Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Nova exhales long breaths. “And what about you, Rocky?” His gaze jackhammers into him. “You’d really rather deny her the chance at something uncorrupted?”
“None of us are normal, man,” Rocky says darkly. “She’s not normal. She is just as corrupted as I am and comes with just as much fucking baggage as I do, and you can’t take that away without changing her, too. And unlike you, I’m not asking for Phoebe to pretend to be someone she’s not. I love her as she is. I always have.”
I soften at these sentiments.
Rocky sits straighter to add, “You’ve really lost sense of reality if you think I’d stand leisurely by and let a man do to her what they do to Elizabeth. You’re not the only one who’s tried to protect Phoebe from that.”
In more ways, Rocky has intervened the most. He was almost always there, one step away from cutting into the danger and saving me from a bad outcome. Only, he wasn’t beside me in Carlsbad.
When I didn’t want to fail the team. I just wanted to ensure we all left with money. So I had sex with the mark…and his friend.
I made decisions that I can’t take back. “These have been my choices, too,” I tell Nova.
“You wanted to quit,” Nova says quietly. “You were going to quit.”
He wants me to quit a life of grifting like Hailey does, and maybe he’s worried that if I’m with Rocky, I never will.
“Maybe I still will,” I tell him. “But right now, we have more important things to deal with.”
“See, you two keep saying that”—Nova motions back to Hailey on the chair—“but the most important thing here is all of you.”
“Us,” I murmur. “All of us, Nova.”
His eyes are reddened, and he reaches out an arm to embrace me. I burrow into his stiff, rigid hug that’s so unlike Oliver’s warm ones. But his hug feels essential, necessary. Like the last drop of water in a march across Death Valley.
“I knew they fucked,” Trevor says out of nowhere. “Phoebe and Rocky.”
I jolt away from Nova. Rocky’s nineteen-year-old brother is still hugging the dresser and wearing his dumb sunglasses.
“What are you talking about?” I snap and ignore my speeding pulse. I cut a sharp look to Rocky, who’s seated on the twin bed.
He’s zeroed in on his little brother. “You know nothing.”
“I know more than enough.” His shades are making it harder for me to read him, but maybe Rocky can sniff out his brother’s bullshit without looking at his eyes.
“How?” he questions.
“I heard you two.”
Oh my God. Rocky and I had sex at my loft…in the kitchen, and Trevor, I thought, was dead asleep.
“No, you didn’t,” Rocky calls his bluff.
“Yes, I did.” Trevor sways against the furniture—his poor balance the only sign of his drunkenness. “I watched you two fuck.”
“You what?” I shoot forward with tightened, riled eyes, but Rocky bolts up and catches my waist, stopping my pursuit to strangle his brother.
“You are seriously disturbed,” Oliver says nonchalantly to Trevor, as if it’s not even a top-ten horrible trait.
I wrestle against Rocky’s hold. “I swear to God, Rocky, if your brother stood there and got off on seeing us—”
“Sad you missed an opportunity to eat my cum?” Trevor cuts me off.
“Fuck you,” I force out.
Rocky grits out to him, “Never. Again.”
Trevor has little shame, and he’s drunk.
Rocky scrutinizes him longer. “He’s fucking with you, Phebs. He’s lying.”
“Is he?” Angry heat burns my lungs.
“Am I?” Trevor mocks.
Uggghhh!!
“Trevor, stop,” Hailey says so quietly, but we all hear.
He clutches a drawer handle. “Fine. But PG wouldn’t be so mad if there was nothing for me to watch, so now we all know the truth. They’re boning.”
I go motionless in Rocky’s arms.
What.
The.
Hell.
Did I just fall for the easiest play in the manipulator handbook from Trevor? I’m hotter in the face and more mortified.
“My brothers are in the room,” I mention like it’ll change something.
“So is mine.”
“Disturbed,” Oliver says to me.
I’d like to believe I’m better at navigating these simple mind games, but I’m pretty sure Trevor just caught me in one.
“This is serious between you two?” Hailey asks me and Rocky. Her attention is off her book and now pings from me to her older brother. “Really?”
She is ten billion times more surprised than I ever thought she’d be. Did she really never catch the scent of romance between me and her brother? She saw zero breadcrumbs? Was I that good at being so anti-Rocky that it never once crossed her mind that I could actually be in love with him?
“Really,” Rocky says deeply to his sister, but she’s looking for that same declaration from me.
“He’s who I want to be with, Hails. Long-term. For real.”
“When did this happen? Where? I want all the details,” Hailey says like she’s data mining.
“You’ll get them,” I assure her. “All of them.”