Krista & Becca Ritchie - Main Bonus #96: Silly Stringing Beckett's Bedroom (Ben)

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RESOURCES:  Check out this narrative timeline graphic to visually see when this bonus scene takes place.

MUSIC: We listened to "Staying Still" by Noah Kahan while writing this bonus scene.

SPOILER WARNING: This bonus scene takes place during SILVER SWEET and we highly recommend reading the book before reading this bonus. You will get spoiled.

I DON’T HANG UP on Harriet. I always let her hang up on me.

When I get off the phone with my girlfriend, I try not to guess what’s going on. I’m not that far from the high-rise, and she said she’d tell me when I get there.

All I know is she mentioned doing something “dumb” tonight.

She’s okay. She said she’s okay, and there is a chance Harriet is downplaying it—but I think she’d want to stay on the phone longer with me if things were really bad.

I was honest with her. I’m okay…better than I was hours ago. My eyes feel raw and sore. Swallowing still hurts. Not because I yelled at the top of my lungs, but because so much emotion balled up against my esophagus. Speaking hurt.

Trying to tell Audrey how I felt hurt.

Everything fucking hurt.

A top ten worst Wednesday Night Dinner. I’m riding back from the Cobalt Estate with Eliot, Beckett, and Charlie. The car is nearly silent. I hear the hum of tires along the road, and I straighten my spine against the leather seat.

Tom took our SUV back when he was caught cheating on the trivia portion of dinner, so we’re headed home in our dad’s old, refurbished limo. Most of us wore casual clothes tonight, but Eliot changed out of his velvet doublet and linen shirt that he had on at dinner.

Now in a pressed white button-down, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, he’s sprawled out on the seat beside me with his hands behind his head, like he’s lounging in a sunny field and staring at the clouds in the sky.

I wonder what he’s thinking as his deep blue eyes stay fixed on the car ceiling. He looks relaxed, unburdened, like everything between all of us will be okay. Like we didn’t just fracture tonight. Like Tom and him didn’t just have one of the most heated arguments they’ve ever had. Definitely that I’ve ever seen, and I ran out and missed half of it.

Eliot and Tom don’t fight each other. Even if they disagree, they somehow still find common ground and stability and solidarity. Where things ended tonight was not fucking stable.

Everything changes.

Nothing stays the same. We evolve, but I don’t want this evolution of my brothers and of me to splinter all of us.

I shut my eyes and try to ignore the voice that says, It’s your fault. All the seemingly sound logic in my brain says, Yeah, it is. I am the root cause here.

I know I am.

Maybe if I didn’t panic about Audrey’s news, Tom wouldn’t have taken my side.

I hate how much I like that he did.

I hate how good it felt to have Tom stick up for me. Even if it meant he combatted Eliot and made Audrey feel worse.

I hate loving how close we’ve gotten being roommates. How he shares his life with me at two a.m. when his thoughts keep him up and he needs to let them out. I’ve always known Tom—I know my brothers. But I know so much more about him now than I ever have.

Because I’ve been here.

My eyes sting.

I just hate feeling like I could be a wedge between two of my brothers.

I hate the feeling of hating anything at all.

So much guilt piles up regarding Audrey and my reaction to her news and my true feelings that are unkind and unfair to her. Each mile from Philly to New York, it becomes more strenuous to breathe, but I’m okay. I’m okay.

I’m not having a panic attack like I did at dinner.

I’ve calmed down significantly. Gratitude goes to Beckett. He’d followed me out of the dining room with our dad, and I made it to the humongous kitchen before I couldn’t move any farther. I could barely hear Chef Michael’s concern in the background asking my dad something, probably about me. My family’s private chef was likely preparing dessert—I don’t remember. I could barely see in front of me, let alone what food or pots and pans he had out.

I was gasping for air. I’d dropped to my knees. My fingers clawed at my MVU Thrashers shirt, same one I wear now in the car.

Audrey is going to college so much earlier.

She’s going to be on campus with me.

She’s going to live with us.

How can I protect her? I couldn’t protect her when she wasn’t even enrolled. The frat. She almost died. She could die.

Beckett squatted down in front of me. He held the side of my face with a mixture of soft comfort and unyielding strength. “Listen to me. Breathe. Breathe. Look at me, Pip.”

I thrust myself out of my brain, and I stared into Beckett’s piercing yellow-green eyes, into his understanding that’d made more sense to me these past six months. This year was supposed to be better than last.

