Chapter 1: Neon Jealousy on the Rooftop
The plunge was spectacular.
Frankie went in sideways, arms pinwheeling, a look of genuine surprise on his face before he disappeared under the chlorinated blue. The splash drenched Samantha’s sundress and speckled the glasses of half a dozen people nearby. For a second, there was just the sound of the splashback hitting concrete.
Then he surfaced, sputtering, dark hair plastered to his forehead.
He didn’t get angry. Frankie Morales never got angry. He tipped his head back, let out a rich, full-bodied laugh that seemed to bounce off the towering glass and steel of the surrounding buildings, and flicked a sheet of water straight into Sam’s beaming face.
“You are such a menace,” he said, still laughing.
Cynna watched from her perch on a deep patio lounger, her knees drawn up. The navy blue baseball cap—the one with the embroidered catfish on the front, the one she’d given him for his birthday—floated lazily toward the edge. She’d retrieved it earlier, a useless gesture. It was soaked now.Just like him.
“Come on, Fish, don’t be a baby!” someone yelled from the hot tub.
The Miller’s rooftop was a vertiginous playground of concrete and money. The infinity pool seemed to spill into the city itself, the lights of downtown Austin glittering like a spilled jewelry box miles below. The air up here was cooler, smelling of chlorine, expensive perfume, and the greasy-good scent of brisket from the massive smoker in the corner.
Sam, still standing in the shallow end, reached down. Frankie took her hand, not to get out, but to pull her in with him. She shrieked, a sound of pure delight, and tumbled into the water. When she came up, she was already wrapped around him, arms looped over his broad shoulders, legs locked around his waist. He steadied them both, his hands automatically coming to rest on her thighs to keep them afloat.
He steadied them both, his hands automatically coming to rest on her thighs to keep them afloat. Sam’s laugh was a bright, proprietary thing that cut through the general noise of the party. She said something close to his ear, her lips nearly brushing his skin. Frankie just grinned, that easy, unshakeable grin, and gave her thigh a friendly pat before gently detaching her and pushing her toward the pool steps.
“Alright, leech, off you go. You’re gonna drown us both.”
Cynna watched his hands. The pat. The casual, brotherly disentanglement. She took a slow sip of the whiskey Frankie had brought her earlier. It was the good stuff, smooth and peaty. He’d handed it to her with a wink, his fingers brushing hers. Then Sam had swooped in, snatched the glass right from his other hand before he could take a drink, and taken a long, deliberate swallow, her eyes on Cynna the whole time. Look what I can do.
Frankie had just chuckled. “Thirsty, Sam?”
Now, he heaved himself out of the pool, water streaming from his cargo shorts and down his legs. He accepted a towel someone threw him, scrubbed it over his hair, and made a beeline for Cynna. He dripped a path across the warm concrete.
“You’re a desert island over here,” he said, dropping onto the lounger beside her. The cold water from his body seeped through the fabric of her jeans. He reached for his own discarded glass, now with Sam’s lipstick on the rim, and finished it in one go.
“Just observing the wildlife,” Cynna said, her voice lighter than she felt.
“Wildlife’s pretty tame tonight. Miller forgot to invite the penguins.” He nudged her shoulder with his. “You good?”
She was a psychologist. She’d spent years in black ops listening to the subtext in every whisper, analyzing micro-expressions in dimly lit safehouses. She knew the difference between affection and assertion. Sam’s constant, tactile claiming—the lingering hugs, the sitting too close, the drinking from his glass, the staged, playful assaults like the pool push—it was a campaign. A territorial campaign wrapped in the bulletproof armor of “just being Sam.”
And Frankie, for all his Delta-honed perceptiveness, was utterly blind to it. Or willfully so. His world was built on loyalty and direct action. Subtext was a language he didn’t speak, because in his life, nuance got people killed. He saw a sister-in-arms being affectionate. He didn't see the calculated friction, the constant testing of boundaries, the quiet war of possession being waged in plain sight.
“I’m fine,” Cynna said.
He studied her face, his dark eyes soft. “You sure? You’ve got that look.”
“What look?”
“The ‘I’m-connecting-patterns-and-the-picture-isn’t-pleasant’ look. Your glasses even fog up a little when you do it.” He tapped the frame of her spectacles.
She forced a smile. “Just thinking about the ethical implications of pushing a man off a building, even if it’s into a pool.”
His laugh was a warm rumble. “You’d have to get in line. Probably behind my old CO.” He stood, stretching, his t-shirt clinging to the hard planes of his chest. “I’m gonna grab another drink. You need a refill?”
