Tangled Like Us

by Krista Ritchie

  He quickens his pace, and I lean closer, our foreheads pressing together. Heat gathers and our lips find each other and break and find each other and break.

  The rhythm fills my core. And the intensity builds around me. His fingers dip down between us and brush over my sensitive clit. Like a wave crashing ashore, I’m completely gone.

  My hips stop moving.

  My mouth parts from his and I bury my head into the crook of his neck.

  He quickly raises his hand, fingers glistening and wet, and presses his palm to my mouth to stifle my noises. In the bathroom, we can’t be too careful.

  I shudder into him, orgasms rippling through me and he continues to pump up. His hips thrusting. His palm keeping my noises at bay.

  We’re practically silent except for the thump of our bodies colliding, but even that is drowned out by the sink faucet.

  And then from the depths of my fuzzy bath robe, my phone rings.

  28

  JANE COBALT

  It’s FaceTime.

  It’s Beckett.

  And it’s almost two-thirty in the morning.

  Those three variables add together like toxic chemicals. Highly combustible and only appearing when the situation has reached critical levels.

  I am also very naked. Urgency speeding my pulse, I try to put my arms through the holes of my robe as quick as I can. Thatcher helps, and in my attempt to wrangle the fabric, I elbow him in the cheek.

  “Merde.” I reach to try and touch his cheekbone. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Jane,” he says, still moving to put my other arm through the hole. Not even affected by my elbow punch. “Your phone.” It’s stopped ringing. We both stare at the blank screen, but Thatcher is also still dressing me. Two arms in the holes. Check. He tightens it around me by tying off the fuzzy belt.

  “Maybe it was a butt dial,” I say, hopefully.

  Thatcher looks pissed.

  “What?” I ask him.

  “I don’t have my radio.”

  It’s in his room. He was off-duty tonight. There’s no reason he would have needed it.

  Seconds later, my phone lights up. Beckett’s trying to FaceTime again . This is most surely not a butt dial.

  Dread sinks into my stomach. I’m imagining catastrophic scenarios. There’s not much that would cause Beckett to call me in the dead of night. He’d normally be resting up for early-morning rehearsals or out enjoying what little free time he has.

  “I’m going to get my radio,” Thatcher says as he rises to his feet. Buck-naked. He walks to the other side of the bathroom, shuts off the faucet and collects his pants.

  “Will you come back?” I wonder. I want him here, I realize. If this is a disaster, he’s someone I would choose to face it with.

  He pulls his pants on, his eyes flitting around me like he’s assessing the situation. “I’ll be one minute.” It sounds like a promise.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  He nods and goes to the door. I make sure that the screen is pointed at me and not the opposite direction before I click into FaceTime.

  Four of my brothers fill the screen. All the ones who are currently living together in Hell’s Kitchen. Beckett and Charlie share the couch while Tom and Eliot sit on the floor. I can see all of their hands, like a wide shot, which just means that Beckett must have called me from his laptop.

  All four of them wear solemn, serious expressions. Utterly tense, and less jovial than they usually are. I’d expect Eliot and Tom to be jumping on the couches in the very least. The pit in my stomach mushrooms.

  “Hey, sis,” Beckett says, cupping his hands in front of him. He leans forward a little. “Have you been online tonight?”

  “No,” I say. “What’s going on?”

  Pulse hammering, I scan them all quickly again, checking for any visible wounds.

  Charlie rubs at his eyes and then rises off the couch, obscuring my view of him and then he disappears completely off screen.

  Beckett watches him. “We said we’d do this together, Charlie.”

  “I’m coming back,” Charlie says in the distance.

  Eliot and Tom watch him leave. Beckett focuses on me.

  “Who’s this about?” I ask.

  “Me,” Beckett says just as my bathroom door opens again.

  I glance up.

  Thatcher walks in, adjusting the mic in his ear and clipping it to the collar of his T-shirt. He’s dressed in clean flannel pajama pants, and he leans a shoulder against the frame, keeping the door open.