I was making it fucking worse. I’d just made everything worse.

“Nothing is going to be decided tonight, this minute,” Beckett reassured, keeping his gaze locked on mine. “We don’t have to solve anything that hasn’t happened yet. She’s not even moving in tomorrow. It’s only May. We have the rest of the year to figure this out together. You know how much time that is?”

A glassy sheen of tears clouded my eyes, and I blinked once, letting Beckett catch the tears against his palm that never moved from my face.

We.

Everything was we to Beckett. My mental battle, we. He wasn’t going to abandon me to defeat this on my own when I barely had the tools to handle these situations. He’s dealt with OCD since he was a kid.

I just learned I have OCD six months ago.

Every day, I love Beckett even more than I thought possible. He was already my favorite brother. Now, I don’t even know what to call him—other than he’s the person who’s continuously grounding me.

I have Harriet too, but knowing I can turn to Beck makes me feel like I won’t overwhelm my girlfriend with my issues. My mental state feels like I’m surviving a tsunami, and I would prefer to keep Harriet above the water.

In my parents’ kitchen, I calmed more, and my dad handed me a water. I took small sips when my mom emerged with the clap of her heels and concern flaring her eyes, the yellow color matching Beckett’s.

I couldn’t tell her I was okay.

She deeply knew, like Beckett, why this situation would be difficult for me. “I should’ve warned you about her news,” she said with a breath that looked like a knife to the chest, like it hurt. “I’m so sorry, gremlin. I really thought…”

She thought I’d be able to handle it by now? Pain welled in my lungs. I wanted to joke about being the slowest learner of the family, but I couldn’t speak right away to make one.

I just kept thinking this shouldn’t affect me this badly. It shouldn’t. But then again, for every stride I’d made this past six months, there’d been hurdles that sent me backward.

I should’ve been able to handle Tom throwing me a birthday party at our apartment. I should’ve been able to handle his own birthday rager, but it…it was hard. Harder than I wanted it to be.

Still, Beckett told me to remember my achievements.

I was on the hockey team. I had teammates that I actually liked and might even be able to call good friends eventually. We’d won the Frozen Four championship together not that long ago. So many days, I’d been so unbelievably happy with Harriet, with college, with my teammates, with my cousins, with my brothers. Even Charlie hadn’t made me want to punch a wall most of the time. Going out with everyone has felt easier and easier.

I’d overcome a lot of panic and avoidance.

But tonight’s dinner felt like being shoved back to the starting line. Like all my progress meant nothing because I couldn’t handle this.  

It wasn’t fair that my sister who I loved could make me feel like my world was spinning out and imploding. It wasn’t fair to her. And I still don’t know how to fucking stop it.

Selfish.

My feelings.

My fears.

I mentioned as much on my knees in the kitchen, the words coming out of my searing, swollen throat.

Mom bent down in her heels and black dress just to be closer to me. She balanced with ease, her hand resting consolingly against my shoulder while Beckett retracted his palm. I tried to breathe while she said, “This is your OCD talking to you, Ben.”

I tried to nod, and I rasped out weakly, “I don’t know how to shut it off, Mom. These thoughts.” I held back the two words, I can’t. Because I heard Charlie in my head saying, You can. I know you can.

I looked at my mom. Her cheekbones were blades. Her eyes lethal weapons. My mom wanted to kill the monster that’d grown inside my head, and I would’ve let her if she could reach there. She brushed away my wet tear streak with her thumb. “Remember,” she said fiercely, “you are not responsible for everything that happens to your little sister.”

“You aren’t in New York,” I choked out. “You and Dad won’t be…” They won’t be living with us. They won’t be around like in Philly. Audrey is going to be an adult. What she’s always wanted to be.

Just like I knew my brothers, I knew my sister.

I knew Audrey so well.

I was terrified as images of the frat house with Audrey invaded my brain, along with more outcomes I feared, and I only jerked out of my head when Beckett spoke.

“Pip,” he said calmly, quietly. “You aren’t her only brother. There are four more of us in New York.”

“And this isn’t pressing tonight,” Mom said pointedly. “This doesn’t need to consume your thoughts. You’re here at dinner. We’re all together.” She took my hand tightly in hers and squeezed. It helped. Her experience with OCD has helped me too. I breathed through my nose. Being understood, especially by my own mom, felt like a warm, eternal hug. Gratitude also goes to her. The pain in my chest subsided as I kept thinking, I’m at my parents’ house.

