Page 66 of Cocky Brutal Sinner

“But…” Eden prompts.

“But they did.” I sigh. “I know. I almost ruined their relationships, and the guilt made me pump the breaks on Peppermint. Honestly, I’ve been thinking about what it would feel like to just stop. Part of me would be relieved, but part of me still needs Peppermint. I don’t want to feel powerless again. I know, it’s not a good excuse—it’s just what I feel.”

“So, what are you going to do?” Eden asks. “Beau knows. James knows. Eventually, the other guys are going to get there, too.”

I plop my head back against the couch. “I have no idea.”

Maybe I should confess before everyone finds out. Maybe the initiative would help them forgive me. I could also just let Peppermint die. Stop writing and hope that Luke’s investigation doesn’t go anywhere. Neither answer feels exactly right.

For years, I was the one controlling the narrative. Peppermint let me write it and shape it however I wanted, hiding behind a fake name. Now, though, the narrative is writing itself. I’m just a character in it. Someone else gets to decide my ending.

I look glumly down at my empty cup.

“Should I make more tea?” Eden asks.

“Something stronger, I think. Whiskey, or arsenic.” She laughs and I lay my head against her shoulder. “Thanks for not immediately telling me that I’m an asshole for doing this.”

“I know you, Brin. You’re hard enough on yourself, and I don’t need to make that any worse.” Eden pulls a bag of Swedish fish out of her hoodie pocket and offers them wordlessly. Grateful, I grab a few. “So you don’t know how Beau feels about Peppermint?”

“I doubt he’s happy about it,” I say through a mouthful of gummies. “I mean, I wrote about him and his best friends for years. He was probably about to dump me when I ran.”

“Maybe, maybe not. What exactly did he say about the whole Never Have I Ever disaster?”

I shrug. “He tried to explain his side, but I just don’t want to hear it. He can deny his involvement all he wants. It doesn’t change the fact that he was there, and he didn’t stop it. At the end of the day, he’s more loyal to them than he is to me.”

“I don’t know about that. He kept your Peppermint secret even when it put him at risk. That’s not nothing, Brin.”

I shove another Swedish fish in my mouth so I don’t have to respond. I’m not ready to think about what it means that Beau might have finally put me first. Because if he’s really choosing me, that means we’ll have to bring our relationship out of the darkness and into the sun, where the whole world will be ready to rip it to shreds.

Especially the people I’ve primed to hate me by publishing their innermost secrets. If karma does exist, and part of me feels very sure that it does, then the pain I made Maura, Cat, and Pippa feel will come back to me. Maybe they’ll understand, though. James, Beau, and Eden all did.

Underneath everything, I’m still just the girl sobbing on the bedroom floor while she shreds pages from her diary. I built Peppermint to protect that girl. But somewhere along the way, Peppermint stopped being a shield and started being a weapon, and I wasn’t careful enough about who I aimed it at.

23

BEAU

Chop. Chop. Slice. Chop. Chop. Slice.

My knife moves automatically over the salmon I’m prepping for tonight’s special at Terrace. It’s the perfect task to take my mind off everything—repetitive enough to disappear into the movement, but requiring enough focus that my circling thoughts don’t have time to penetrate my brain. Forget the fact that I’m paying Oliver to prep this salmon. I just need the distraction.

The Peppermint investigation is moving faster than I can fuck it up. Nate’s PI found garbled IP information on a few posts that let him narrow the suspect pool from a 30-block radius to a 15 block one. By tracing the patterns on Peppermint’s earlier posts, Ryan was able to rule out a bunch of the staff at Sequel. Luke digests all the new information ravenously, coming up with new theories every day. I try to encourage his wilder ideas and nudge him away from focusing on people who majored in English in college.

I can only do so much, though. At our last poker night, Luke floated the idea of writing in a juicy false tip to Peppermint to see if they’d bite.

“Too transparent,” I scoffed. “Peppermint will know it’s us. They must know we’re looking by now.”

“It’s worth a shot,” Luke insisted. “It costs us nothing, and Peppermint might just slip up.”

“It would tell them we’re getting desperate.”

“So?” Ryan said. “We have the power here. Peppermint already gave us all the ammunition we need to catch them.”

“So why are we looking for more, then?”

“Because more information is helpful! Why are you so against this?” Luke’s eyes were too perceptive—too suspicious. I forced myself to shrug nonchalantly.

“I’m overthinking it, I guess. Send the tip. Tell them Ryan’s pregnant.”