Before she could answer, Sam appeared, a fresh beer in each hand. She handed one to Frankie, her fingers lingering over his. “Resupply, Captain. Figured you earned it after the impromptu swim.”
“See? Practical,” Frankie said, taking the beer and smiling at Cynna as if Sam had just proven his point. Just being Sam.
Cynna’s whiskey turned to acid in her stomach. She watched as Sam led him back toward the group by the smoker, her hand resting lightly, possessively, on the small of his back. The guys clapped him on the shoulder, made jokes about his swim. The scene was one of perfect, easy camaraderie.
And she sat in her lounger, the city a breathtaking panorama of indifference behind her, her nails pressing silent, perfect crescents into her own palms. It wasn’t the blatancy that hurt. It was the gaslighting-by-consensus. The way her valid, professional read of a situation was constantly invalidated by the cheerful, unified chorus of That’s just Sam.
She was a trained analyst for the U.S. government. She had identified coups from grocery lists and predicted assassinations from changes in a diplomat’s haircut.
She knew deliberate, targeted behavior when she saw it.
The laugh that burst from the group was loud and sudden. Frankie’s head was thrown back, his body relaxed. Sam was tucked under his arm, grinning up at him like she’d just won a prize.
Cynna placed her glass down on the concrete. The sound was final. She stood, the decision a cold, sharp stone in her gut. She didn’t head for the group. She turned and walked toward the rooftop exit, the hum of the party and the echo of Frankie’s laughter fading behind her with every step.
The stairwell was a cement-slab echo chamber, swallowing the party noise with each descending flight. Her heels clicked a sharp, decisive rhythm on the treads. The air grew warmer, thick with the smell of worn carpet and someone’s distant cigarette. She pushed through the fire door into Miller’s sprawling penthouse.
The contrast was jarring. Upstairs was cold city wind and competitive laughter. Down here was submerged in the low, expensive thrum of a Sonos system, the furniture all sharp angles and soft grey fabric. A few people were draped across a sectional, phones glowing in their hands. They nodded at her; she offered a tight smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
Her purse wasn’t on the kitchen island where she’d left it. Not on the console table by the door. A flicker of pure, undiluted annoyance cut through the heavier emotion. Of course.
“Cynna? You ghosting us already?”
Will emerged from the hallway leading to the home gym, a sweating bottle of kombucha in his hand. He was Frankie’s oldest friend, built like a linebacker who’d discovered Pilates. His face, usually set in a state of amused calm, now held a question.
“Just looking for my things,” she said, her voice sounding distant to her own ears. She crouched to check under the sofa.
“You okay? You blew out of there pretty fast.”
She straightened up, empty-handed. The question, so simple, was the spark to kindling. She looked at him, really looked at him—a man who loved Frankie like a brother, who’d been there for years, who was part of the unspoken consensus.
“Why,” she said, the word precise and cool, “is the phrase ‘boys will be boys’ unacceptable… and you all think ‘Sam is just Sam’ is?”
Will blinked. He took a slow sip of his drink. “Whoa. Okay. Where’s this coming from?”
“From observation. From basic human decency.” She finally spotted her leather clutch peeking out from under a stack of art books on a low shelf. She snatched it up. “You all see it. Every damn one of you. She hangs on him like moss on a stone. She marks her territory with his own glass. She stages little physical comedies where she gets to put her hands and her legs and her whole damn body on him, and the entire platoon just… chuckles. That’s just Sam.”
“Cynna—”
“No. You don’t get to ‘Cynna’ me with that placating tone. You’re his friend. You’re supposed to have his back. What does having his back look like when someone is deliberately, constantly blurring every line he’s too decent to even see? It looks like letting it happen. It looks like being one of many who allow another person to touch what isn’t theirs.”
Will’s expression shifted from surprise to defensive flatness. “Fish is a big boy. He can handle himself. He’d shut it down if it bothered him.”
“Would he?” The question hung in the perfectly climate-controlled air. “Or has he been trained, in ways you’ll never understand, to tolerate discomfort for the sake of unit cohesion? To ignore a minor irritant because the mission—the party, the friendship, the 'peace'—is more important? She’s exploiting that. And you’re enabling it.”
She found her keys, her fingers closing around the cold metal. “It’s not about trust. I trust him. This isn’t about him. It’s about the fact that the person who’s supposed to be his friend is treating him like a public park. And his other friends are just watching her trample the damn signs. So tell Frankie his whore can take him home, I am not."