We’re all together.

I’m at dinner.

I took a breath, then another and another.

Beckett nodded to me. “Stay in the present.” He repeated, “Nothing is going to be decided yet.”

I inhale deeper in the car and lift my gaze. Directly across from me in the limo, Beckett and Charlie sit side by side and whisper quietly to each other. Charlie tries to unzip his sweater farther down, but it’s only a three-quarter zip—so he pulls the brown fabric off his head and throws it to the other end of the limo, then tugs down his white undershirt that has crept up.

Beckett is already only in a white tee, his floral tattoos peeking out of the cuff of his sleeve and running down to his elbow. He leans into Charlie to whisper one more thing, and I try not to sit on edge.

We all agreed to put the conversation about Audrey on hold for the duration of the ride to Hell’s Kitchen. Now I wonder if that just pertained to me and Eliot. I can’t hear what they’re talking about.

Not until Beckett swings his gaze over to me and asks, “Harriet is okay?” It’s quiet in the car, but it seems like they couldn’t make out Harriet’s side of the call. I didn’t have speakerphone on.

“I think so.” I spin one of the blue beaded bracelets on my wrist that Harriet made me. The block letters spell out Cobalt boy. “She implied something happened, but I’m not sure it’s that serious.”

Charlie tips his head to Beckett with the arch of his brows. “Tom is back home. He’d pester the fucking lamp shade if he could get a rise out of it, and he easily gets one out of her.”

Beckett speaks under his breath, but I catch the words. “He left dinner upset, Charlie. He wouldn’t be in the mood to banter with Harriet.”

“No, he’d make it worse. He’d end up saying things he’ll regret because he’s upset.”

I scrape a hand through my wavy hair, thinking maybe the “dumb” thing Harriet did was go too hard on Tom in response to him going too hard on her. It sounded like she regretted something, and Harriet doesn’t really back down when it comes to my brother. I’ve always liked that she dishes it back at him.

Not a lot gets under his skin, so I’m not exactly sure what could’ve been said that’d cause remorse.

We don’t theorize anymore. It’s not long before we’re at the high-rise, off the elevator, and making our way in the apartment.

Eliot pushes inside first, but I see past him. Tom is hunched forward on the sofa, his forearms on his thighs while he flicks open a lighter and shuts it. Phoenix is here—Tom’s boyfriend as of today.

I’ve liked Phoenix since the first time I met him, but I liked him more after Tom’s birthday party when he jumped into a fistfight that I was afraid to finish. I liked him the most after tonight when I heard he’d considered Tom his boyfriend long before Tom did.

My brother deserves to be loved without restraint. I know it’s what Tom has wanted out of RJ. I’m so fucking happy he found it in someone who eats, breathes, and sleeps music and loves it as profoundly as he does.

While Tom is slouched forward, Phoenix is sitting beside him. He has a hand on Tom’s back—one of comfort as his palm moves left to right, then circles.

Tom must still be torn up about fighting with Eliot.

My stomach knots. You’re fault. My throat burns.

Where’s Harriet? I head toward my room, just as Eliot calls out to Tom, “Brother.” He approaches him, his stride light and unfettered. “To my bedroom for a chat? You and I?” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Tom says with a deep breath. “Let’s talk, dude.” At the same time Tom stands from the couch, Harriet suddenly spins around in one of the midnight-blue swivel chairs, facing me.

My lungs inflate. She’s curled up in my checkered quilt. Thankfully not with her Hello Kitty emotional support blanket. The fabric flies off her shoulders as she springs to her feet.

She stays still, not needing to meet me halfway, because I’m already on a rushed trek toward her. There’s no stopping me. I would do anything to reach Harriet and have her in my arms right now.

I weave them around her and lift my girlfriend up against my body. Her hands cup the back of my neck, her heart beating fast against my chest. We’re both searching for physical reassurances that we’re all right. Her toughened blue eyes soften on me, and I comb my fingers through her hair, pushing back her yellowed bangs to see more of her intensely caring gaze.

My love for her overwhelms me for a second. Oxygen feeds deeper into my lungs, and I whisper, “My world.”

“Ben,” she says, choked up but with a harder stare that says, be for real.

“My whole world.” I double down.

“Everyone on the planet,” she amends.

