Fenn
“So, how much trouble are you in?” Lawson asks over breakfast the next morning.
I was surprised to see him up and about before eleven a.m. on a Saturday, until he told me he’d never actually gone to bed. Apparently he’d pulled an all-nighter with some guys from Ballard and the eight-ball of coke I’d deprived him of last weekend. Equally surprising is the fact that he’d sat on a baggie of cocaine for an entire week without indulging.
Beside Lawson, Silas’s head is bent as he shovels eggs into his mouth and texts with his free hand. Always on his phone these days, Mr. Popular. Must be on the hunt for new friends because Sloane wants nothing to do with him. Neither does RJ. Amy. Me. The tally’s adding up for the dude.
RJ skipped breakfast, telling me to bring him back a muffin and coffee. He’s in our room working on some hacking project. Building a script for who knows what reason. I gave up on trying to understand the shit he does in there.
“I imagine a lot,” I answer, glumly moving my fork around my plate. I don’t have much of an appetite. I should probably eat, though. Might as well get expelled on a full stomach.
Last night was…rough.
It was fucking rough.
The only silver lining is that Headmaster Tresscott didn’t burst in when Casey had my dick in her mouth.
For a moment there, I genuinely thought he was going to lay a hand on me. He had the eyes of a feral animal whose territory you’d just stumbled upon. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the dude’s hands had turned into wolverine claws and he shredded me to pieces. Somehow, he’d managed to restrain himself, his jaw so tight, it looked like his face was about to crack in half.
His voice was deathly cold, eerie almost, as he ordered me to get out of Casey’s bedroom and proceeded to march me downstairs. Meanwhile, Casey was hurrying after us, trying to plead my case, blurting out that it was her fault, she’d invited me over because of a nightmare, that I was only being a good friend.
It all fell on deaf ears. The headmaster threw open the front door and jabbed his finger in the air, commanding I get the fuck out.
“He seriously dropped an f-bomb?” Silas says, finally joining the conversation while I’m relating everything that went down.
“Yeah, he did.” I don’t spare Silas a glance, but I can’t go as far as to ignore him altogether.
Lawson leans back in his chair, arms locked behind his head. “All right, what kind of damage are we talking about here? Pants undone?”
“Nope. Sweatpants. Firmly secured around my waist.”
“Shirt?” Silas asks.
“I was fully dressed,” I tell them. “Only thing I didn’t have on was shoes. I threw those out the window.”
Lawson snickers. “Nice.” He purses his lips. “What about the bed? Sheets messed up? Covered in come?”
I wince. “Sheets and blanket sort of in disarray, but it didn’t look like someone just got fucked on them.”
“And did they?”
“Huh?”
“Did someone get fucked on them?” Lawson clarifies, expression flickering with humor.
“No,” I say firmly. “Nothing happened.” I pause. “Sort of.”
“Nothing sort of happened?” Silas sounds amused.
“Exactly,” I reply before biting into a piece of toast.
As I chew, a rush of dread once again fills my chest, ballooning up until it’s all I feel. This isn’t going to end well for me. Casey texted this morning assuring me she was working on her dad to go light on my punishment, but I’m not holding out hope. The man’s always been relentlessly overprotective of his daughters. It’s a known fact that if you mess around with them behind his back, you get expelled.
This past spring, I had to ask his permission to even maintain a friendship with Casey. Had to jump through hoops just to earn walking-the-dogs-away-from-the-security-cameras privileges. Maybe if I’d asked him ahead of time to take her on a date—an idea he would’ve shot down like a well-trained sniper—he might have shown me some grace. He allowed Sloane to date Duke, after all. And now RJ. But Sloane isn’t Casey. In the headmaster’s eyes, no Sandover delinquent is allowed to have any romantic notions about his precious baby girl.
So…yeah. I should probably start packing.
As if on cue, my phone lights up with a text from RJ.
RJ: Get back here. Now.
Shit. I assume one of Tresscott’s minions is at my door with a summons to his office, but then RJ throws a curveball.
RJ: Got a message from Gabe.
Holy shit. Finally.
