Page 152 of Sinful Like Us
Shit.
Is this a deal-breaker question? Will my answer put a chink in our relationship? And I wonder if that’s the purpose of these cards: to make sure I’m the perfect man for Jane.
I go cold. Colder than the already frigid-ass room.
Jane shifts her weight uneasily.
She can’t read me.I’m suddenly a fortress unwilling to be unlocked, and I’m aware that’s the opposite intent of Truth or Dare.
Jane addresses her brother, “I haven’t seen any of the tapes. Nor do I ever want to.”
Charlie cocks his head. “You never stumbled on one?”
She gapes. “Haveyou?”
“A thumbnail,” Charlie admits. “I didn’t click into it. I’m not that much of a fucking masochist.”
I’m not either, but things were different when I was a teenager.
I didn’t know the Hales, Meadows, and Cobalts.
I didn’t knowher.
Charlie sizes me up. “And?”
Jane frowns. “Thatcher?”
“I didn’t go looking for it,” I explain, my voice void of emotion. “Guys in my unit were playing a clip. I saw maybe three minutes.” I can barely even remember the images in my head. It was just another porno that my platoon laughed at or jerked off to. It didn’t mean anything then.
Her jaw is unhinged. Completely fuckingshocked.“You didn’t…”
“I did,” I say again.
“Oh my God.” She cringes, fingers steepled to her lips. “You’ve seen my parents having sex.”
I grimace. “Yeah.”
I think she already believed I’dneverwatch one of their porn tapes. Because the man I am now wouldnever.But I was eighteen. I was just a kid, and I didn’t know then what I know now.
“You didn’t look away?” she asks, confusion and hurt cinching her eyes.
I’m hurting her, and it’s like stepping across broken glass, rolling around in it, willfully slicing and tearing apart my flesh.
“I didn’t look away,” I confirm. “I was eighteen. Back then, it was just porn to me.”
Deep wrinkles crease her forehead in a frown, and she shakes her head. “But you knew how their sex tapes came about. They didn’t consent to have them taken. They were illegally filmed andleakedonline.”
My throat feels like sandpaper. “I didn’t know that until I started working for your families. Honestly, I didn’t know much about your parents except the basics.”
She’s quiet, and I think she’s just in her head.
But goddammit, I feel like I’m fucking this up. So I fight to say more. “It probably seems like common sense—that if someone knows about those sex tapes, they must know how they originated. But the un-fucking-fortunate truth is, people didn’t care about those details enough to share them.”
Charlie plays a dramatic song on the piano while eyeing me. Having a third-party witnessing my inability to speak is just the cherry on top of this shit pie.
Jane lets out a breath, shoulders dropping. “I understand.” She nods. “It’d be wildly self-absorbed to think that everyone knows every little thing about my family. Most people aren’t doing deep-dive wiki searches on Rose and Connor Cobalt.” She nods again, certain about this.
“Did you get off on it?” Charlie suddenly asks.
