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)
I think about everything. The reality and the wasted opportunities.
“Stop thinking,” I mutter. “Stop it.” I catch myself picking at my cuticle.
Normally I’d just camp out with Phoebe in her stateroom. We’d eat a melting pint of Moose Tracks and watch some vintage slasher flick. Or she’d put on Never Been Kissed for me. A favorite of mine mostly because Drew Barrymore essentially cons the whole student body into believing she’s a teenager when she’s really an undercover reporter.
Phoebe always makes faces when David Arquette’s adult character seduces a high school senior.
“Gross!” she would yell at the TV. “He’s not even that hot!”
“He’s not even that smart,” I’d add. “But he can play baseball.”
“Okay, but can he wield a crossbow like a fucking baddie? Unless he turns into a vampire hunter or is a vampire and stops creeping on high schoolers, then he’s a solid one-point-two on the hot meter, Hails.” She’d flip off the screen every time he’d appear.
I’d laugh as each middle finger would get progressively more animated and closer to the TV. My cheeks would strain into an ache.
I want to smile now, just thinking how we decompress from emotionally taxing nights. With junk food and movies that transport us out of our lawless lives.
I love consuming knowledge, but it’s not entirely why I love films and books. I crave the escape. To be carried to a faraway place, to visit a thousand different destinations and lose myself among lives so unlike mine.
It’s why I also loved being a grifter. Traveling, being a voyeur who slips in and out of cities, never residing long enough to be called “the easy one” or “the town slut.”
I don’t really care about being labeled.
I don’t care about my reputation in Victoria. Because even if it’s bad, I like having one. I like being real. Most of the connections I’ve made here aren’t forged from fictitious threads I’ve created. I have more purpose than just being a master puppeteer who’s scared of dropping a string, causing harm to those I love. More than just being Phoebe’s best friend.
I have the simple purpose of being me. Of figuring out who I am.
And I’m honestly Hailey, a country club server. Hailey, a girl who has fallen epically hard for two men. Hailey, a girl who doesn’t know what the future holds. Who, for the first time, can’t see that far ahead.
I think I’d want my baby to feel multidimensional. To find simple purpose in life before wading into the deep.
I’ve done it all backward.
“Inside out, outside in,” I mutter to myself, my thoughts spinning.
I blink a few times before I enter my guest cabin in a cotton towel.
The small space only has room for a king-sized bed, two end tables, a television on the wall, and a long button-tufted bench at the foot of the bed. Warm lighting bathes the suite, and it’s not empty.
Jake and Oliver sit on the bench. Side by side. Waiting for me.
Their whispered conversation dies as soon as I step onto the soft carpet and shut the bathroom door behind me.
Instead of prying into that, I ask, “Is Trent coming onto the yacht tonight?”
“No,” Jake says, his brows furrowed. “No, he’s not stepping a foot on here. Varrick already picked him up in the dinghy and took him back to Stonehaven.”
My stomach curdles. Varrick being nice to him, not a revelation. I understand why he has to be. Trent is the mark. It just sours every part of my insides that Trent gets to roofie Phoebe’s drink and then walk away unscathed.
Not unscathed if we can complete the job.
Which still relies on me getting Trent to marry me. A shiver skates across the back of my neck. “How do I make him want to marry me if I’m going to want to stab him every time I look at him?” I say more to myself than to them.
But they obviously hear me.
Jake grimaces. “You’re still thinking about the job?”
“She’s always thinking about the job.” Oliver rises to his feet, television remote in hand.
“It’s easier thinking about that than what happened tonight…” I turn to a stack of clothes on the end table. Their eyes trail my body as I tug on a clean baggy Metallica tee and black cotton shorts.
“I know you don’t want to talk about it, but Jake said he found you on the ground,” Oliver says hesitantly like he’s gauging how hard to press his finger into an open wound. So this is most likely what they’d been whispering about before I came in.
“But I don’t know how you got there,” Jake adds. “Whether you were pushed or kicked or dragged—”
“I don’t have an answer to that. It happened too fast.” I spin to face them. They look at me with such heavy concern, it nearly steals my breath.