For a second, I’m relieved. Until I realize RJ wouldn’t send out the 911 if it was good news. I grab the phone and type.
Me: What’s it say?
RJ: Just get back here.
I scrape back my chair and pick up my half-empty tray. There’s no way I’m finishing this meal now. My appetite went from nonexistent to never-coming-back.
“Gotta go,” I say. “I want to shower and change before I face the music. I assume I’ll be summoned any minute now.”
“I’ll pray for you,” Lawson drawls.
Silas doesn’t even look up from his phone. Ride or die, this one.
A dozen disastrous scenarios scramble through my mind as I leave the dining hall. What if Gabe confessed? Or he’s pointed the finger at someone else? RJ’s message was worse than cryptic, and it puts crazy ideas in my head. Like, is there a world in which Gabe throws me under the bus for the whole thing? Or what if he introduces a new suspect to the mix? A fleeting image of Silas in that car next to Casey flickers in my mind, but I dismiss it quickly. Silas was with Amy all night, and there’s just no way. I’m sure.
Lawson maybe? No, I remember Silas saying the two of them had been searching for Casey together. And nobody mentioned noticing that Lawson, or Silas for that matter, were wet. If one of them were driving the car, at least the bottom half of their bodies would have been wet from wading back to shore.
Unless they changed before joining the search?
The speculation gets my pulse doing double-time. I’m quickly running up on full-blown panic. Everything between Casey and me hangs on what Gabe has to say.
I book it back to the dorm, where RJ is at his desk when I barge in.
“You better not be fucking with me,” I blurt out.
He spins around in his chair. “Why would I do that?”
Because lately it seems like everyone’s getting their kicks at my expense.
“No reason. Forget it. Lucas coming too?” I ask, surprised Gabe’s brother hadn’t beat me here.
“I haven’t told him.” RJ’s voice is wary, which gives me pause.
“Why not? What’d Gabe say?”
He twists his lips, suddenly reluctant after making me sprint back here to get the words out of his mouth.
“Come on,” I growl. “You’re killing me. What was it?”
“He said, and I quote, ‘Tell Fenn I know the truth.’”
The words don’t make sense in my head. It’s like I woke up speaking a different language after a severe brain trauma. I try turning them over, backward and forward, but I still can’t make sense of Gabe’s message.
I was hoping for a clue. A hint about what happened at prom and whether he was the one in the car with Casey. And if so, why.
Instead, I get this. He knows the truth? About what? Prom, I assume. But what truth does Gabe think he knows?
My brain hurts. “That’s it?”
“Yup.”
“What the hell does that even mean?” I’m flabbergasted as I sink onto the leather sofa. I continue to run the message through my head, hoping to spark some insight. A frown mars my lips. “Did Lucas’s original message to Gabe say anything about me? Show me what it was.”
RJ hesitates.
I glare at him. “Seriously?”
“Sorry, it’s a habit. Only reason I do well in this business is because I value my clients’ privacy. Information dealing is lucrative, but only when you know how to keep your mouth shut.”
“You can take that lucrative nonsense and shove it up your ass. I’m your stepbrother. What did his message say?”
Looking unhappy, RJ unlocks his phone and scrolls for a moment. Then he reads out loud.
“‘Hey. I know you’re probably furious and I don’t blame you. Dad’s an asshole. I’ve been working on Mom trying to get her on our side, but so far no luck. Just know I’m doing everything I can on my end to get you out of that place. Also need you to know—whatever Dad told you, I wasn’t the one who got you sent away.’” RJ lifts his head from the screen. “Then he says I hope you’re well, talk soon, yada yada.”
I narrow my eyes. “The ‘I wasn’t the one’ part is kind of sus, no?”
“A little. But it’s not like he said ‘it wasn’t me, it was Fenn!’”
“True.”
“I need to ask you something.” RJ’s chair creaks when he leans back and crosses his arms.
His uneasy expression raises even more suspicions. I curse when it dawns on me where he’s going with this. “Are you asking if I’m the one who ratted him out to their dad about selling drugs?”
“You’re saying you didn’t?” RJ asks with a little too much surprise.