The heavy fire door at the top of the stairwell groaned open. Frankie stood there, a shadow outlined by the rooftop glare, a fresh beer dangling from his fingers. His easy smile faltered, then vanished entirely as he took in the scene: Cynna holding her clutch like a weapon, Will’s stunned, guilty posture, the frigid silence that had swallowed the room after her last word. Then she left the apartment.
He stepped inside, letting the door sigh shut behind him, muting the distant party pulse.
“Take who home?” Frankie’s voice was quiet, a careful neutral. His eyes went from Will to Cynna, staying on her. The question wasn’t angry. It was confused, like he’d missed a vital piece of intel.
Frankie looked at Will. “Will? What’s going on?”
Will ran a hand over his buzzed scalp, a long-suffering exhale escaping him. He looked trapped. “Man…”
“Will,” Frankie repeated, the single syllable dropping like a stone.
“It’s Cynna, she…” Will gestured vaguely, a failed attempt at diplomacy. “She’s upset. About Sam.”
Frankie’s brow furrowed. “Sam? Did she say something to you?” He took a step toward Will, concern etching his face.
Will looked down, studying the geometric pattern of the rug. He shifted his weight. The words Cynna had just weaponized hung in the air, toxic and undeniable.
“Look, Fish,” he started, his voice strained with the effort of mediation. “Nobody… okay, fine. She laid it out pretty clear. She thinks Sam’s behavior is out of line. More than out of line. That it’s… intentional. And that we’re all enabling it by laughing it off.”
Frankie stared at him. The connection wasn’t clicking. “Sam’s behavior? You mean the pool? She pushes me in once a month, Will. It’s her thing.”
“It’s not the pool, man.” Will finally met his eyes, his expression pained. “It’s everything. The way she’s always glued to your side. The way she drinks from your glass without asking—every single time. The hugs that last a beat too long. Sitting in your lap ‘as a joke.’ Telling the Taco Bell story where you two shared a bed like it’s the funniest anecdote in the world, every chance she gets.”
Frankie opened his mouth, then closed it. His mind did a quick, jarring rewind. He saw flashes. Sam plucking his whiskey from his hand on the roof, her finger tracing over his as she did. Her leg hooked around his waist in the pool, not just for balance, but to lock on. The feeling of her breasts against his arm when she’d “stumbled” into him last week at the BBQ. He’d chalked every single instance up to Sam being Sam—loud, physical, familial.A sister. A fixture.
“She’s… she’s just affectionate,” Frankie said, but the statement sounded hollow, even to him. A defense built on habit.
Will’s face softened with something like pity. “Come on, brother. Really? Look at it from the outside. She does none of that with me. Or with Benny. Or with any of the other guys. Just you. Exclusively you. For years. It’s a pattern, and Cynna… Christ, she’s literally a professional pattern-recognizer. She clocked it on day one.”
Frankie felt a slow, cold weight settle in his gut. It wasn’t anger. It was a profound, disorienting disappointment. In himself. He’d navigated hostile villages and read the intentions of armed warlords, but he’d missed the quiet campaign being waged in his own living room. He’d been so focused on maintaining the peace, on preserving the easy bond of the group, that he’d refused to see a friction that was breaking someone he cared about.
“Cynna said…” He cleared his throat. “What did she say, exactly? Before she left.”
Will winced. “She said Sam is treating you like a public park. And that we’re all watching her trample the signs. And then…” He hesitated, rubbing the back of his neck. “Then she told me to tell you your whore can take you home. And she was wrong for that last part, way out of line, but the rest of it, Fish? I think she has a point. I think we’ve all… we’ve all just gotten used to it. Because it was easier than making it weird.”
The word ‘whore’ echoed, ugly and sharp. It was a word Cynna didn’t use. It was a word she’d deployed as a final, furious demolition charge. It meant she was past reasoning, past psychology, down to the raw, wounded animal of her feelings.
The cold weight in his gut turned hot. Shame.
He’d let this happen. He’d been so busy being the easy-going Catfish, the glue, that he’d allowed a slow poison into the thing he was trying to hold together.
He set his beer down on the console table with a definitive clink. He didn’t look at Will again. He just turned, his movements suddenly precise and devoid of their usual loose-limbed grace, and walked back to the fire door. He didn’t go up to the roof. He pulled it open and started down the concrete stairwell, the echo of his boots a rapid, solitary cadence in the hollow space.