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)
I was a little bummed I wasn’t invited to the staff outing. Now I’m flying on cloud nine for dodging food poisoning. Since the club is short-staffed, Jake has been the fill-in bartender. Only there’s just one guest on this cloudy fall afternoon.
Carla Evans sips on her mojito and reads a book on an e-reader at the edge of the pool.
She’s way out of earshot unless she has bionic hearing like Wonder Woman. Wait . . . does Wonder Woman have bionic hearing? I file that question away to ask Nova later.
I tell Jake, “Yes, I would like to break up with you and end our fake relationship.”
“It’s only been a month.” He frowns deeper and wipes some martini glasses with a rag. “You’re supposed to have dinner with my parents the second weekend of November.”
Ah, the reinstated Waterford family dinner. Not high on my to-do list.
But Jake reminds me, “Breaking up with me before then won’t win you points with my mom.”
“Right,” I say. “So you should probably break up with me.”
He shakes his head vigorously. “No, she’ll love that.”
“One of us is going to lose out on this scheme.”
Skin pleats between his brows. I’ve been getting used to Jake’s thinking-too-hard face. “Why do you want to break up, anyway? Is this about Rocky?”
Hearing his name causes a thousand butterflies to flap their annoying wings in my stomach. “It’s about me,” I say, not wanting this to be the way I profess my first real relationship. “And I’m just done lying.”
That feels right.
It feels . . . good?
Jake thinks this over. “Yeah, I get that. Lies can weigh on you.” He watches me, and I bet he’s waiting to see if I react suspiciously. To see if Rocky confessed about his own con.
I tilt my head. “You say that like you have experience in lying.”
He pauses. I make zero show of playing dumb. His eyes flash hot. “Rocky told you.”
“We don’t keep secrets from each other.”
He curses him out under his breath, and then his worried gaze veers to me. “Phoebe.”
“Your secret is safe with me,” I assure him.
Jake lets out a long, agonized groan, my words not offering an ounce of comfort to him.
“I think it’s sweet what you did for her,” I tell him. “Really.”
His squared shoulders begin to unbind a little. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“We can break up,” he confirms, though the idea looks painful for him. He was not expecting this so soon, that’s for sure. “At the pool party on Thursday.”
He means on Halloween. I’ll be serving at the country club on my favorite day of the year. I would be more bummed, but I’m used to being preoccupied with a job during nearly every holiday.
“I’ll pencil it in.” I smile over at him. “It’ll be the most epic breakup of your life. You’ll remember it forever.”
He groans even harder. “Let’s not take it to the extreme, okay? For your sake and mine.” I try not to hang on to the foreboding tone of his voice.
Forty
Rocky
I have a front row seat to the breakup of the year. I’ve positioned myself at the poolside bar; black streamers and a cocktail list of only dark-colored spirits outfit the event tonight.
“It’s a farewell of sorts,” Valentina explained to me this morning when I ran into her at the tennis courts. “The club closes the pool on October thirty-first every year, and it’s the official last night members can use it. Oh, and you must wear black.”
So they’re holding a funeral for a pool that will be risen from the dead next spring.
It’s one of the silliest excuses I’ve heard to throw a party.
But I’m not complaining that hard. The death of one annoying fake relationship happens tonight. And that’s good enough to celebrate.
This event is a favorite with caufers (still hate it). College students mingle in Gothic dresses and tuxes, and the ones wearing swimsuits soak in the heated waters, illuminated with orange lights tonight. Fog and steam skim the surface of the pool.
Since the club has been short-staffed for Halloween, Jake is swamped behind the bar, and Phoebe and Hailey are busy scrambling to take orders at a packed iron table at the end of the pool.
I wave down the second bartender, a girl with a streak of white in the front of her hair. She looks like Rogue from X-Men, and thanks to Nova’s raging hard-on for the superhero, I unfortunately have that fun fact stored in my head. I wouldn’t be surprised if he spent his teenage years jerking off to the cartoon.
I flag Lola down. She’s rarely ever bartending when I’m at the club, so I only know of her.
She stops near me. “Grey, right? I’m Lola.”
“Nice to meet you, Lola.”
“What would you like?” She splays her palms on the bar with a flirty smile.
“Margarita.”
She grabs a glass from underneath the bar. “I’ll have to put activated charcoal in it to make it black. That okay?”