“You,” I correct. “My whole wide world.” My voice cracks.

She hugs me tighter, burying her face in the crook of my neck. I kiss the top of her head, then scrunch her hair and breathe even deeper feeling her against me. She tightens her thighs around my ribs.

I smile and whisper, “I’m not going to drop my whole wide world, Fisher.”

“Maybe I like gripping you to death, Cobalt boy.” She sniffs hard, lifting her head to stare at me again. “Ever think of that?”

I nod softly, cupping her cheek and kissing her gently on the lips. Her scowl twitches into a tiny smile, and I ask, “You’re really okay?”

“Yes. Are you?” This is where I think she’d ask me about what happened tonight, but there aren’t questions in her eyes.

It dawns on me. “Did Tom—?”

“Yeah.” She gives me a firm nod. “He told me about your sister before you got here. She’s going to graduate at the end of the year, start college in January, and wants to move in with all of you earlier than planned.”

A knot unspools in my chest. I release another breath. Grateful I don’t have to rehash everything all over again. Thank you, Tom. “I might’ve overreacted…I don’t know…” I shake out my jumbled, screwed-up thoughts.

 Can I call it an overreaction when I still feel the exact same? I don’t want her to move to New York that early. I am freaked out at the idea. I don’t know how not to be panicked about it yet.

“Hey,” Harriet says, capturing my gaze. “It sounded like a bomb drop, okay. You aren’t the only one that’s a little messed up. Tom looked majorly shaken.”

I glance over at where Tom was, but he’s already disappeared down the hall to Eliot’s room. Phoenix is texting on the couch, not looking up at us.

I tell Harriet, “Tom will probably be fine when he works things out with Eliot. Their relationship doesn’t take hits like this.”

She slides her hands down to my chest. Then whips her head to the left and right. Her breath suddenly hitches weirdly. “Where’s Beckett?” She loosens her legs and skates down my body, and I place her on the ground.

My frown deepens. “Why do you need Beckett?”

“Did he already walk in? Is he in his bedroom?”

“I think so, yeah. His shoes and Charlie’s are by the door.”

“Fuck.” She curses, circling her fingers against her temple like it’s pounding. “Are they like training for the CIA? Why are they quietly tiptoeing around?” Her eyes bug on me.

“I think we were just consumed with each other, bel oiseau.” I motion my fingers between me and her, my lips rising and pulling a small one from her. Then I draw her into a hug. She doesn’t uncross her arms, but she presses her cheek into the warmth of my chest.

I stroke her head. “You’re stressing over…?”

She opens and shuts her mouth, then lifts her chin to tell me, “The dumb thing I did. I’m not a good person, dude. You shouldn’t be holding me.”

“That just makes me want to hold you more.”

She crinkles her nose, guilt all over her face.

“Harriet—”

“I just need you to prepare yourself, Ben. I did a not nice fucking thing.”

“We did,” Phoenix says more to her, pointing his phone toward the couch cushion while he stands. “Chill, Fisher. I’ve got this.” He digs a piece of paper out of his pocket and looks me over in warning, like he thinks I’m going to be upset at my girlfriend.

Phoenix has seen me beat the shit out of an asshole in Tom’s side of our shared bedroom. So, he’s seen how hot my temper is. I’ve also seen how hot his is.

I’d never be that angry at Harriet for anything. It makes me sick to think about. Especially since I was punching that guy for saying crude shit about her.

I must take too long to respond because Phoenix actually says, “Don’t be pissed at her.”

“There’s pretty much nothing she could do that’d piss me off, man.”

“Good.”

I didn’t think he was friends with Harriet enough to offer that kind of warning, but maybe that changed tonight.

Harriet steps away from me, just to collapse back into the couch. She rifles through her backpack at her feet, then mutters something about checking on Mister Feathers. Our pet cockatoo.

I’m caught in a web of fucking confusion. I glance between her and Phoenix. “What does this have to do with Beckett?” I ask them.

Harriet winces. “We sort of pranked…” She trails off, her face falling as Beckett suddenly comes out into the living room. He still wears a Yankees ballcap, his dark brown hair curling around his ears.

Harriet isn’t blinking or moving.

Phoenix remains standing, going toward Beckett, and when I look over at my brother, I know something is very wrong.

His neck is so tight—he has to be caging breath, and his palms are in the air, faced outward, like he’s about to halt traffic. “Who was in my bedroom tonight?”

