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“It doesn’t bother me.” He sighs out frustration. “Except…”
Banks. They’re identical twins. They look so similar. “Your brother.”
He nods slowly. “He’d be okay.” He pins his focus to me. “It’s also easier for me than you. I’m not a girl. I’m not born into fame. I’m not Jane Eleanor Cobalt. These consequences don’t hold the same severity for me.” He pauses. “If I give up here, will you?”
And ruin this game for him?
I feel awful just at the thought. So I shake my head and say, “Let’s continue this together.”
Thatcher doesn’t hesitate. “No.”
“No?” I blink, my eyes burning.
He glares, and the intensity is like the hottest heat wave. He quickly diverts his eyes to the ceiling. “You don’t want to do this, honey.”
“I just said I did.”
He dips his head down, his brown eyes hitting mine again. Glare softened just a fraction. “And you’ve said the opposite up until now, so the only fucking thing that’s changed here is me. Tell me you’re not doing it for me.”
I can’t deny the truth. “If you’re taking a risk, I have to, too. There’s no way around that.” I add quickly, “And you want to do this, so I won’t stop you. I just don’t want you to stop me from doing it too.”
“Fuck that,” Thatcher says. “If you think, for a second, I’m going to stand around with my dick in my hand and watch you do something that could harm you—all just for me—then you don’t realize what I’d do to protect you.”
I’m on the edge of a cliff. I’ve always loved how he’s my safety net. But… “I have to try.”
His narrowed eyes are bloodshot. “I’m sorry, but I can’t let you.”
I fight for deeper breath, and I hate that this has all spiraled here. The threads of this relationship have tangled, untwisted, and slipped between my fingers.
How can I be in a relationship where I let my number one, my life and soul run through fires without me?
Thatcher turns to my brother. “Throw this card out.”
He won’t.
“No,” Charlie says. “You quit, you lose. You finish, you win.”
We are given hard choices, and I feel this one barreling down. “I can take a few nudes.” My voice has risen, confident and blazoned. I can do this.
I can do anything.
Thatcher stares at me deeply, and I realize the chess game is now between him and me. We’re in a standoff. Rook to rook, and I make the next move.
“You can’t physically stop me.” The words come out fast, and immediately, I feel like a brat. Dear God, just bring in the shovel. Bury this whole thing into a thousand-foot grave. I’m waiting for someone to cover the dirt on top of me, suffocating me. I hate what I said. I hate how this is going. I want to eject from all of it. “I’m sorry, I just…this is wrong…and what if we’re just not right for each other?”
My breathing does a weird dive.
His nose flares. “I promise you we are.” He checks on Tony over at the door, then back to me.
“I don’t know how to do this…” I drop my gaze. “I don’t want to break up with you again, but I just…”
Thatcher is about to speak, but Charlie’s brows jump sky-high. “Again?”
I ignore that to ask, “How do we even send nudes with no cell service?”
“Swap phones.” Charlie plays a new classical piano piece. “Take your nudes on each other’s. It’ll be like you sent them.” He zeroes in on me. “I’m curious though. Breaking up with your boyfriend, is this some strange ploy to have makeup sex, or are you just copying Mom and Dad?”
With those words, he obliterates the oxygen from the room. “What?”
“Mom and Dad,” Charlie repeats, the music shrill. “You do know Mom used to break up with Dad before they were married. All the fucking time. But she would do it because she was pissed at him. Not at herself.” He waves a hand at me. “There’s a lot of self-loathing coming from this corner.”
I can’t breathe.
“Stop,” Thatcher says.
Lightheaded, I don’t know if he’s talking to me or my brother. But his hands are on my cheeks, and I turn to my left and right.
Tony isn’t at the door. Neither is Oscar nor Farrow. They must’ve pulled my bodyguard out of view, and Thatcher speaks to me. “Jane, take a breath.”
“I’m not…I’m…”
I love myself.
I do.
I do. But I hate who I am right now. Simpering mess of a fool. One who can’t make decisions, or choose to have a relationship that might not be what she envisioned. But one she loves.
One she can’t live without.
One she desires so deeply, so fully, and so dramatically.
Charlie’s voice rips through my head. “Jane, come on.”
He’s never seen me this way. I don’t want him to. I gather leftover confidence, and air reaches my lungs while I push Thatcher off me.