  Officially on-duty.

  He meets my eyes. Brows furrowed but not confused. If anything, I think he might be learning about what happened right this very moment through comms.

  “Beckett,” I say and look to my phone again. “Please tell me what’s going on. I’m thinking the worst. Are you okay? Physically, mentally, emotionally. Did someone hurt you?”

  He opens his mouth to speak, but he closes it and then cringes. “Physically, I’m fine.”

  That leaves mentally and emotionally hurt, and that’s just as bad. “I’m coming to New York.” I rise to my feet.

  “No,” Beckett says quickly. “You’re not. You’re wearing a robe.”

  “I can go to New York in a robe, thank you,” I say and brush my fingers through my hair.

  He smiles. His yellow-green eyes softening. “You don’t even know what happened yet.”

  “I don’t have to know,” I say. “I’m your big sister.”

  He nods for a long moment and then pinches the bridge of his nose like he’s trying to stop from crying. My heart nearly shatters.

  “Shit,” Eliot curses. “Charlie!”

  Tom leaves the living room.

  Eliot sits on the couch and puts an arm around Beckett’s shoulders, but my thespian brother is staring at me. “One of Beckett’s…hookups…took screenshots of their texts. They’re all on the internet.”

  Oh my God.

  Texts are beyond personal. Especially from someone who Beckett had a sexual relationship with. If one of my friends-with-benefits had ever posted my texts for the world to see…if Nate…

  I feel ill.

  Before I can say anything, Charlie and Tom both return to the living room and in my line of sight.

  Charlie taps Eliot’s shoulders. “Move.”

  Eliot slides from the couch cushion down to the floor in almost a single effortless movement, and Charlie hops onto the couch. He puts a hand to Beckett’s knee and grabs his attention. They begin to whisper quietly to each other, not audible for me. Tom and Eliot half-listen, while I tell them my FaceTime screen is going to turn off for a quick second to read the texts.

  “Do not hang up on me,” I tell Tom.

  He gives me a thumbs up and then I click into the internet on my phone. They can still hear me. I can still hear them. But both our screens say connection lost .

  It doesn’t take long to find the screenshots. It’s trending on Twitter.

  My eyes breeze through them.

  Can we do that thing we did last time? ;) – Kara

  Sure, baby. Call me? I don’t love texting. – Beckett

  Can’t call. I’m in a lecture. Do you think that I could bring my friend? Chelsea. She’s super sweet. Open to threesomes. You’ll love her. – Kara

  As long as she signs the NDA. Sure. – Beckett

  Won’t be a problem. Are you going to the party? It’s leather night. – Kara

  Yeah – Beckett

  That’s the last text. But it’s enough for the public to decide that Beckett is not only into threesomes, sex parties, and leather, but he’s also a short rude texter to a girl he’s supposedly sleeping with.

  Maybe they missed the fact that he said he doesn’t like to text.

  Beckett has always been the most private of all my siblings. Of the seven of us, he’s the only one who doesn’t appear on We Are Calloway , and he refuses to do interviews unless the ballet company requires him.

  Beckett may have suggested and
participated in the FanCon, but he did so for me. And that was a great leap out of his norm.

  He barely posts on social media, and if he could, he’d have chosen to grow up so far away from the spotlight.

  It feels so utterly invasive to post texts, but for Beckett, this is a gross violation of his trust. I look to Thatcher before I click back into FaceTime.

  “She broke her NDA,” I say, eyes burning.

  Thatcher nods. “Legal is on it.”

  Tom must hear Thatcher’s voice because my brother asks, “Is that your fake boyfriend?”

  I leave the internet and click back into FaceTime. All four are in the screen, but Charlie and Beckett are scrolling on their phones. Tom has a shit-eating grin on his face, and in the wake of true chaos, he’d of course find something else to light on fire.

  “We’re not discussing me,” I remind Tom.

  “Tell my fake brother-in-law I said hi ,” Eliot smiles like he’s both clever and wicked.

  God. Don’t look at Thatcher .

