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Frankie’s shoulders sagged, and I scowled. My girl was not a quitter. She just preferred direct fights. Probably because of all the passive aggressive crap with her mother. “Frankie,” I told her. “We can’t do nothing. I know you have never been a fan of bullying. I get it. This isn’t that.”
“No,” Bubba said slowly. “It’s not. It’s retaliation, and right now, she really deserves retaliation.”
Rachel leaned her head back and stared upward. Her sunglasses hid her eyes from me, but she drummed her fingers like she was thinking. “You have to three-prong the bitch.”
“Excuse me?” Archie asked.
“Hit her from three different sides. We’re not just going after her for this video, but for all of them. Right now, it’s the only power she has left. She keeps doing it because people are listening to her. So we have to humiliate her the same way she’s trying to humiliate Frankie. Chip away at what support she has left and leave her looking petty as fuck, if not dumber than a box of rocks. The kind of chick no one wants anything to do with…not even jocks who don’t care where they get their rocks off. No offense.”
Jake grunted, but Bubba just looked pained.
I felt for the guy. Except… “Look, Laura fucked with Frankie. She tried to mess with her head, and she was cruel. Own the fact that we made shitty choices and move on. We all made mistakes. Those mistakes aren’t allowed to lash out at her. They want us? Bring it on. But not her.”
“Oh, it’s a good thing you’re pretty,” Rachel told me with a pat on my arm, and I narrowed my eyes at her. “Dude, why do you think Sharon is going after her so hard?” She pointed a finger at Bubba as if I couldn’t guess. “Because she wants to punish him. She hates Frankie because she wants to be her and can’t—oh.”
A slow smile crossed her face, and almost as one, Archie and Jake eased back an inch.
“I’m not alone in saying that smile is evil, am I?” Archie asked.
“No,” Frankie answered, shocking all of us. “Rachel is really good at being bad.”
“I’m a cactus, touch me and get stabbed.” Turning speculative eyes on Bubba, Rachel said, “How willing are you to get your hands dirty on this one?”
“What do you need me to do?”
I raised my brows, and I wasn’t alone. Bubba didn’t hesitate. At the same time, a smile pulled at the corners of my lips. The guy had been trying to make it clear he was all in.
With a glance at Frankie, he added, “Name it. I’ll do it.”
Perched where I was at the end of the table, I didn’t miss the small smile on her lips or the way her gaze snared on Bubba’s for a beat longer than necessary.
Well, well…it was about damn time.
I just had to hope he didn’t screw it up.
“Tell us the plan first,” I reminded everyone. “We all have to agree, or we don’t do it.”
“Pfft,” Rachel said, sticking out her tongue. “Democracy sucks. You should be a matriarchy, that way what Frankie wants, goes.”
Jake snorted, and Archie grinned.
I didn’t mind that so much, except…
“I prefer democracy,” Frankie said, and even Bubba laughed at that.
“You keep spoiling my fun,” Rachel told her in a mock whisper.
“Sorry.”
“No you’re not.”
“No,” Frankie said with a real smile. “I’m not. So what’s your evil plan?”
At least the next bite she took had a little more effort in it and a little more interest.
That was something.
Course, by the time Rachel was done, I wasn’t sure whether we shouldn’t be more terrified than amazed.
