Chapter 12

Primrose

Icollapsed on the couch, groaning. Matthew barely even looked up from his phone, sitting on the end of the couch next to where I just flopped down.

“You sound happy,” he said.

“Cook me some fries,” I sighed.

“Don’t think I feel like it.”

“I’ll share if you do. Just grab them from the freezer and put them in the air fryer. I just finished my essay and I want to celebrate by doing absolutely nothing except eating fries.”

He lowered his phone a little, glancing over at me. “They’re Ava’s, aren’t they?”

“She’d want them to fill a greater purpose.” I paused. “She took my yogurt just yesterday. We steal each other’s food all the time.”

“Hm.”

“Why do I even invite you over if you’re not going to bring me my own food?”

“My own food, she says…” But he stood up, setting his phone down. He talked across the room while he rummaged in the freezer. “Are things okay with Giselle? You said she might come to the party on Tuesday, and not only was she not there, you haven’t said a word about her since. Did you break up?”

“For the millionth time, we aren’t dating. Don’t put that on me.”

“Is she even that bad?” He spoke absently while he dumped the bag in the fryer, and I sat up, giving him a look.

“What, you wish you could date some snot-nosed rich kid yourself?” I shook my head. “Forget it. You wouldn’t get it, blue-blood yourself.”

“I’m just saying, she seems sweet.”

I pushed down the feelings in my chest as best I could—something building until it felt like it would burst. I wasn’t even sure what it was, just… just that it wasn’t appropriate for right now. I sighed. “Forget it. Things are going fine.”

“Ooh, the icy it’s fine. Sounds like things are going well.”

“Go take a long walk, buddy.” I kicked my feet up on the coffee table. “Going according to plan.”

“Her rejecting the invitation was part of the plan?”

I shrugged. “Felt like it was a coin toss. If she went to the party, I’d have gotten her suckered in deeper, tried to replace her whole social network with ours so we can collectively ghost her. Especially since it seems like things are frosty with her and the BFF who Kittycat made contact with.”

“And since she didn’t?”

I laughed. “Now I torture her.”

“Seems a bit harsh.” He set the timer and dropped down on the couch next to me, kicking his feet up and his hands folded behind his head. “Better not put that part in your journal, don’t want the feds finding out you’re running a torture camp.”

“It’s just a little psychological warfare. You’ll read about it once you get the journal. Put simply, she did not want to turn down that invitation. Now I’m dropping off the map entirely and suddenly depriving her of all the excitement she got being around me.”

“What, to punish her?”

“No. Just to remind her how much she needs me. Imagine. You’re so deprived of something, and then you’ve got everything you’ve ever wanted, and then… poof. You’d do anything for it back, right?”

He shook his head, sighing as he picked his phone back up. “I worry about you sometimes, Prim.”

I planted my feet back on the floor, turning to him. “What? I know what I’m doing.”

“Can’t be healthy to be that detached from people.”

“I can form healthy attachments just fine. Ava, Tan, Randall, Sooyeon. Hell, even you. I just know when someone deserves to be hurt.”

He made a face, still looking down at his phone. “I’m just saying. You are what you pretend to be. Feel like this kind of thing can consume you.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat, the biting anger that made me want to lash out. Matty was just soft. I knew that. He worried about me—about all of us. Guy was the mother figure to FIRE. And there had been a million times I’d needed that. I couldn’t get mad at him just because he was doing it at a time I didn’t need that.

I knew what I was doing. And if I did, I had no need to get defensive over it. I could let my results speak for themselves. That was the only way I could ever speak—ever really speak, in a language everyone understood.

“Well, then I’m glad I have FIRE,” I said, my voice low. “Helps keep me anchored. Grounded.”

It worked—he set down his phone, turning back to me with less tension in his features. “All right. So you’re making sure Giselle feels just how much she really needs you. And then?”

I elbowed him. “I’m going ice-skating without my boyfriend tomorrow. Sorry. You and I aren’t getting on well.”

He put a hand to his chest just as the door unlatched. “I’m heartbroken. I thought what we had was special.”

