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)
Phoebe Graves grew up in a family where deception and seduction are as commonplace as breathing. The Graves and her best friend Hailey’s family have been on the run their whole lives, but after a high-stakes con job goes south, Phoebe and Hailey decide to run away and start over. The small Connecticut town they settle in seems too good to be true.
The biggest flaw in their plan is Hailey’s frustratingly handsome brother, Rocky, who insists on coming with them. Living honestly isn’t in his DNA, and his past with Phoebe is downright messy. He’s everything she wants, but nothing she can have.
Phoebe worries that Rocky will tempt them back into their old ways, where lying is second nature. She doesn’t want Rocky to mess up the new life she’s begun for herself. The longer she stays in town, the more she realizes what it means to have a reputation—and what a normal life with the man she loves could look like.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
One
Phoebe
People say you choose your friends, but my friendship with Hailey Tinrock never felt like a choice. We clung to each other because we were told to, and then it became survival. And now—together—we’re leaving our families behind.
At midnight, the motel room stinks of stale cigarettes and a microwaved burrito from its previous resident. Yellowed stains bleed into the cement walls and ceiling tiles. Five-star accommodations right here. Luxurious.
It’s definitely not the Ritz-Carlton, and I’ve already become a roach murderer. I’ve counted four cockroaches so far, killed three with a rolled Forbes magazine that Hailey had been flipping through. She ripped off the cover with the roach juice to keep reading. I watch as the last one skitters into an air vent. It was smart to run away from us.
He knew what was coming.
As I plop down on the lumpy mattress, it lets out a warning screech but supports my weight enough. I appraise a box of poison—sorry, I mean hair dye. My scalp burns like I scrubbed it with sriracha and chile flakes.
“It says to wait thirty minutes,” Hailey tells me, sitting cross-legged on the disgusting plaid chair in the corner. Her wet hair hides underneath a plastic cap, the color processing. She’s wearing only an oversized black tee that says hexes on my exes, knee-high socks, and jet-black lipstick.
I’m not shocked she’s painting her nails the same inky color.
Hailey dresses like she’s someone who could stab you while she’s sucking on a cigarette, but her favorite movie is about sisters working at a small-town pizza joint and falling in love so, so slowly. I can’t sit through ten minutes of Mystic Pizza, and Hailey watches it every weekend like it’s her bible.
She also has zero exes to hex. Just a laundry list of one-night stands and short-term flings. Our lifestyles aren’t compatible with long-term relationships.
At least not real ones.
Hailey doesn’t recheck the instructions on the hair dye box. I trust that she remembered the info on the first read through. Photographic memory and all.
I’d be envious if she weren’t my best friend and didn’t use her beautiful brain to bail me out of a million and one tragic scenarios.
“Are we sure they didn’t make this stuff out of jalapeño paste?” I force myself not to itch, but yeah, I kinda scratch and wince. No self-control. “It feels like fire ants are exploding on my head. I’ve never even heard of this brand.” I rotate the box to stare at the front. “Vivid Value Color. What’s our plan B if our hair starts falling out again?”
“We shave our heads,” Hailey says, like it’s the obvious solution. She blows on her wet nails, and I try not to mourn my hair. Would I actually shave it?
Yes, I’m all-in with her.
Would I tear up?
One hundred percent.
Would she?
Probably not, considering she shaved her head when she was sixteen. Now that she’s twenty-four, it’s regularly chopped at her shoulders in an edgy cut.
At the moment, I’m restraining myself from doing a full-fingernailed scalp massage. Do not.
She can see my struggle. “We didn’t have much to choose from at the gas station, Phebs.”
“I know.” I sigh, trying not to complain. We might be the same age and she might be the one figuratively behind the wheel, but I’m the one dead set on protecting us and keeping us from struggling.
When Hailey came up with this idea in Carlsbad, we had just trekked away from a multimillion-dollar beach house in the pouring rain. All façades dropped—we didn’t call for our personal driver in his Bentley to take us “home.”
We just slipped out. Without splendor or attention.
Almost like we never arrived.
It’d been a little past one a.m.—you don’t forget things like time when it’s one of those days that stay with you. Or in this case, one of those nights. After a long, barefoot trek with our heels in our hands, we sat at a bus stop, thinking we could escape the rain while we waited.
We didn’t.
Carlsbad’s bus stops have fancy white pergolas as roofs. So rain slipped through the slats of wood and wet our hair and our flowery Oscar de la Renta dresses we just purchased this summer. Her dress was embroidered with poisonous white oleanders. Mine was threaded with delicate pink tulips.
Hailey was silently crying. I could tell, even in the storm. She’s an ugly crier when it’s not faked. Her whole face was scrunched, and her reddened eyes looked touched by the salt of her emotion, not the sky.
Dark mascara streamed down her cheeks, and I clasped her hand tighter while my knees jostled. From the cold, I wanted to believe.
I was just cold from the rain.
“Phoebe,” Hailey choked out. “I-I don’t think we should do this again.” She tried to catch my gaze.
But I stared at my lap. My dress was riding up, and a trickle of blood on my thigh became exposed to the elements. The rain washed away the crimson streak in a blink.