Phoenix is near him, studying his expression. “I was.”

Beckett glares. “What’d you touch?” His gaze drops to Phoenix’s feet. No shoes, but he has on black socks.

“It’s complicated,” Phoenix says.

“Uncomplicate it.” Beckett’s voice is leveled like normal, but he’s as unblinking as Harriet. Fuck.

I head over to my brother. “Beck—”

He raises a hand at me, and I stop a few feet away. He’s staring down Phoenix. “Did you sit on my bed?”

“I didn’t.” Phoenix pushes back his dark hair, but he seems more concerned about Beckett than intimidated by him. “I know you have OCD. Tom told me, but it was after the fact.”

Beckett’s face is unreadable. “After what fact? You fucking with my room?”

Phoenix hands him the slip of paper. The air is tense and silent as Beckett reads it. His yellow-green eyes shut in a long blink of agitation. His nose flares when he opens his eyes back on Phoenix.

I’m lost. “What does it say?” I ask.

Harriet answers, “The brat down the hall was here.”

Yeah, I know who that is.

Joana Oliveira must’ve been in the apartment.

Phoenix’s gaze is as locked on Beckett as Beckett’s is on his, and then Phoenix says, “I met your brat down the hall.”

“What’d you two do to my room?” Beckett asks simply.

“Silly string. It was a prank. Harriet and I cleaned all of it up.” More concern darkens Phoenix’s brown-blue eyes. “I don’t know how you could tell.”

“You don’t need to know.” Beckett shoves the note in his pocket, his chest even tighter.

Harriet slides to the edge of the couch cushion. “We were really fucking thorough,” she says. “It’s very clean. Almost sterile. I’d feel good about dissecting…a non-living thing on the floor.”

I want to reassure Harriet, but it’s too hard to take my attention off my brother. Especially after he’d been there for me tonight.

I want to be there for him, even if Beck makes that difficult being as private as he is. But I know him.

I know this year is harder for him than last year. I try not to take fault for that. I know he wouldn’t want me to.

But tonight, when I knelt in my parents’ kitchen in the middle of a panic attack, Beckett squatted the entire time. Just like my mom, Beck didn’t touch the ground with a single body part other than his feet.

Last year, he was able to sit on the bathroom floor with me. Near the fucking toilet. He doesn’t outright say he’s struggling more with his OCD than usual, but he did mention to me how he’s waiting for winter. Because he can wear gloves more freely without it drawing attention.

Beckett stares at Phoenix. “Was she sitting on my bed?” he asks.

“Standing on it.”

Beckett blinks hard again and grimaces, his thumb-knuckles digging into his eyes. Palms still outward.

He might need Charlie. I’m about to head down the hallway, but I already see Charlie emerging form the dark depths.

Phoenix shifts his weight a little. “Why don’t you tell Joana you have OCD?”

“Because I don’t want her to know, and you’re not going to tell her,” Beckett says with a strained breath and subtle heat.

“I won’t,” Phoenix says. “But—”

“But it’d be easier. But this would’ve never happened. I don’t care. You’re not telling Joana about me. You’re not talking to her about me.”

Phoenix nods, “Okay. Territorial. Got it.” His eyes shift to Charlie.

“What’s going on?” Charlie asks Beckett, looking him up and down more than once.

Beckett keeps his palms faced out. “Joana silly stringed my bedroom and maybe yours too.”

“Wonderful,” Charlie deadpans. “Because tonight couldn’t be more fucked.”

“Not your room, Charlie,” Phoenix explains. “It was locked.”

Charlie makes a constricted face. “I didn’t lock my bedroom.”

Phoenix swings his head back to Harriet in confusion, and she confesses, “I told Jo it was locked.” Her cheeks redden at me. “I lied to my friend, which sucked. I’m a fucking liar.”

“Barley a lie,” Phoenix tells her.

I smile at Harriet because I’ve lied a hell of a lot worse before. “To save Charlie’s room from being silly stringed, you lied.”

She eases and chews the corner of her lip.

I mouth, I love you.

Her eyes glass.

“You chose the wrong brother to save, Girl Genius,” Charlie says bitingly, assessing Beckett and not looking at my girlfriend.

“Don’t listen to Charlie,” I tell Harriet, but I focus more on Beckett, who has begun to turn away from Phoenix and the living room and me.

Charlie tells his twin, “You can sleep in my room.”

