Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126927 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126927 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
The car goes silent.
I think they’ll leave the fight there.
Until Rocky speaks.
“Take him, Winchester. He’s all yours.”
Twenty-Six
Phoebe
Halfway between dreaming and awake, my fluffy white comforter is ripped off my head. I groan through the sunlight of the Saturday morning, only in a cropped pink tee and panties. Hailey crawls onto the mattress beside me, her phone to her ear. “Yeah, Dad, we’ve been doing well.”
Wait, what?!
I shoot up like Hailey zapped me with electricity. Her worried eyes meet mine. Why is she talking with her dad? Why did she answer that call?
She taps the speaker button, and I hear Everett’s voice. “I could use some more ideas for the next job. When do you think you’ll be done with yours?”
Hailey and I share a cautious look. It’s October first, and we’ve sufficiently been evading our parents for a month and a half. But in that time, they’ve become aware we’re somewhere in Connecticut, and they believe we’re working on a new job of our own. Lies usually don’t weigh on me. But I’ve never lied to my mom like this. I’m drowning in a vat of guilt for keeping this one alive, and I hope that when my mom learns the truth, she doesn’t hate me for it.
“We’re unsure when it’ll be finished,” Hailey says casually enough. “We’re just playing it by ear right now.”
Everett goes quiet for a second. Hailey tucks her legs to her chest on the bed and bites at her thumbnail.
Sensing her major anxiety, I wrap an arm over her shoulders and mouth, We’re good.
She drops her thumb and rubs at a bruise on her kneecap.
After another strained moment, Everett says, “Plans are necessary. They can be malleable, but you shouldn’t be playing anything by ear.”
Hailey winces, and she puts the end of her phone to her forehead in distress. I can’t say anything—I’m not supposed to be on this call.
After a deep sigh, Hailey says, “Yeah, I know.” Her eyes shift to me, and I see the guilt in them, too. She mouths, Should I tell them?
I shake my head hurriedly. No, no. We do not tell Everett the truth about how we’re done conning. After what Rocky told me, I trust Everett the absolute least of all our parents.
Hailey wavers, then mouths, He could be cool.
I make an X with my arms. Do Not Pass Go. Hell fucking no. He won’t be cool about us ditching everything we were taught.
“I have to go,” Everett says before Hailey can decide. “I’ll call back in a couple weeks about your proposals. Brainstorm in the meantime.”
He hangs up.
Proposals.
One of Hailey’s tasks is to formulate new cons in new towns—a task that my mom and Addison usually handled until Hailey got older. Nowadays, they all share in passing the pen that draws the blueprints. I’ve joked before how Hailey is the secret mastermind behind all the jobs—but that joke lands with less humor now that we’re trying to make a clean break.
Hailey groans and falls back against my pillow, just wearing checkered pajama shorts and a black cotton tank top. “That went soooo bad.”
“Why did you answer his call?”
“It was an unknown number,” she replies. “I thought it was Trevor.”
“Shit,” I breathe out. As I lie down next to her, our shoulders bump up against one another. We stare up at the ceiling, nothing special but a fan spinning slowly.
But it’s not yellowed or moldy.
It’s been a nice ceiling. A nice home.
Her voice goes soft. “I want this to work so badly, Phebs.” Her head lolls to the side, and our eyes meet, hers carrying a heavy weight. “But my dad is right—plans are necessary. And this entire thing was half-baked from the beginning. I thought Rocky could stall for us and buy me time to figure out a way to tell our parents . . . but time is running out. And whenever I imagine telling them we’re done, I picture my mom’s crushing disappointment and the worst kind of guilt-fest from all three.” Her voice teeters. “I-I’ve never wanted to confront them with these types of feelings, and I-I-I don’t know how . . .” She stammers. “Even when we dropped out of that prep school back in the day . . . it wa-wasn’t this big. Our moms knew we wouldn’t be there . . . in that city f-for long anyway.”
She means back when we were fourteen and I invoked inertia. The pact. When she had to muster the courage to rebel against their wishes with me.
This time is different. More permanent. A more drastic change in course.
I pop up on my elbows quickly, my heart clenching. “Hey, Hails. There’s still time. We can figure it out, and I’ll be right there with you when we tell them we’re done grifting. You’re not alone in this.” And hopefully they’ll understand.