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.