’t there for you when you found out.”
Archie slanted a look at me, and I gave him a small shrug. Yes, I knew. And no, there wasn’t much I could do about it. Everything in me ached for Coop. Humor was one of his natural defense modes. If he needed to make a joke out of it, I wasn’t going to stop him.
“We’re cool,” Archie told him, even as he slid an arm around my waist. Against my ear, he murmured, “How bad is this for him?”
“Pretty bad,” I admitted. “Shock and a lot of hurt.”
“He liked his dad.” That wasn’t a question, and I gave a little shrug.
“He loved him. He was always cool, you know…” I mean, Coop’s parents had broken up before Archie came into our lives, so maybe he didn’t know. “But he didn’t know it was Maddy.”
A kiss behind my ear didn’t hide his quiet sigh. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I stressed. “I promise.” Then I met his gaze. “On everything.”
“Come on, it’s freezing out here,” Coop said. “Sorry, Frankie. I don’t mean to be such a drag.”
“You’re just being a drama queen, Brennen,” Rachel drawled as she joined us, and Ian offered her one of the coffees. “This is hardly new.”
“Ah, if it isn’t Queen Bitch of the Universe. Please take this with all the emotion intended,” Coop told her, a faint smile curving his lips. “Fuck off.”
“That’s Your Majesty, to you, Coop.” Rachel grinned. “And I’ll definitely take it under advisement.” She threaded her arm throu
gh mine as we started walking. Archie just shot her a look but otherwise didn’t comment. “Did I miss something?” Rachel asked.
I glanced at her and blinked.
Was that a hickey on her neck?
Flicking my gaze to hers, I said, “Just…same shit, different day. High school.”
“Ahh,” she said.
“Don’t have to cover for me, Frankie. Rachel’s one of us. The bitchier side of us, sure. But one of us.” Coop glanced back at us from where he walked with Jake. Then he looked at Rachel. “My dad had an affair with her mom. Good times, right?”
“Sure.” Rachel didn’t miss a beat. But Jake wrapped an arm around Coop’s neck and dragged him forward a few feet, and Ian lifted his chin to me before he hurried to follow them. Archie slowed a half-pace and so did I, so Rachel had to, or she would have walked in front of us.
“Cut him some slack, Manning,” Archie ordered. “This is not good news.”
“No shit.” She practically leaned around me to glare at Archie, and I got a good look at a second and third hickey. “Credit me with some humanity.”
“You love Frankie,” Archie said blithely. “I credit you with a lot of humanity. It doesn’t make you less of a bitch when you want to be.”
She paused to consider it. “I can accept that.” With a grin, she squeezed my arm. “Just let me know if you need help with the bodies.”
“Know any good pig farms?” Wasn’t that what they used in the Hannaford books?
Rachel cracked up. “Speaking of pig farms, I have a new series for you to read. You are going to love it. But you’ll probably call me a liar and a fake, because you’ll hate it first.” Then she laughed harder, and I had to bite back a smile.
“Sign me up,” I told her. “I could use a new series with someone else’s drama.”
“Girl, let me tell you, they have drama.”
In the cafeteria, Coop seemed to be slightly better, and Rachel joined us instead of wandering off. The guys didn’t complain. Archie even pulled out a chair for her when I took a seat next to Coop, and then he claimed the chair on my other side. He hadn’t let go of my hand.
Jake gave her all of a minute before he asked, “So, who’s the new girl?”
Rachel eyed him. “Excuse you?”
“Unless you’re dipping your toe in the XY gene pool, there’s a new girl.” He motioned with his coffee cup toward her neck.
“Jake.”
Unrepentant, he winked at me and pressed on. “Hey, she’d be the first one asking us if we showed up with fresh hickeys like that.”
“I don’t give you hickeys like that.” Quite the opposite actually, but we were not having that conversation here.
“You’re making his point for him, babe,” Archie said with a slow smile, and even Coop laughed.
“Not really,” Rachel said as she flipped through her phone, clearly no longer interested in the conversation. “What she’s saying is that if you showed up like that, I’d be gutting you because she doesn’t leave hickeys like that.”
There was a painful moment where all four of them paused, and Coop lifted his coffee cup and said, “Touché, Your Majesty. Touché.”
I was in the bathroom between classes when a few new girls took it upon themselves to remind me that yes, we were in high school. There were three of them, and someone should really tell them that trying to coordinate outfits like they were in some teen flick went out with the nineties.
Though, everything old was becoming new again.
Honestly, though, I wasn’t in the mood. Coop still had a hangover. Archie was firmly in silent plotting mode, I could read it in every tense line of his face. Jake and Ian were both keeping a steady hand on the wheel, but Jake was spoiling for a fight. It seemed to vibrate with his every step. Without football to burn off some steam, I was thinking about the offer he’d made over Christmas to work on my punching.
Maybe I needed to suck it up and get him into the gym.