  “Jane, I don’t hear you,” Eliot says quickly, teasing me. “Why aren’t you relaying my message?”

  “Because he can hear you, Eliot,” I say. “He’s in the room.”

  Thatcher crosses his arms over his chest.

  “Knew it,” Tom says and taps a pair of drumsticks on the edge of the coffee table.

  “Beckett.” I catch my brother’s attention. He glances up from his cell. “I’m so sorry this happened. It’s terrible, awful luck.”

  “It’s not luck. I fucked up,” Beckett says. “I shouldn’t have texted. I knew I shouldn’t have—”

  “Dude, we’re in the twenty-first century, you can’t not text,” Tom says.

  “Not about this shit,” Beckett refutes and runs a hand over his head.

  Charlie sets down his phone and glances at him in concern before looking to me. “Jane, we called to ask you a favor.”

  “Anything.” I pull back my shoulders. And I suddenly hear footsteps and creaking stairs in the townhouse, coming from the attic. Thatcher looks over his shoulder, up the stairs, and then back to me. He mouths, Farrow. He holds up three fingers, and I take that as three minutes . He leaves the bathroom, and their voices are soft and muffled in the second-floor landing.

  “Jane,” Charlie calls my name.

  I focus on him. “Yes. Anything,” I repeat.

  He holds up his phone. “We’re all going on a Cobalt social media blackout,” he says. “In solidarity.”

  A social media blackout.

  He quickly explains that means deactivating our Twitter accounts. Deleting all Instagram photos. They hurt one of us. We’re all going dark. Yes. This is a perfect plan.

  “Done,” I say without even hesitating. “Anything else? Beckett, I can come up there.”

  He shakes his head. “Really, I’m fine. And you doing this…it means more to me. But I don’t want it to fuck with your fake dating ploy.”

  “It won’t,” I say. I actually have no clue how being off social media will affect it. Instagram is a big part of my life, and I’ve been using it to sell my fake relationship with Thatcher. But that doesn’t matter right now.

  “Thank you,” Beckett says.

  “Ensemble,” I tell him. Together .

  All four of my brothers repeat the word.

  And then Eliot grins, mischievous twinkle in his eye, and he says something I’ve heard him recite a thousand-and-one times. But tonight, it’s never felt truer.

  “‘Let me play the lion too…I will roar .’”

  29

  THATCHER MORETTI

  I speak into my mic. “Pull back the three guys at the door.”

  The temp bodyguard covering the entrance of the frozen yogurt shop, Sprinkle Your Life, replies, “Which three?”

  My eyes blaze into narrowed pinpoints, but I don’t move from the small café table. Jane watches me in interest and swirls her spoon in her strawberry frozen yogurt.

  I click the mic at my collar. “They’re on your seven o’clock,” I say. “Noses pressed to the glass.” I watch through the full-length glass windows for a second.

  The temp on-duty doesn’t move at first, and I’m seconds away from telling him to stop standing there with his foot on his dick. Which is usually something my brother says.

  But he finally moves.

  “Sorry,” I say to Jane and look back to her. We agreed that I’d stay on-duty, even if we’re officially on a date.

  She said she’d feel safer. Which is good. Because my first instinct is to protect her and to be vigilant. And being “off-duty” while out in public with Jane would probably drive me nuts.

  Me being on a date with a radio and a gun is fucking better for us both.

  And this is our first fake public date. With Jane officially on a media blackout like the rest of her family, we’re going to do more of these.

  Security is choosing all of them. And it took hours just to come up with this first one. It was a massive debate that ended with Alpha and Epsilon siding together and outvoting Omega.

  A frozen yogurt date.

  Jane and I wanted to go to a brewery, but here we are.

  She shakes her head. “No need to apologize. I love watching you do your job,” she says. “It’s dreadfully interesting. Like seeing more of who you are.”

  I rub my lips. Something strains my chest. This is a fake date, I remind myself. For the op. But what we’ve been talking about, it’s been real. I don’t want any of our interactions to be anything less than that. “Where were we?” I ask her and pick up the small plastic spoon.