Beckett doesn’t say another word. He barely touches himself now like his skin is crawling. He just leaves down the hall, likely to go take a shower.

Charlie cuts a sharp glare to Phoenix. “Stay out of his fucking bedroom. If you or anyone else tries again—”

“I’m not going in there,” Phoenix interjects. “I won’t let anyone go in there again.” He arches his brows. “I can promise you that.”

Charlie eases backward, then eyes me in a quick sweep. “Ben.” My name sounds aggravating on his tongue. “Beckett is fine. Worry about your girlfriend—”

“I’m also fine, dude,” Harriet pipes in.

“Wait, Charlie.” I follow my brother who’s turned back toward the hallway. He doesn’t stop for me, so I trail after him as he reaches the doorway to Beckett’s bedroom. I hear the shower running, so I know for certain Beckett is in the bathroom. I hope he’s not stuck in a ritual like the one I’d seen before. Him at the kitchen sink. Scrubbing and scrubbing. Unable to shut off the faucet without turning it back on and starting all over again.

Another knot forms in my ribs.

“Let me help,” I tell Charlie quietly. “Please. What can I do?”

He tilts his head toward the seemingly neat bedroom, then back toward me. I worry he’s going to say, Nothing, so I add, “You’re planning to strip the bed, right? Send it to the cleaners? I can do that—”

“I’m doing it,” Charlie says.

I roll my eyes, frustrated. “Charlie—”

“You have your phone on you?”

I frown. “Yeah.”

“Take it out.” He’s also taking his phone out.

I unpocket my cell and watch Charlie scroll on his phone, then mine pings with several numbers. All cleaning companies.

“Most won’t answer this late at night. Most won’t even come until the morning. Try to find someone who’ll get here early enough that Beckett can step into his bedroom without returning to the fucking shower.”

I’m about to thank him, but he sees the appreciation in my gaze and immediately says, “Don’t.” Then disappears into Beckett’s bedroom, slamming the door on my face.

It takes me five minutes and only two calls before I knock on Beckett’s bedroom door. Charlie swings it back open with the most irritated expression, the comforter and sheets already stripped in a ball on the floor behind him. “I said—”

“The second number you sent me—Luxury Cleaning Service Co.—they have someone available. They should be here in thirty minutes.”

Charlie stares at me for a long, long time.

I lift my shoulders, uncertain what I feel. “I got lucky they picked up, and I offered to pay triple for this late and last minute.”

Charlie blinks, more softly. “You’re good with people. That’s not luck.” He mentions he’ll let Beckett know I helped, and then he shuts the door on me, not slamming it this time.

It makes me feel good.

Like I did something right in a night full of wrong. I find Harriet back in my bedroom. She’s resting against my headboard and strokes our pet bird that loves perching on her bent knees. Mister Feathers hops from one to the other, then head-butts her finger.

She smiles at him, running her finger against his feathers, but when she sees me, she straightens more. “Is he—?”

“He’ll be okay,” I nod. “You aren’t the first person to mess with his bedroom. He grew up with Eliot and Tom.” I sit beside her on the mattress. “He’s dealt with a lot before, more than he even talks about with me. I think this wouldn’t always set him off. Some days, weeks, months are easier for him than others…I kind of know the feeling.”

She leans her shoulder into me, and I wrap my arm around Harriet, then kiss her head, her temple.

“My home, my home!” Mister Feathers squawks, bouncing over to her left kneecap. We both smile at him as he extends his wings, white feathers pluming outward. The yellow crest on his head unfurls.

Her blue eyes meet mine. “Glad I taught him where you should always be, Friend?”

“Where we should be?” I smile. “Yeah. I really am.”

Oh Pippy! We love him and his relationship with Harriet oh so much. They make our hearts just so warm and gooey. Another Silly String bonus scene from Silver Sweet is now complete! We absolutely love showing this catch-up on Ben and Harriet's lives during this timeline and all their relationships from the Cobalt brothers, to Phoenix St. Pierre, and even Rose. It's why we love, love, love Patreon, where we can expand the world even more beyond just the novel.

Thank you sooo much for reading!! We hope you enjoyed this one! There's still another Extra Bonus on the horizon this month! So stay tuned for more bonus content for September ;)

xoxo Krista & Becca

“Silly Stringing Beckett's Bedroom (Ben)" Copyright 2026 by K.B. Ritchie