“I’m sorry.” We apologize at the same time.
We’re both hurting.
“I quit,” I announce. “I won’t take nudes. You go ahead. I’ll cheer for you on the sidelines.” An involuntary tear slips out, and I angrily wipe it away.
“I’m not playing this game anymore either.”
“I won’t let you quit because of me. And that’s what you’d be doing, isn’t it?”
Thatcher nods once. I won’t let him sacrifice the one chance to be accepted in my family. He won’t let me sacrifice my body. It feels as though we both lost here because we’re no longer in this together, and I hate that too.
32
THATCHER MORETTI
4 Days Snowed-In
Christmas Eve is here, and I wish I could’ve gifted Jane the ability to rejoin me in Cobalt Truth or Dare from Hell. Without her having to send nudes. I even tried to barter with Charlie.
That kid—sorry, that guy runs on 100% emotions. I’m a practical, logic-based man, and I can’t follow Charlie’s line of thinking or motives if my brain were screwed to the fucking thing. So either he’s emotion-fueled, or his IQ is just beyond me.
Whatever the case, he shut me down.
I can’t unfuck this, but I wish I could. Partly so we could continue the game together. Mostly because Jane wouldn’t feel like she failed.
I focus on something I can do.
A box of dead radios sits at my ankles, and I work on changing out the batteries. Chatter escalates around me, along with laughter. Flames crack in the fireplace.
Last night, the heaters broke again, and everyone congregates in the living room so they don’t freeze their asses off. Holiday classics play from Quinn’s phone, but no lights are strung. No eggnog to drink. No tree. No presents.
The gift that I planned to give Jane, I left at the townhouse.
Really, we just have each other, and that almost kills the homesickness. Bodyguards and clients play poker with cash, others talk quietly on couches or keep to themselves.
Like me.
I sit alone on a long bench near the doorway, where cool air flows in from the kitchen.
My eyes linger on the other side of the room, near a deep mahogany bookcase. Filled with dusty encyclopedias and almanacs. Jane and Maximoff huddle close together, alone, whispering in a heavy conversation with coffee and hot tea.
They’ve been like that for the past ten minutes, and every now and then Maximoff will pass Jane a box of shortbread cookies.
Can’t change the past. My inaction eats every part of me. So I just unclip the back of a radio and ditch out the dead battery.
Farrow exits the kitchen and stops next to my bench. “Here.” He taps a beer bottle to my shoulder, holding another in his right hand
I frown. “I thought we were out of beer.”
“Oscar hid a couple bottles.”
I’m not about to decline the offer. And a beer sounds good right now. I nod in thanks, untwisting the twist-off cap. “Does he know you’re giving me this?”
Farrow nods. “Yeah. We all agreed you need a beer more than any fucker here.”
I take a stiff swig. It’s been less than 24-hours and everyone who knows that I’m Thatcher is aware of the argument Jane and I had.
Over nudes.
The level of awkward has reached middle school dance territory. No one on the team has ribbed me, but I can tell they want to but aren’t sure how serious the fallout is. So every time I walk into a room, I’m met with silent stares and cagey glances.
I lower the bottle. “Me and Jane—we’re good.” I’m not sure Farrow cares to know my relationship status, but I tell him anyway since he’s here. I don’t go in-depth about how Jane and I talked all last night or that we’re on the same page, same understanding again.
We’re good sums it up.
Farrow isn’t petty, I realize. If he were, he’d steal my beer back.
To my surprise, he takes a seat beside me and leans against the paisley green wallpaper. “That’s one of my favorite things about being with someone.” He sips his beer.
“What is?” I pop in a battery with one hand.
“Going through shit together. Growing with the person you love.” He smiles into his next swig, his gaze on Maximoff Hale.
I swallow more beer, eyes latched to Jane Cobalt.
She sits pin straight, ankles crossed, and brushes cookie crumbs off her sweater.
My chest rises.
I’m more used to imploding relationships when shit happens, but with Jane, I never want to give up on us. It’d be a sucker-punch to the gut if she decided we weren’t worth the hard parts. We can come out on top together, and the time we’re taking to pick each other up has only made us stronger.
I talk to Farrow. “Difference between us, the shit you had to go through wasn’t orchestrated by your boyfriend’s family.” I place the powered radio on a side table. “The Hales gave you water wings.”