The girls slanted looks at me. Three juniors and one sophomore. Poor thing had two of their book bags slung over her shoulder like she was their personal pack mule.
That told me all I needed to know about these bitches. I dried my hands as the first one opened her mouth. “So you’re the girl banging four guys, right?”
“I’m Frankie,” I told her as I turned to face her and her friends. They really did look like carbon copies of each other. It was kind of creepy. Same hair style, same lip shade and eye shadow, even the same cats eye shape to their contouring, though apparently, one of them favorited pink, the other teal, and the third one a kind of minty green.
Pack mule apparently didn’t get the memo on the matching outfits, but the poor thing had tried. I didn’t know that girl, but man, I felt for her. As for these three…
“We know what your name is,” Mint Green Accents piped in. “Not that we care. Usually people just call you the slut.”
They all tittered with laughter, and I rolled my eyes. So original. I slid my backpack onto my shoulder and glanced over at the pack mule. “If you want to dump their stuff, feel free. No one should make you carry their damage or their trauma.”
“Excuse you?” Pink Accents demanded. “Don’t talk to her. For all tents and purpose, she isn’t in the room.”
“For all intents,” I corrected. “Not tents, like something you use for camping, or tense, like we’re discussing verbs. But intents. As in you’re all intent on getting your rocks off by pretending to be the biggest bitches on the campus. Newsflash, you’re not, and you won’t be next year either because you’re trying too hard and you’re more than a little fake.”
Teal blinked. “That’s what she said.”
“No,” I informed her. “You might need a hearing check or a diction lesson.” I really didn’t have time for this or for them. “As for you…” I focused on the pack mule. “What’s your name?” Their names I didn’t care about. The girl letting them treat her like crap, she mattered.
“It’s not important,” she murmured. Despite the quiet voice, I hadn’t missed the flash of humor when I corrected the coiffed terrorists.
“Sure it is, because a name is an identity. Everything else is a label. I’m Frankie,” I said, and pushed right between Pink and Teal like they weren’t there. Though I never quite turned my back on them.
I wasn’t stupid.
Girls were mean.
In third grade, one chick had come after me when someone told her I was making fun of her parents. I hadn’t been. But she’d grabbed my pony tail and yanked so hard, I thought I’d lose hair after that. It was one of the few fights I’d ever gotten in with another girl.
The worst part was I smashed my fountain soda against her head in retaliation, and I hadn’t even gotten to have a drink of it.
Oh well, not that it was important right now.
Pack Mule cut a look up and met my gaze. “They’re my friends.”
“No they’re not. Friends don’t torture each other or treat them like a servant. If they are telling you they’ll be your friend when you’ve earned it, they don’t want a friend, they want a pack mule.”
“Hey,” Mint Green complained.
“If the truth fits, you need to lace that shit up and wear it,” I told the other three, and cut a look at them. “I had so-called friends like you. You fucking suck.” With that, I glanced at the girl who still hadn’t given me her name. “You deserve better, and you can definitely do better.”
I’d gotten lucky. Rachel just walked in and decided to be my friend for real. If this chick needed a friend, I’d do my best.
With that, I sailed out of the bathroom. Maybe I just needed to stop using them at the school. Sharon was in the hallway, but as soon as she saw me, she cut and changed directions. I didn’t laugh because it wasn’t funny.
But it sure was satisfying.
After school, we were converging in the parking lot because the guys were going with me to the lawyer’s office. All four of them, though I wondered if it
was a good idea to have Coop anywhere near the office. Especially after the revelations from the night before.
“Hang out and wait for me a sec?” Jake said as he headed to the bathroom. I nodded and texted Archie. He was adamant about going. Like Jake, he was also spoiling for a fight. Ian promised he’d try to keep them out of trouble, but he didn’t disagree with why they were pissed.
Eddie talking to me had come up at lunch, and there’d been no denying how angry all of them had been. Especially Coop, who would normally help me defuse the situation. What a clusterfuck.
I turned and bounced off someone and grunted. “Sorry,” I said automatically and glanced up at a tall boy who looked vaguely familiar. Dark brown hair, dark eyes, square jaw—football player. Had to be. I suppressed a shudder and took a step back. I didn’t know if he was one of the guys from Halloween, and I really didn’t want to know. Not all of them had been expelled, but following their suspensions, none of them had come anywhere near me.
And I preferred it that way.
“Hey,” he said, closing the distance I put between us. “Just the girl I’ve been looking for. Finding you alone is a challenge.”
I frowned. “Way to sound creepy.”
He almost smiled, then rubbed a hand against the back of his neck as though sheepish. “But true,” he continued, and swung a glance around before looking at me again. “Word has it you like variety—”
“You finish that sentence, Reed, and they won’t find enough of your teeth to reconstruct your jaw.” Jake’s flat voice bounced off the lockers around us, and I didn’t sag physically, but relief still pumped through me. I could punch the guy, but he was huge and had a very square jaw. I’d probably have broken my hand.