Archie’s smirk didn’t falter. “Define ‘ditch.’ We left. Took a drive. Had lunch. I didn’t hide it.”
Jake’s eyes narrowed. “No, you just didn’t mention it. Again.”
Archie raised his brows. “Frankie needed a break. I offered one.”
Jake’s voice sharpened. “You offered yourself.”
My gut twisted. It had been doing that a lot lately. Ever since she started pulling away. Summer had sucked. I thought we’d begun to make some progress, but Archie swept her away before we could have lunch. She went with him and I hadn’t stopped her.
Maybe we were all pushing her.
Bubba shut the door behind us. Locked it.
Archie clocked that. “What, am I about to be jumped?”
“No,” Bubba said evenly. “But we’re gonna say what needs to be said, and nobody’s walking out until it’s done.”
Jake snorted, the anger crackling around him too much like heat lightning. It would only take one spark. “Oh, how noble of you. Now suddenly you want peace?”
“No,” Bubba snapped back. His patience with Jake’s temperalsoseemed to be on the verge of breaking. “I want clarity. For Frankie. For us. For this mess.”
I hadn’t spoken yet. Didn’t trust myself to. My stomach had been in knots since the second I saw her and Archie sail out of school for wherever-the-hell.
Archie leaned forward, fingers steepled like he was in some mafia movie. “So? Ask your questions. Let’s all lay our cards out, shall we?”
“You’ve been playing dirty,” Jake said flatly. “Undercutting everyone while pretending to be harmless.”
Archie stared at him a beat then shrugged. “You make it sound like I’m some Bond villain. I’ve been honest about her from the first day I met her. I like her. I want to spend time with her.”
“Behind everyone’s backs.”
“One,” Archie said coolly raising a single finger. “I asked her out right in front of Coop, that’s hardly behind anyone’s backs. Two, she didn’t ask for a chaperone. Three, we don’t owe you a calendar invite.”
“She owed me honesty,” Jake snapped.
Excuse me?Sheowed honesty. To who?
“Funny,” Archie said, tone flipping to cold before I could interject my own response, “I don’t remember you asking permission when you spent the night.”
Silence.
I closed my eyes. That one landed hard.
Jake’s fists clenched. “That wasn’t the same.”
“Oh no?” Archie’s voice was silk and knives. “You think your brand of secret is more acceptable? That if you’re quiet and brooding enough, no one will notice you’re breaking the same rules as the rest of us?”
“Enough,” Bubba said. Low. Firm. “You two are just slinging mud at each other and pretending it’s for her benefit.”
“She’s not okay,” I said. My voice cut through everything. Even surprised me.
They both looked at me.
“She’s not okay,” I repeated, quieter now. “This—this isn’t helping.”
Archie’s smirk faded. Jake’s jaw twitched.
As much as we needed to have this out, I wanted to be at home. No, fuck that, I wanted to be at Frankie’s. I wanted to finish the conversation we should have had at lunch. For now, though, I looked at the floor, then up at Bubba. “Say what you were going to say.”
