Fuel the Fire (60 page)

I do too.

“I’m driving him in twenty minutes,” she says beneath her breath.

I’d comment that I’d drive him in ten, but the way Lily has her hand on his waist, silently guiding him towards the garage door—I think it’ll be more like five minutes until he’s heading to the hospital.

Rose and I stand up together with nothing more than an Advil bottle. I dole out a few pills and pass them to him. Daisy is quick to retrieve a glass of water.

“Can you all seriously stop freaking out?”

“I haven’t said a word,” I mention.

“Exactly,” he retorts.

Ryke is busy making a turkey sandwich, putting lettuce on top of the meat, and I can’t believe for a second this is a selfish act to feed his own hunger.

Daisy hops up on the counter next to him, swinging her legs. “Have you all watched
The Young Victoria
before?” she asks Ryke, Lo, and me, an easy distraction to alleviate tension.

“That’s what you’re watching?” Lo asks with a cringe. He looks to Willow. “You let Rose talk you into a boring period film?”

My phone buzzes in my pocket.

“I don’t know…comics made me think of Declan, so Rose suggested something different. I like it so far.”

Lo’s face sharpens, all severe lines. “Don’t let him ruin comics for you, Willow. That’s shit on his part. Okay?”

Willow nods but stares solemnly at the counter, and I can’t ignore my phone any longer. I check the message.

You free? Come over in 5 min. Two of my friends from L.A. are here, and we’re going to hang out
– Scott

I have to say yes.

I look up and life is still moving at the same pace. Ryke cuts half of his sandwich with a butter knife, and he walks across the kitchen to give it to Lo.

“Thanks, bro.” Lo accepts the food with his left hand.

As Ryke returns, he cuts half of the sandwich once more and passes a quarter to Daisy. He climbs on the counter beside her, eating what remains. They often share food, but this gesture today reminds me how close they’ve become and how similar they are.

“Your phone,” Rose tells me.

It buzzes again, and she sees the next text blink on the screen.

We’re going to start without you
– Scott

I’m not sure what “start” implies, but I know I have to be there. I may own the sex tapes, but I’m missing a certain overwhelming victory that sends Scott out of our lives, ensuring that we’ll
never
have to see him again.

 It’s a delicate process that I think may come to a head today of all days. If his friends from L.A. are here, he may be willing to do something illegal to entertain them, and of course I’m invited.

I’m his best friend.

“I have to go,” I whisper to her.

She nods, her shoulders pulled back and eyes flaming as though to combat Scott, who sits across the street, in a house so close to ours.
I have to go
, I think.

And I don’t want to detach from her. I’d rather stay here and be set ablaze, but based on facts—based on his friends’ arrival—I sense that this is
it.
The last time I have to stomach his presence.

“I’ll be here for you,” she says, telling me she’ll be in this house.

She’ll be so much closer than that. I have no doubt that she’ll be in my head, right there with me, even when it hurts. It’s what I need.

I walk through the foyer and then open the door. On my way down the street, I spot a familiar face hurrying this way. As he approaches, I notice the formal black slacks, the white button-down and a bouquet of spring flowers.

Garrison Abbey.

When we returned to Philadelphia after the lake house, we dropped Garrison off at his parent’s, so he had to confront flunking out of Faust. Willow said that he’s going to enroll in Maybelwood Preparatory next year, an hour from this neighborhood and ironically the same school Ryke attended.

We abruptly meet at the curb of Scott’s driveway, and he strangely lingers instead of passing me, as though waiting for me to tell him that he’s making the correct choice.

“Where are you going?” I ask Garrison, though I’m one-hundred percent sure of his destination and his plans. The flowers. The formal attire. The date. It all points to prom.

He combs his hand through his brown hair. “Some douchebag bailed on Willow, so I decided I’d ask her out…” he trails off, studying my blank face for a reaction.

I wear none. The sun is beginning to set. “You have a couple hours before prom starts.”

Garrison points at me with his flowers, his features contorting in confusion. “You know…people still talk about you at Faust. The upperclassmen said you had an answer for everything—that you were some kind of prodigy.”