“I’ve moved on.”

“Turned gay now.”

“Shut the fuck up,” I said cheerily as the door opened, and Ava stepped in, her shoulders hunched, hands in her pockets.

“I’m seconding that,” Ava said, and Matthew put his hands up.

“I didn’t even say a word to you!”

“Good.” Ava shut the door, turning to the air fryer. “Rosie’s stealing my fries again?”

“Matthew egged me on,” I said, and Matthew elbowed me back.

“She whined like a little baby until I put them in for her. Also, weren’t you out with Sooyeon right now?”

“Girl from her team swiped her right out from under my nose. I’m not feeling snubbed at all, though.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Not like Susu to flake.”

“Eh. This girl had an incident, needs to take the rest of the semester off and is going to be out of state starting tomorrow. Sooyeon wasn’t going to get another opportunity to see her until next semester. It’s fine. I had the luxury of letting Zach talk my ear off while Andrea whined, and now I get to eat all these fries myself.”

I folded my arms. “After how much you’ve sabotaged my blossoming relationship, you think you’d have some shame.”

That got a laugh out of her. “Shouldn’t be saying that in front of your boyfriend, Sunburns.”

“It’s fine,” Matthew said. “Tragic love story, you know? It’s precisely because I love her so much that I have to let Primrose go. Go embrace her newfound lesbianism.”

Ava kneecapped the poor man with a deadpan, “Anything is a tragic love story with you involved, Matthew.”

I leaned over the edge of the couch towards her. “What was Zaxophone complaining about now?”

Ava looked away. “Hell if I know… I was only half-listening. Had a get-together with him and Andi, Randall, Ethan, Tan.”

“I’d kind of started to think Ethan was dead.”

“Yeah, Zachary dragged him out of his dorm to participate. It was just arguing all around. Think Zach’s little project isn’t going as he wants.”

I frowned. “That’s fun…”

“Make sure he doesn’t get his hands on you anytime soon,” she said, turning back to get up on her tiptoes reaching the bottom shelf of the cupboard for a plate. “Probably going to take things out on you. You know how he’s been about you recently.”

“Yeah. I know.” My voice came out more clipped than I meant to, and it was with a sinking feeling that I pulled my phone from my back pocket, somehow already knowing before I looked. A message from ten minutes ago, probably right after his meeting with Ava, Zachary Cohn’s name across my screen.

Let’s meet up at Lighthouse. Want to chat with you about something.

∞∞∞

They kept the music low at Lighthouse, jazz playing over the speakers as I pushed into the doors and hurried across the low-lit hardwood floor to where Zachary sat at the far end of the bar, perched on a red leather stool with one leg up in a figure-four. I slid in next to him, and he signaled to where Yun was cleaning the taps, holding up three fingers. Yun nodded, ducking under the bar, and I gave Zachary a look.

“Not drinking tonight, Zax. Early morning tomorrow to catch the target.”

“Easy.” He dropped his feet to the crossbar on his stool, turning to face me. “Little chat about the case.”

I sighed. I had a knot forming in my throat, but couldn’t choke now. “What’s the sitch?”

“Target’s family. Need something good.”

“Already told me you want me spying on the target. Ready to tell me what I’m looking for?”

“Dirt. Something good. Something pricy.”

I gave him a dirty look. “Blackmail on the family? Who you selling to?”

“Someone Tan pissed off. Means I need something even more valuable if I’m getting what I want.”

I sighed. “All right, all right… anything we’re looking for? Need more info.”

Yun sat down a Moscow Mule in front of me, giving me a quiet nod. I didn’t love it—guy had the emotional range of a stone statue, a tall and well-built Chinese man in his senior year, and being the one who worked at the unofficial campus bar, the tank of a man had perfected the art of quietly observing everything, picking up everything. That nod was the most emotion he ever gave anyone—that was his sorry for what’s about to happen. Guess Kittycat wasn’t the only one getting shit today. I sipped the drink.

Zachary turned back to his Old Fashioned, taking a big sip and setting it down hard. “Fine, I’ll talk. Just keep your mouth shut about it.”