  “Veni qua,” she says into a bright smile, saying the Italian words I’d just taught her almost perfectly. It means come here. “I like that one. I think I’m going to use it for Licorice when I can’t find him.” She picks a cookie dough piece out of her yogurt. “I tried putting a collar on him. One with bells. It was a pitiful sight. He’s just not a collar kind of cat. Not like Carpenter who loves his bejeweled ones.”

  I love when she talks about her cats. She can do it for hours, and there’s love and light in her entire being.

  Out of my peripheral, I check the windows again but keep my eyes on Jane. “So Carpenter loves attention. Licorice hates it. Walrus is the rebel. Ophelia is the princess. Toodles is a sloth, and Lady Macbeth a wise, old owl. That about right?”

  Her lips part, and she looks like I just agreed to eat her out at this table.

  “Jane,” I say.

  Flush rises up her neck. “You know my cats very well,” she says, recovering. “It’s very attractive. But you already know that I’m attracted to you. So that’s redundant. But important. An important redundancy.”

  My eyes sweep her for a second. “I don’t think our attraction to each other has ever been a question, honey.”

  She smiles. “True.”

  “Gomesegiam’,” I say in Italian. “That means How do you say? ”

  “Gomesegiam’,” She repeats. “I like that one, too.” She’s liked every word I’ve said in Italian. I’m beginning to realize it’s not just the language. She likes me. There aren’t many people that get off on other people’s happiness. Other people’s interests. Jane is that rare kind of person.

  “Ma che bell’,” I say another phrase. Our eyes latch for a hot second. “How beautiful. ”

  Her lips part.

  My muscles strain underneath my shirt, and she doesn’t look away. It’s an intense moment of silence, just drinking each other in.

  Then she crumples her napkin and puts it in her empty cup. “So I’ve decided,” she says softly, her eyes still on me. “That’s my favorite.”

  “It’s a good one,” I agree and then look down to her cup. “Done?’

  “Only if you are.”

  “We can push out,” I say. “But the crowds are bad, so you’re going to stay behind me. I’ll have the temp bring up the rear.”

  She cranes her neck to the window. Fans and paparazzi line the sidewalk, snapping phot
os of us through the windows. She’s blocked them from her mind thus far. It’s easy for her to just forget they’re there. Like background noise.

  I can imagine that comes with twenty-three years of practice living in the spotlight.

  Jane meets my gaze and secures her purse over her shoulder. “Let’s do this.”

  Minutes later we’re outside the frozen yogurt shop. Swarmed.

  “Jane! Jane! Look here!”

  “Thatcher! Thatcher!”

  Jane is fisting my shirt, her fingers tightened on the fabric. I have one arm wrapped behind me, hand on her hip and pressing her chest up against my back. My other hand shoves a cameraman in front.

  Create a path.

  Clear the way.

  Objective: her Beetle.

  Distance: one block.

  Targets: every shitbag in my vision.

  A Canon is inches from smacking me in the eye. Pissed, I knock it back with my wrist. The cameraman looks like I assaulted his child.

  I growl, “You take my eye out, I’m going to put you on the ground.”

  “Dude, back up!” Another pap yells at him. They do that a lot. Dissociate from the shitbags like they’re not also here blocking our path.

  “Jane! What flavor of fro-yo did you get?!” The question comes from my four. Can’t see who.

  “Strawberry,” Jane answers like it’s second nature. She doesn’t sound rattled from the amount of people. Though this is twice the size of the crowds she normally gets.

  “Thatcher! What about you?! What’s your favorite flavor?!”

  My instinct is to not reply. Ignore. But then I remember my security meeting, where my superiors basically said, give the media what they want. Be compliant. Answer their questions as long as they’re respectful.

  So to not be chewed out later, I say, “Vanilla.” My voice is stringent. No-nonsense. Still on-duty.

  “Is that also your kink preference?!” someone shouts.

  “Highly rude!” Jane yells back.