Since this break-up isn’t a typical one, no one in SFO or my family has been angry at Akara. Some sort of expected it. He’s just trying to protect me. And maybe they can see that our love hasn’t disappeared.
I click into the call. “Hey, Nona—”
“I need you to come to the Cobalt Estate like…right now. Where are you?” Her panicked voice pricks my skin.
“I’m close-ish.” Fuck, fuck, fuck. Hurrying, I motion for Banks to unlock the door. I climb into the backseat with Orion and shut it. “What’s going on?”
“The girl squad is in a pickle. You’re on speaker.”
“A pickle how?” I frown as Banks hops into the driver’s seat. “You’re on speaker too, by the way. Banks is here.”
“He’s a nark,” Kinney says from the background.
“Banks isn’t a nark,” I say, wide-eyed as I picture the kind of trouble these four girls got themselves into.
“Farrow said he is.”
Banks shrugs at me in admittance.
I gape at him. He’s narked before? On who?!
Xander, I realize the answer to my own question. Of course he would—Xander is a minor. If they found themselves in a truly fucking terrible situation, I think…I’d nark too.
To Moffy and Jane, at least.
Winona cuts in, “Please don’t tell any of our bodyguards. This is just between you and Banks.”
“And Akara,” I add, waiting for him to return. Hurry, Kits.
Winona gasps. “Wait, wait, does this mean you’re all back together? Sulli.” She emphasizes my name with happiness. She really is Team Sulli, knowing what I want.
I could say the truth, I don’t know if we’re back together yet. But feeling her happiness is euphoric, and I decide not to puncture it.
“Get that D!” Vada shouts.
“Double D,” Winona says, probably with a brow-wag.
“Took him long enough,” Kinney says, all blasé-like.
I wait for Audrey to swoon over the line about “love prevailing” or flourishing.
She never speaks.
Panic jolts me, and Banks is the first to ask, “Where’s Audrey?”
“That’s why I’m calling,” Winona says fast. “We just want someone else to check on her. She’s not passed out, but she’s been puking up the party punch.”
“Party punch?” My brows rise. “Fuck, Nona did you guys throw a party?”
“It’s her pre-birthday,” Kinney declares, “without her annoying brothers.”
“Except Ben,” Nona notes. “Ben is here, and he’s not annoying.”
“Ben’s okay,” Kinney mutters.
God, I really hope Akara is at the check-out.
“Are Moffy and Jane on their way?” I ask.
Winona speaks. “No. It’s just you. I was going to call Moffy, but we all wanted to see if you could come first.”
Maybe because I won’t be disapproving of the party or too worried. And they must not be too scared about Audrey’s health or they’d for sure phone Moffy, who’d bring his doctor-husband along.
She called me.
I’m the first call to speed-dial in a mini-crisis.
Wow.
Do I seem like I have my shit together to deal with explosions and fallouts? I mean, I am clearly a hot fucking mess sitting outside a drugstore where one of my boyfriends (if he’s still my boyfriend) is buying me Plan B because my other boyfriend’s condom broke. Yes, this is my fucking life.
But my sister believes I’m responsible and reliable.
What’s changed in the past few months?
I’ve been battling the media and headlines and leaks, and maybe I have proven to people that I’m stronger in the face of those things. More than I even thought.
Akara exits the store, just as I tell my sister, “We’re on our way, squirt.”
“Thank you! We love you!”
Once we hang up, Akara climbs into the passenger seat with a plastic bag.
Banks tells him, “Crisis at the Cobalt Estate.”
Unfaltering, Akara is all confidence and experience. “Let’s go.”
56
BANKS MORETTI
Sun has set, and we drive up on a royal clusterfuck.
“What the fuck,” Sulli gapes out the window, and I brake to a sudden stop halfway up the Cobalt’s driveway.
Range Rovers, Bugattis, Mercedes, the most drop-dead gorgeous Ferrari is blocking our pursuit to the mansion. Christ, I’d love to stick my hands in them. Can’t even ogle or salivate over the cars of my fucking dreams when teenagers slam their doors and carry top-shelf booze up to the Cobalt Estate.
I mutter, “Bet they raided their parents’ liquor cabinet.”
“There is no fucking way Uncle Connor and Aunt Rose know about this,” Sulli realizes.
Akara and I are kicked into gear. Alert. Readied.
“Security cameras should be on,” I tell him.
“Unless she disabled them.” Akara fixes his earpiece cord quickly.
“You calling Epsilon?” I ask. SFE will want to know their clients are around unvetted strangers without their parents’ knowledge. Especially after the wrath-inducing incident in the Meadows’ backyard with the T-Bags.
“Not yet. You said the girl squad don’t want us to nark, and Epsilon will call Connor and Rose.”
“Fucking rewind.” Sulli peers through the middle seat. “You think Winona disabled security cameras? My sister who values her privacy?”
I motion to the gaggles of teenagers. “Your sister threw a rager with Bugatti-driving, hundred-year-old-scotch-drinking, gold-shitting teenyboppers.”