“Zax, you know I don’t blab.”

“Courting the Kent family. Finance assholes.”

“Lawson’s competition.”

“Right. I’d been making progress with Ross Kent, business frontman. Could have been an in for some real good fucking business. And Tan royally fucked up the whole thing. Had the guy with me at a meeting, asshole stuck his foot in his mouth and pissed off Ross. I’m playing from behind trying to catch up the lost favor.”

I sighed hard, folding my arms on the bar and looking down into the ice cubes drifting into each other in my drink. “Thought you’d win him over with some juicy intel on his rival. And now you don’t know if he’s even going to hear you out.”

“Gonna need something he can’t possibly ignore, Prim. And I don’t want this one fucked up too.”

I winced. “I know what I’m doing, dude. Ease off. Progress with the target’s been solid.”

“Said the same thing about Joshua Miller.”

I didn’t want to know what Tan did to piss the guy off this bad. Just hearing Joshua’s name made my stomach turn. “Don’t give me shit, Zach. You offered me a deal. I give you Giselle’s dirt and we forget Chris Torres.”

Fucked it up. Zach shot me a dirty look. “I’m sure you’d love to forget him.”

“I mean forget the situation. You know what—”

“You’re a sociopath, Primrose.”

I steadied my hand on the mug, holding it up and looking at my reflection distorted in the copper before I sipped it, setting it down hard. “Pretty sure that’s what got me the job,” I said, keeping my voice light. Mostly light.

“Doesn’t sound like how you fucked up the Joshua case. You liked the guy. Didn’t stab him, and now Chris is out. We getting the same thing with Lawson?”

“Fuck you, Zach.” I blurted it out at a low murmur before I could stop myself. I looked away. “You want me to do my job right, keep your nose out. Unless you want to look me in the eye and tell me you’ve never made a mistake?”

“I’m not hearing you say no. Time for the Primrose Carter greatest-hits rerun?”

“Time for you to shove off and let me do my work.” I held my mug in both hands, keeping my gaze on it, because otherwise I’d lose my shit on him. Or cry. That’d be worse. “You keep upping the ask. Already going out of my way to hit her hard, and like I said, I’m not a fucking lesbian. Then grabbing dirt? Teaching Matt? Then making it such good intel it does your job with Ross for you?”

Guess I went too far, because he set his glass down with a thud and turned back to me, eyes dark. “You should be thanking me that we didn’t throw you right out of FIRE. You know the rule. You touch FIRE, you get burned.”

“I’m not spending forever groveling—”

“Nobody else gets a second chance. Nobody else gets me covering their ass and hiding the truth of how they fucked up. You give me the slightest reason to doubt that second chance, and you’re done for.”

I sucked in a shaking breath, looking away. He was pissed off at Tan, not me. He was pissed off at Ross Kent, not me. Knowing the guy, he was probably just pissed off at himself, not me. Not me.

One more second living in debt and I’d fucking break.

“I want your word you aren’t going to drop the ball on Lawson,” he said. I kept my back to him.

“Why this? Why now?”

“Damn easy to just say yes, Prim.”

“I’ve done your dirty work a dozen times since Joshua. Something you aren’t telling me about this one that means you need to jump down my throat?”

“Yes or no, Primrose? Are you going to do this right?”

“Yes, I’m doing it right.” I whirled back on him, which was a mistake—that dark, cold look in his eyes, it was like he was looking at a stranger. At an object. Something thick and heavy welled up in my throat, and my voice came out strangled, choked. “I know how to do my fucking job, asshole.”

“Having a breakdown on me isn’t telling me you’ll keep cool with Lawson.”

“Fuck you.” I stood up, my feet moving for me, and I downed the rest of my drink, hoping it might quell this sick feeling in my stomach. Yun glanced at me, and he gave me a sympathetic tilt of his head down, but I didn’t fucking need it right now. I didn’t need sympathy.

“Easy you don’t start bawling there,” Zachary called after me, and I couldn’t even find it in me for a retort—I ducked my head, hunched my shoulders, bolted for the door, and I didn’t look back.