“Obviously,” I snap, more than a little offended. “Gabe’s my best friend. And his dad’s a dick. Why would I want to get him in trouble?”
“Maybe you were trying to protect him and thought this was the only way to get him to stop dealing.”
“Yeah, all right. So now I’m a shitty friend for not turning him in?”
RJ’s nonchalance in the face of my rapidly imploding world is starting to get on my nerves. To him, this is all gossip. Practically television. But this has been the single most important and disruptive part of my life for the better part of a year. And somehow it’s managed to get a lot worse in the last few minutes.
“I’m not passing judgment either way—”
“You sure?” I say coldly.
He frowns. “I’m trying to get to the truth.”
A sharp laugh bursts out of me. Everyone around here has been lying about one thing or another for so long, I’m not sure we’d know what the truth looks like anymore. No one at this school is innocent, least of all the people in this room.
“What was Gabe’s response to Lucas?” I ask.
“Honestly, nothing too exciting. He says he feels like he’s in prison. Talks about some fight he got into. Asks Lucas not to put himself in the warpath for Gabe, says it’s not worth it for Lucas to take the brunt of their dad’s wrath while Gabe’s away. Then he assures him he’s fine, it’s only another six months until he’s eighteen and he can get the hell out of there.”
My heart aches hearing that. Thing about Gabe is, he’s a stupidly good guy. Always looking out for his kid brother. The only reason he dealt drugs in the first place was because of his father, not due to some delinquency on Gabe’s part. I mean, the guy isn’t perfect, obviously. He likes to raise hell every now and then, just like the rest of us. But he’s not a naturally born criminal or some shit.
Mr. Ciprian was always close-fisted with cash, the kind of man who wanted his sons to earn their own way in the world. Growing up, any time I went over to their place in Greenwich, I’d hear lectures about the value of hard work and how Mark Ciprian was never going to feed his kids with silver spoons. I always felt so bad for Gabe and Lucas. Sure, work ethic is admirable, but you can’t send your sons to the poshest prep school in the country and only give them an allowance of a hundred bucks a month. They’d get crucified.
“Did you forward Gabe’s message to Lucas yet?” I say pensively.
“No, I wanted to talk to you first.” RJ tips his head. “You still think Lucas might have insinuated to Gabe that you were responsible for his exile?”
“I don’t know. But this whole thing feels shady to me.” I shrug. “Let’s test him. Forward the message to him now. If he didn’t say anything to his dad or Gabe, then he’s more likely to pass along Gabe’s ‘tell Fenn’ message. But if he did somehow make Gabe think I did him dirty, he probably wouldn’t relay the message, right?”
“Stands to reason.” RJ unlocks his phone again to send Gabe’s reply to Lucas.
Then we wait.
“Does he have read receipts on?” I demand, losing patience after about three seconds.
“No.” RJ checks the screen. “But he’s typing…”
I go on alert, sitting up straighter on the couch. A moment later, Lucas’s response pops up.
“‘Thanks. I owe you big, man,’” RJ recites.
We both stare at my phone on the coffee table. It remains silent. We know Lucas is by his phone because he literally just used it to text. And if he’s got his phone in his hand, there is absolutely no reason why he would see those words—Tell Fenn I know the truth—and not pass them along to me.
“Maybe he assumes I’ll do it,” RJ starts, just as my phone buzzes and we both jump.
I snatch it up, relaxing when I glimpse Lucas’s name.
“It’s him,” I say, hastily swiping to open the notification.
Lucas: Hey, heard back from my brother. Basically he’s doing okay in there. Got into a fight with some skinhead, but he can hold his own.
I relate the response to my stepbrother, adding, “No mention of Gabe’s message to me…”
RJ sighs unhappily. “Fuck.”
But the phone chimes again.
Lucas: Also, I have no idea what this means, but at the end of his message he says: tell Fenn I know the truth.
There’s a pause. Then a follow-up.
Lucas: Mean anything to you?
I relax fully. “Okay,” I say with a relieved breath. “Maybe things aren’t as shady as I thought. I’ve been tainted by Silas, I guess. Seeing enemies everywhere.”
