Chapter Nine ~ Beanz

Here's a weekend update!! Thank you to 1000littledevils for the cover above, it looks soo good 😭

And thank you to HGmockingjay50012 for starting the Felix wink count that we all needed:

On Monday morning, I was late for class. Again. I'd slept through my alarm and my roommate had been using the bathroom, I'd barely had time to shove on my clothes, let alone anything remotely coordinated. I splashed out on an Uber to class, my newly found income giving me the luxury of riding in peace while I freaked out about seeing Felix. I felt like I was in high school again, back before I'd experienced the worst of what the dating life my boujee preparatory school had to offer. It was a nervous excitement that gave me stomach cramps and made my cheeks hot.

When I entered class, I sat in the corner of the room, hoping to go undetected by my rude intrusion. I don't know how they did it—came in late every day. I could hear murmurs from the back row, and when I turned I saw Jada and Cole having a muttered conversation. I locked eyes with Felix and he smiled.

At the end of class, I lingered in my seat, adding some extra notes from the lecture's content and waiting—hoping—to have aroused Felix's attention. Part of me was desperate to know what he thought of Friday night, and whether he was as into me now as he had seemed then.

"Hey, Josie," I heard, triggering me to shut my notebook and flash Felix a smile.

"Hey," I said, picking up my bag and slinging it over my shoulder.

"You know how I said I thought I recognized you before?"

I froze, any excitement I had for his attention dissolving into fear.

"Oh, yeah," I said, avoiding his eyes. We were walking out of the hall now, trailing behind his friends.

"I think I figured it out," he said. "The band competition, in Darien back in eighth grade. The saxophone player from Rhodes Prep."

"Have I told you you're creepy before?" I asked, my face definitely bright red by now.

"Yes. You're mistaking my exceptional memory and polite interest in you for malicious intent. Relax, Josie."

I rolled my eyes. I guess it didn't matter that he knew me from middle school. Back then, I was someone completely different. I was anything but the nobody I was now. It made me uncomfortable, that he had an insight into my past that I had no control over. I had done so much to cover it up.

"Your school won. I had a conspiracy theory that they bribed the judges, but that was just me."

I shrugged. "That's valid."

"Anyway, what are you doing this afternoon?"

I hesitated in the hallway. I usually spent my free time in the library, making sure my grades were high enough to continue my tuition scholarship. "Um, study, I guess."

"Want to come to Beanz with us?"

Beanz was a popular college café-come bar. They did a remarkable job at switching between being a day time lunch stop upstairs to a lively and somewhat trashy club come dark downstairs.

"Okay," I said, knowing it would go directly against Penelope's orders to decline.

Felix seemed smug with my agreement as we walked behind the others. "I can promise at least some study will get done. We still haven't started the research assignment."

"Oh," I said, frowning. "Isn't that due—"

"Tomorrow?" he laughed nervously. "Yeah."

The others seemed enthusiastic by my presence as we filed into a booth at Beanz. We ordered coffees and fries and pulled out textbooks. I was sitting in the crook of the seat, my knee against Felix's.

"I heard you guys hung out on the weekend," Jada said, her words pulling me from the fringe of the friend group to the center of attention.

"Did Felix wine and dine?" Cole asked. His first words to me. Instead of fearing that he'd see right through me, I straightened in my seat and matched his curious gaze.

"He did his best," I said. I looked to Felix with a wry smile. It should have been harder to fake fondness, but there was a sudden dose of euphoria at the thought of flirting with him in front of his friends.

"Hey, I did so good. She's down playing it. It was amazing," he said.

Jada raised her brow in a knowing way, and I went back to filtering through annual reports on my laptop. Studying a business degree had been somewhat impulsive. I was inspired by the idea that if I got into business, maybe I could run my own. Maybe growing up in my family, where business and money was our lifeblood—the means by which we showed supposed love—made me feel like I had something to prove.

I didn't have to ask to know why they all studied business degrees. I already knew from what Penelope said that it was a last resort for Jada, and likely for Felix it was the same. It wasn't hard to see that they didn't quite fit. In another world, Felix might have been some sort of designer or photographer. Maybe it was a desire to climb the ranks, to follow family legacies. As for Cole and Poppy, considering Cole's relationship with Penelope, I was sure they were in the one-percent. It didn't make complete sense for them to be at a second-grade college. They should have been at Ivy-leagues, like Sebastian.