A prodigy.
I almost laugh. I’m satisfied knowing that this immortal, godly version of me still floats around the dorm rooms and hallways of Faust. I’m even more satisfied knowing that the vulnerable man remains in the arms of Rose, my passionate, gorgeous wife.

“Here’s my answer for you,” I tell him. “Ask your friend to prom for no selfish reasons, no vain motives, nothing less than because you admire her and because you’d rather spend two minutes sitting beside her at a dance than five hours in the company of
anyone
else.”

His brows pinch in contemplation, as though it clicks.
I like her a lot. I’m doing the right thing.

Garrison and Willow would seemingly never be friends. She’s sitting inside with faded overalls, a blue shirt with bat-prints, and glasses crooked on her nose. She’s introverted and bookish. He’s rebellious and outcast.

Their unique interests may not align, but something in the core of their hearts does—and that makes the difference.

I’m running out of time, so I begin to head up the steep driveway.

“Where are you going?” Garrison wonders.

I look over my shoulder once. “To set things straight.”

He nods to me. “Good luck.”

I smile. “I appreciate the sentiment, but I don’t need luck.” I turn back around and walk unflinchingly to my destination.

Fuck luck.
I’ve spent months preparing for this, to put myself in this position on the chessboard, and in one strike, I may finally knock down the most abhorrent opponent I’ve ever faced.

There is no luck in my final moves.

The credit belongs to me.

[ 59 ]

CONNOR COBALT

I take a beer from Scott and sit on the couch next to Trent. He’s a thirty-year-old trendy photographer from L.A., black suspenders and a handlebar mustache evidence enough. I only know him by Scott’s constant aggravating reminder that Trent had sex with Daisy after a photo shoot, years ago.

“Scott says you’re cool,” Trent tells me, chewing on the end of a toothpick.

“In what sense?” I take a swig of beer.

“You’re game for anything—you don’t take life too seriously, that kinda thing.”

My life is serious to me. It matters. I’m sitting in a cage of buffoons, acting like one because I can’t fathom Scott existing for unquantifiable time in my world. I’m giving him thirty more minutes, and then he’s gone.

“Sounds like me,” I say with a smile into my next swig.

Scott enters the living room with a remote in hand. “Is Simon still shitting?” he asks.

Trent’s best friend has been puking in the bathroom since I arrived. “He snorted too much coke before the plane ride,” Trent says. “I told him you had extra, but he was convinced he’d spend two days without it.”

“Idiot.” Scott plops down on the square, modern chair. He switches the television to an input that connects his computer to the TV screen. “Pick a number one through seven.”

“Me or Connor?” Trent asks.

“Either or.” He scrolls through a video playlist labeled with only single-digit numbers, and I watch his cursor light up each one in temptation.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

And he starts at the beginning again, waiting for us to choose. I look to Trent, and he hardly seems perplexed by the videos. I assume he’s watched some, if not all, before.

So I say, “You pick.”

Trent squints at the numbers. “…I can’t remember the video where he tells her to strip.”

“She’s naked in four through seven,” Scott answers, the cursor lighting up these numbers.

4

5

6

7

I stretch my arm over the couch but clutch my phone tighter. I have an idea what this is now, and I have to make an unsuspicious excuse to leave quickly. I touch my lips with my phone in mock contemplation. “Do you two always do this in your free time?” I ask with a blasé smile.

I hoped their illegal activities would start and end with drugs. The answer that hammers my brain has rippling consequences, and if I misstep even once, this will blow up in my face.

“Dude, when you see what Scott has, you’ll wish he showed you sooner,” Trent tells me. “It doesn’t beat the real thing though.” He laughs and pats my shoulder while he drinks his beer, verifying that he actually fucked whoever is on these tapes.

Scott mutters, “Lucky bastard.”

Daisy
.

I’m ninety-nine percent certain. I was only twenty percent at Saturn Bridges when Scott brought her up in the context of oral sex, and I was seventy percent sure the minute he brought up the numbered videos. But now I know.