RJ snickers. “Hey, I could always tell that Silas was a secret prick. The nice ones usually are.”
I text Lucas to say I have no idea what it means, but that I’ll think on it. He responds with a thumbs-up.
“What now?” RJ rocks back and forth in his chair, leg crossed over his knee.
I run a hand through my hair, suddenly remembering there’s a way more critical matter to be discussing. “Now I wait for my impending execution.”
“Shit, I forgot about that.”
“Me too.” I lie down, resting my head on the arm of the couch. “We had a good run, though, didn’t we? Enough brother bonding to last a lifetime.”
RJ snorts. “More than enough.” But his humor doesn’t last. “He won’t actually expel you, right? It’s not like he caught you balls-deep inside her.”
“Honestly, I don’t know whether I’m annoyed by his timing, or forever indebted to it.” I give RJ a wry look. “I was seconds from telling Casey the truth before he barged into her room.”
“The truth?” he echoes, then understands. “Ohhh. Okay. Are you still planning to?”
After a second of indecision, I find myself nodding. “I have to. Especially now. Maybe if Gabe’s message had provided even a shred of clarity, I might have—” I stop abruptly, realizing what I’ve done.
RJ hisses out a breath. “Motherfucker.”
Goddamn it.
“You were covering for Gabe?” Incredulity drips from his voice.
I rest a forearm over my eyes, shielding them from his view. Then I realize there’s no backpedaling here. No hiding from it. So I drop my arm and sit up.
“I’m almost certain Gabe was driving the car the night of Casey’s accident,” I say flatly.
RJ stares at me in silence. Like his brain is buffering. Then, “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“And you kept it a secret all this time?”
I don’t miss the note of accusation. Disapproval, even.
“I owe him,” I say simply.
“He’s your best friend, I get it. But to cover up something this huge? Seriously? How much loyalty do you actually owe the guy?”
“A lot.” I rub both temples as all the stupid mistakes I’ve made over the years buzz around in my head like a swarm of hornets. “He gave me a get-out-of-jail-free card a couple years ago. I returned the favor on prom night.”
“You gonna elaborate on that?” RJ grumbles when I don’t continue.
Fuck. He can’t leave it at that, can he? Always so curious, my stepbrother.
“Summer before junior year, Gabe and I were in the Hamptons. We crashed with Lawson at first, until his psycho dad kicked us out because we were partying too hard. So we went to stay at this chick Molly’s place and the party continued. Our last night there, we find out Molly lives next door to some star player for the New York Yankees, and she says the guy has this ridiculous watch closet—”
“The fuck’s a watch closet?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. Dude was obsessed with expensive watches and had an entire closet full of them. All displayed on shelves in their little fancy boxes. I thought it was hilarious and, well, like I said, I was beyond wasted that entire summer.”
“Christ. You broke into the Yankee player’s house?”
“Oh yeah. Long story short, after everyone went to bed, I got it in my fool head that it would be fun to break in and steal one of his precious watches. And somehow, I fucking managed to do it. This dude’s security was nonexistent. Only one camera. Didn’t even set his alarm before he went out. He and his lingerie model girlfriend were at a club in town, and I literally waltzed upstairs to their bedroom and had my pick of the watch closet. I chose the coolest-looking one and booked it out of there.”
“Gabe wasn’t with you?”
“Christ, no. Gabe’s not an idiot. He tried to talk me out of it, but I did it anyway. Left after he went to sleep. Next morning was a shitshow. The Yankee finds his watch missing and calls the cops. We saw them pull up next door, and I ran to the beach and chucked the watch into the ocean. They questioned the neighbors, including us. I asked Gabe to cover for me, and he did it, no hesitation. Said I was with him all night, that I’d passed out cold and he was taking care of me, making sure I didn’t vomit in my sleep and die or something. Obviously they didn’t believe us at first, but that’s when Gabe’s dad stepped in. Mr. Ciprian used to be the Attorney General of the state, so he still had a lot of clout there.”
“Gabe lied to his dad too?”
