Tangled Like Us (Like Us 4)

He quickens his pace, and I lean closer, our foreheads pressing together. Heat gathers and our lips find each other and break and find each other and break.

The rhythm fills my core. And the intensity builds around me. His fingers dip down between us and brush over my sensitive clit. Like a wave crashing ashore, I’m completely gone.

My hips stop moving.

My mouth parts from his and I bury my head into the crook of his neck.

He quickly raises his hand, fingers glistening and wet, and presses his palm to my mouth to stifle my noises. In the bathroom, we can’t be too careful.

I shudder into him, orgasms rippling through me and he continues to pump up. His hips thrusting. His palm keeping my noises at bay.

We’re practically silent except for the thump of our bodies colliding, but even that is drowned out by the sink faucet.

And then from the depths of my fuzzy bath robe, my phone rings.

28

JANE COBALT

It’s FaceTime.

It’s Beckett.

And it’s almost two-thirty in the morning.

Those three variables add together like toxic chemicals. Highly combustible and only appearing when the situation has reached critical levels.

I am also very naked. Urgency speeding my pulse, I try to put my arms through the holes of my robe as quick as I can. Thatcher helps, and in my attempt to wrangle the fabric, I elbow him in the cheek.

“Merde.” I reach to try and touch his cheekbone. “I’m so sorry.”

“Jane,” he says, still moving to put my other arm through the hole. Not even affected by my elbow punch. “Your phone.” It’s stopped ringing. We both stare at the blank screen, but Thatcher is also still dressing me. Two arms in the holes. Check. He tightens it around me by tying off the fuzzy belt.

“Maybe it was a butt dial,” I say, hopefully.

Thatcher looks pissed.

“What?” I ask him.

“I don’t have my radio.”

It’s in his room. He was off-duty tonight. There’s no reason he would have needed it.

Seconds later, my phone lights up. Beckett’s trying to FaceTime again . This is most surely not a butt dial.

Dread sinks into my stomach. I’m imagining catastrophic scenarios. There’s not much that would cause Beckett to call me in the dead of night. He’d normally be resting up for early-morning rehearsals or out enjoying what little free time he has.

“I’m going to get my radio,” Thatcher says as he rises to his feet. Buck-naked. He walks to the other side of the bathroom, shuts off the faucet and collects his pants.

“Will you come back?” I wonder. I want him here, I realize. If this is a disaster, he’s someone I would choose to face it with.

He pulls his pants on, his eyes flitting around me like he’s assessing the situation. “I’ll be one minute.” It sounds like a promise.

“Thank you,” I say.

He nods and goes to the door. I make sure that the screen is pointed at me and not the opposite direction before I click into FaceTime.

Four of my brothers fill the screen. All the ones who are currently living together in Hell’s Kitchen. Beckett and Charlie share the couch while Tom and Eliot sit on the floor. I can see all of their hands, like a wide shot, which just means that Beckett must have called me from his laptop.

All four of them wear solemn, serious expressions. Utterly tense, and less jovial than they usually are. I’d expect Eliot and Tom to be jumping on the couches in the very least. The pit in my stomach mushrooms.

“Hey, sis,” Beckett says, cupping his hands in front of him. He leans forward a little. “Have you been online tonight?”

“No,” I say. “What’s going on?”

Pulse hammering, I scan them all quickly again, checking for any visible wounds.

Charlie rubs at his eyes and then rises off the couch, obscuring my view of him and then he disappears completely off screen.

Beckett watches him. “We said we’d do this together, Charlie.”

“I’m coming back,” Charlie says in the distance.

Eliot and Tom watch him leave. Beckett focuses on me.

“Who’s this about?” I ask.

“Me,” Beckett says just as my bathroom door opens again.

I glance up.

Thatcher walks in, adjusting the mic in his ear and clipping it to the collar of his T-shirt. He’s dressed in clean flannel pajama pants, and he leans a shoulder against the frame, keeping the door open.

Officially on-duty.

He meets my eyes. Brows furrowed but not confused. If anything, I think he might be learning about what happened right this very moment through comms.

“Beckett,” I say and look to my phone again. “Please tell me what’s going on. I’m thinking the worst. Are you okay? Physically, mentally, emotionally. Did someone hurt you?”

He opens his mouth to speak, but he closes it and then cringes. “Physically, I’m fine.”

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.