Daisy is on one through seven. There are so many reasons why I would
never
watch them. Why I can’t. Why it makes me physically ill to even picture Scott, Trent, and whoever else repeatedly viewing these.

5

6

“That one,” Trent says.

 I act like my phone buzzes. “Shit,” I curse, scrolling through an old text and springing to my feet.

“What?” Scott stops the cursor on number six.

“Jane fell off her fucking highchair.” I rake my hand through my hair, appearing distressed. “I’ll be right back—you can start without me.”

“She’s probably fine,” Scott says. “You don’t want to miss this.” He clicks into the video.

“How long is it?” I wonder.

“This one is a half hour,” Scott says, waving the remote at me to come back and join them. I waver, to act like I really want to watch. My muscles pull taut, flexing as I force myself to linger in fake curiosity.

The basement of a townhouse blinks on screen, a timestamp in the bottom right corner, affirming the date of when
Princesses of Philly
aired. The camera overlooks the small room with a bed and a wooden dresser. Daisy’s ex-boyfriend sits on the edge while she’s already half-undressed and begins to shimmy her panties down her legs.

Don’t look.

It’s too late.

My pulse jackhammers, nausea rising to my throat, and I check my phone again, acting like Rose keeps texting.

Scott said he destroyed the footage of Daisy, but clearly he kept some of what he filmed during
Princesses of Philly
. Like the rest of us, she had no idea cameras were in the bedrooms. So she undressed and she hooked up with her then-boyfriend without fear of being recorded.

Daisy was only seventeen at the time.

“Take it off, baby,” Trent laughs and looks to me. “She sucks him off at fifteen minutes.”

I try to appear what he wants me to be—excited but dejected that I have to go home and miss it. I glance at my phone and groan. “Shit.”

“What?” Scott asks.

“Rose thinks Jane hurt her arm. I’ll be right back.” With this, I sprint out of the door, able to run without them questioning my motives.

As I race down the driveway, the facts hit me all at once—facts that I researched after Saturn Bridges, to reaffirm what I already knew.

Pennsylvania state law prohibits the photographing, filming, and videotaping of a sexual act involving a child under the age of 18.

I run faster across the street.

Pennsylvania law punishes the voluntary viewing or possession of child pornography within an individual’s home.

I am so close to joining him in breaking the law, but it’s not why I sprint, why when I reach the mailbox I increase my stride.

There’s only a small window of opportunity to fuck Scott over. I can’t chance waiting another hour or another day. This is it.

When I enter the house, I bolt up the stairs, not even paying attention to Lo, Garrison, and Ryke in the living room. “Connor?!” Lo calls, worry in his tone.

I confidently head down the hallway, listening to a group of voices…in my room. I turn sharply and open the door to find the girls huddled around the vanity with Willow. In seconds I deduce that she agreed to go to prom with her friend, and Rose, Lily, and Daisy have been helping her get ready.

All four heads whip towards me in unison.

“I need you and you,” I order, pointing to Daisy and then Rose. I gesture for them to go to the bathroom.

“What’s going on?” Lily asks, confused as to why I’d leave her out.

“Connor?” Rose stands and approaches me while Daisy hesitantly heads into the bathroom.

I clutch the back of Rose’s head and whisper quickly in her ear, explaining everything in a few sentences. I feel her entire body constrict and coil against mine.

“What the fuck is going on?” Ryke asks in the doorway, following me upstairs with Loren in tow. I hold out my hand, telling him to stay back for a second.

“He wants to talk to Daisy,” Lily explains.

When I finish filling Rose in, she looks horrified for a single second before she layers on an enraged, hostile expression, venom pouring through her yellow-green eyes.

“We’ll be five minutes,” Rose says, taking my hand and following me into the bathroom.

“Cobalt!” Ryke shouts.

Rose shuts the bathroom door on him, and then Daisy hops up on the sink counter and swings her feet. “What’s up, guys?”

I stand side-by-side with Rose, hand-in-hand, prepared to drop a grenade on a girl who has suffered through too many already. I usually always have the right words, but it’s hard to express the weight of what I’m about to unleash—and what it means to her life.