“Yup. Swore on the Bible—and the Ciprians are, like, super Catholic, so trust me, that meant something to Mark Ciprian. Gabe had my back, and his dad believed Gabe’s story.” I shake my head. “The Yankee was out for blood. If Mr. Ciprian hadn’t covered for me, thanks to Gabe, I would have seen time. No question about it.” Now I hang my head, the shame once again rising in my throat. “I barely knew Casey on prom night, man. She was basically a stranger. My loyalties weren’t with her back then. They were with my best friend, who I owed big-time.”
“But she’s not a stranger anymore,” RJ quietly reminds me.
“Well aware of that.”
RJ has no idea how much it’s hurt carrying this around. Thinking the worst of my best friend. Imagining him as the type of person who’d leave a girl for dead. He has no idea what it does to your own understanding of people, of yourself. I chose to protect Gabe over Casey, then tried to atone for it by protecting her after the fact. But it’s not enough.
She deserves nothing less than the truth.
During our entire friendship, I’ve constantly been one careless syllable away from spilling my heart out. But then I would think about Gabe. He’s my best friend and I’m half in love with her, but right now I’ve got neither and she’s slipping further away. Every day Casey doesn’t get answers from me, it’s breaking her down a little more. Soon, she’ll be in so many pieces, she might not find her way back together. Back to me.
Last night, she said she wanted to forgive me.
I just need to give her a reason.
The conversation is cut short by a knock on the door, bringing stricken expressions to both our faces.
RJ gets up to answer it, a second later glancing over his shoulder in relief. Not my execution orders, then. Tresscott is taking his sweet-ass time with this, intentionally prolonging my torture.
“Yo,” someone says, and a pair of seniors trudge into our room.
The taller one, Xavier, nods hello at me before addressing my stepbrother. “Hey, so my two cousins are visiting from Manhattan this weekend. Was hoping to bring them to the fights tonight.”
RJ stares at him. “So?”
“So, ah…” Xavier shifts his feet, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Can they come?”
“What the fuck do I care?”
From my perch on the sofa, I snicker under my breath. Poor Remington refuses to accept reality.
“They go to St. Michael’s on the Upper West Side.” Xavier continues as if RJ hadn’t spoken. “You can vet them tonight if you want. Meet them before we go in.”
“I don’t want, and I won’t be going.”
Xavier’s buddy, Tripp, looks confused. “You won’t be going?”
“No. I’m busy.”
I swallow another laugh. RJ’s been making his obligatory weekly appearances at the fights since he took over leadership from Duke, but I guess he’s done playing by the rules. I’m surprised it took him this long.
“So there’s no fights?” Xavier presses. “But it’s Saturday.”
“You can fight. Or not. I don’t care. How is this so hard to understand?”
The pair glance over at me for assistance. I respond with an amused shrug.
“I am busy tonight,” RJ says slowly, overpronouncing each word as if speaking to a small child. “If they were being held tomorrow night, great. If they’d been held yesterday, great. But they are tonight, and I am busy.”
“So we’re doing them tomorrow night?” Xavier asks.
“Do them whenever you want!” he shouts before turning to implore me with his eyes. “Dude. Help.”
I’m too busy laughing.
“This isn’t some kind of test,” he assures the guys. “I’m not interested in running shit. Tell your friends.”
“So…tomorrow night?” Tripp asks.
“Get the fuck out,” RJ pleads in frustration, physically shoving them out the door. He slams it shut and leans against it as if he’s afraid they’ll try to kick it open like the barbarians at the gate. “Why is this happening to me?”
I wipe away tears of laughter. “Did it to yourself, man.”
A sharp knock rattles the door.
RJ’s face goes red with frustration. “For fuck’s sake! Go away!”
“Bishop,” a different voice calls out.
Just like that, all humor fades.
This time, I’m the one to answer the door. I find myself staring at the smug smile of Asa, the headmaster’s messenger boy.
I stifle a groan. “Let me guess. I’ve been summoned.”
Asa ignores my sarcasm. “Headmaster Tresscott wants to see you in his office. Better hurry.”