Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 162520 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 813(@200wpm)___ 650(@250wpm)___ 542(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 162520 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 813(@200wpm)___ 650(@250wpm)___ 542(@300wpm)
Jake has shaken his head so many times, he might need a chiropractor tomorrow.
Solo cups and beer bottles litter the backyard, and we don’t stay here for long to observe, lecture, or participate. We’re like missiles on a critical course inside the debauched mansion to ensure the kitchen isn’t up in flames.
Liquor bottles of tequila, vodka, and bourbon are everywhere. The bottoms of my leather shoes stick to the alcohol-covered marble.
“You want to set off the fire alarms again?” I ask. We did that last weekend.
“I can’t waste EMS resources.” He’s more honorable than me. (But we all knew that.)
The kitchen is intact. Outside of a young boy puking in the sink, and when I recognize him, I nearly groan. “Sandon.” Damian Bennet’s fourteen-year-old brother and our summer roommate at Stonehaven is being swept up in this shit. “Hey, man, you good?”
Since the Bennets are the third founding family of Victoria, I’m not shocked to see a boy this young with status and wealth at this party. Seen it too many fucking times before. Lack of parental supervision combined with the pressure to succeed and live up to some family legacy, and you have a recipe for underage drinking and drug use.
He hoists a limp thumbs-up.
Jake hands him a rag. “You need to go home, Sandon.”
He groans out, “You go home, Jake.”
I almost laugh.
“This is my home,” Jake says lightly, then tells me, “Call Damian to come take care of him.”
I cock my head. “And you can’t do that yourself because…?”
Jake scans the opened cabinets that’ve been raided for snacks. He’s evading. “Because.”
“That’s not cagey as fuck.”
His annoyed eyes hit mine. “We had a thing.”
Ohhh. I laugh hard now. Jake eyes Sandon as if he’s an eavesdropping problem. “He won’t remember shit tomorrow,” I say. “You had a thing with Damian Bennet? And you’re just now saying something? We’ve been living with the guy for over a month.” Now that I think of it, I don’t recall Jake ever saying a word to Damian. Have they even looked at each other? I rack my brain.
“We hooked up a few times, and it ended in a fight. We don’t talk.”
I let out a lighter laugh at a thought. “He asked to blow me the first week I moved to Victoria.” The party at the boathouse.
Jake isn’t surprised. “You let him?”
I think about Phoebe. “No.”
“Good call.”
“That bad in bed, huh?”
“Not great.” His expression says something darker.
Jesus. “I don’t want to know.” Picturing a guy hurting Jake makes me want to knock them out. Weird. And I’m not psychoanalyzing myself tonight, or the way that Jake cautions, “Just don’t sleep with him.” Like protecting me is the moral of this story.
I glower. Wishing I could just say the fucking words out loud. I’m with Phoebe. I grind my jaw. Instead, I say, “You know I’m with someone. Exclusively. I don’t fucking share.”
He starts to smile at that. I’d say he’s happy for us.
We hear a loud crash from above, and we look at the ceiling as the gold pendant lights rattle. Charting course for the second floor, I call Damian to collect his brother, then I shove my phone in my pocket and feel the vibration of my burner cell.
I stop in the curving stairwell with plush carpeted steps, and I dig it out. “Go ahead,” I tell Jake.
He waits four steps above me.
I glower. “I love the part where you listened to me.”
He tips his head. “I learned from the best.”
“Phoebe?”
“Who else?”
I widen my eyes in irritation, then check the message, and my blood runs cold.
(PHOEBE): We’re at the party. We have a girl emergency. Don’t freak out or try to intervene. All is good. Just looping you in.
All is good? My stomach churns thick acid. Why the fuck is she here? What emergency?
We all agreed the girls would steer clear of this party. I’m on a steeper edge when I glance upward and see Jake peering out of the circular window in the stairwell. His brows are knotted. Severity hardens his entire face.
That’s not good. “What?” I ask him and send a quick text.
EMERGENCY and GOOD don’t belong in the same sentence. What the fuck is going on?
“Come up here.”
I’m at his side in seconds. Out the window, we have a perfect view of the east grounds, where curved hedges form the beginning of a garden maze.
“Is that Phoebe and Hailey?” he asks. Apprehension cinches his deep voice.
My pulse skids. “Where?”
There are so many fucking people. Grinding, dancing, screwing, drinking. Glowsticks worn around necks and wrists illuminating bodies. Pops of vibrant color explode in the sky.
“By the fountain.”
I spot her.
Her dark blue hair blows in the sticky, humid breeze. Her off-shoulder white linen dress looks beautiful on her, and under normal circumstances, I’d be happy to see Phebs. She has an arm around my sister. I love how she loves Hailey so completely—just not when their bond goes to the extreme to where they would suffer for each other.