Page 127 of Rules, Roses, and Rivals
FRANKIE
It started with a ping.
Just one. A notification on my phone from a group chat I usually kept on mute. Then another. And another. Within thirty seconds, my phone was buzzing like it was having a seizure.
I glanced at the screen.
“WTF IS THIS???”
“Did you see Coop??”
“Frankie... girl... you might wanna sit down.”
I didn’t sit down. I opened Post-it-gram. Mistake number one.
The first clip autoplayed without mercy—blurry at first, then sharp enough to make my stomach drop. A video. Bubba. Shirtless. Sweat-slicked. Grinding against some random girl in what looked like the pool house living room while Jake egged him on in the background. Someone had added slow-mo. And a neon caption that read:
“SUMMER SLUT BOYZ 2025 ”
I blinked. Hit pause. Tried to breathe.
Mistake number two? Checking the comments.
“Who knew golden boy Coop had a freaky side?”
“Is that Bubba in the hot tub with two girls? Omg.”
“Wait… IS THAT ARCHIE??”
My thumb hovered over another video. I didn’t want to look. But I did. Of course I did.
This one had all four of them—Jake with a bottle in one hand, pants suspiciously low; Bubba holding a phone and narrating while Coop and Archie—Archie—made out with girls in a club like they were in some kind of contest. There were flashes of skin. Moaning. A suspiciously familiar game room. It kept going. Longer than I wanted. Definitely not accidental. These were saved, curated, deliberate.
I backed out of the app. But it was too late. My pulse was already pounding in my ears.
I felt… sick. Betrayed. But mostly? Just upset. Because their summer of “missing me” had also been a part of these “legendary sexcapades” apparently. Bile burned in the back of my throat. It wasn’tnewsto me. I had been blocking some of these parts out, but I had gone to Bubba’s birthday “party” and sex had been in the air that night.
So, not surprising that it had been there all summer. I wasn’t a total idiot. I should’ve stopped watching—but curiosity and anger kept my fingers moving. The next video showed Bubba in a pool, hands everywhere, tongue somewhere it definitely shouldn’t have been, while someone—maybe the girl who leaked all of this—zoomed in and whispered,
“Frankie’s gonna love this one.”
Like it was a joke. LikeIwas a joke.
I didn’t realize I was shaking until my phone slipped out of my hands and hit the bed.
I sat there, breathing hard, trying not to cry. Not because they had been wild or reckless or even gross—but because not one of them had thought for a second what this would look like. What it would feel like. For me.
This wasn’t just about bad decisions or hot hookups. This was about the lines they crossed, the little lies they told me, told themselves, and then wrapped in charm to hand out like candy.
I was the one they wanted, but they had definitely not gone without. My heart kicked so hard at my ribs, it felt like they would crack. I had no idea which of the girls posted this, the “original” post was already down, but screenshots and screenrecordings were forever.
My phone began to vibrate again, but this time, I didn’t dare look. Not yet. I still had to get to?—
A knock on the bedroom door had me staring at it, almost owl-eyed. It wasn’t even nine yet. I had to be at work in a couple of hours, and I’d gone back to bed after feeding the cats that morning cause I wanted the extra sleep.
Another knock.
Shaking off the distraction, I clicked the side button to shut off the screen and pushed out from under the covers. “Come in.”