"I'm thinking a beach house trip on Friday," Poppy said to Jada across the table. I pretended to enter numbers into tables, minding my own business.

"To celebrate handing this shit in? Yes please," Jada replied through a pen lodged between her teeth.

"We could leave after class on Friday?" Cole said. "Stop by Mom and Dad's, take the keys and a shit-load of drinks. Erase it from our memories."

"Sometimes I wonder if you can read my mind," Poppy said mockingly.

"Aw, just twin things," Felix said, again distracted from his work. "Let's do it."

"Want to come, Josie?" Cole asked. I looked up from my work, caught off-guard that he was addressing me directly.

"Um, this weekend?"

I was supposed to be going to Sebastian's for dinner. I looked to Felix, who's only response was to give me a freaking wink. Did he ever get sick of that?

Of course, like with everything I'd agreed to so far, like the party and the date, I knew I had to agree for Penelope.

"Yeah sure," I said nonchalantly, returning to my work. I didn't want to reveal what I was really thinking. The idea of being detected was becoming frightening for a whole new stack of reasons. It wasn't just the money now. Felix would really despise me if he knew I was using him to spy on his friend.

I felt Felix's hand reach beneath the table to squeeze my knee and I tensed.

"It'll be fun," he said. "Like a mini-holiday. The beach house is so cool."

I could imagine. I gave him a tight smile. "It sounds really exciting."

"I'm going away with them on Friday," I said as soon as Penelope had answered my call. "To Cole and Poppy's beach house."

"Wait, really?" I could hear the surprise in her voice. "Why would they invite you?"

"I went on that date with Felix, remember?"

"Yeah, Felix wants to sleep with you, but why would they invite you there? That's something we always did together. The five of us."

"Um, I don't know, I was just there when they brought it up, I guess."

Penelope hesitated for a long time. "I should come home. Damn it, I have a shoot in Dubai... Ugh. I should call him. Why would they invite you? It doesn't make any sense."

I waited for her to gather herself. She sounded pissed.

"Okay, no, this could be a good thing. But I want a big report. I need something, Joselyn, you haven't given me anything worthwhile since I started paying you."

I grimaced, picking at a thread in my jeans and staring out my bedside window at the trash in the alley below. "I know. It's been hard to get close enough. But I will. I promise."

"It's my birthday soon," Penelope said quickly. "I want a party, a big one. I'm going to come home and throw a ball. It's going to be the biggest party you could imagine, it's going to be insane."

"Do you think... that'll give you insight into what Cole's been doing?" I asked, confused at her reasoning.

"No, it'll just remind him who I am," she said sharply. "Who we're supposed to be. All of us."

"Your friends?" I asked, confused.

"Uh-huh. I need to go to breakfast now, but be careful. Remember why you're there—don't be fooled by Felix. He has a way with girls and you can't be one of them. Not while I'm paying you."

"Okay," I said... I guess it wouldn't be a good idea to bring up the kiss. Or to even keep thinking about the kiss, like I had been all afternoon with him next to me, with his knee resting against mine and his gaze catching mine at every opportunity.

In my sleep, I had a nightmare. I used to have them continuously before I moved out, and they never got better, no matter how many times I lived through them. A weight around my neck, a chain at my feet and the promise me and Sebastian would never see each other again. It was like I was walking a tightrope, one wrong word, one wrong grade, one mistake that could ruin our family's reputation and I'd fall.

And I always fell. Just before I hit the ground I'd wake, my pillow soaked and my throat wadded with sobs. I pulled my blanket to my chest and cried, the memories hitting me harder than ever before. I'd gone so long—months—since I'd faced it.

I'd already experienced the worst, after all. I'd felt the fall in real life.

I reminded myself I'd thrown it away. The yellow envelope couldn't haunt me, now. But, Mom still terrified me. Both of my parents did, even when I robbed them of all power over me, the memory of living with them alone was enough to haunt me.

"I'm free," I whispered into the dark, trying my best to remind myself. I was determined enough to have escaped them. To have escaped the Crawford name and every piece of torment that came with it.

But, the contents of that envelope had told me I was anything but.