Four Of A Kind - Chapter 208: [4.26] They Compare Notes, And I’m the Main Subject

I woke up to my phone exploding with messages.

Not literally exploding—that would’ve been easier to deal with. Just four separate conversations from four identical sisters who’d apparently decided that three days of radio silence was enough torture.

“Good morning! Can’t wait to see you today!” Harlow, with twelve emoji hearts.

“Don’t forget my test Friday.” Cassidy, no greeting, just demands.

“Quarterly projections meeting at 3.” Vivienne, all business.

And Sabrina? Just a book emoji. Classic.

I dragged myself out of bed, careful not to wake Iris on the other side of our thin apartment wall. The weekend at the Valentine mansion kept replaying in my mind like a fever dream. Had I really gotten four separate Valentine sisters into four separate compromising positions in the span of forty-eight hours? The hickey on my neck—faded but still visible—said yes.

The cold shower didn’t help. Nothing would help. I was completely fucked.

“You look terrible,” Felix commented when I slid into my seat at school ten minutes before first bell. “Like, worse than usual.”

“Thanks. I try.”

“Seriously, man. You okay?”

I gave him my best Hartwell smile. The one that said I’m fine while actually meaning fuck off. “Just busy with work.”

“Right, your mysterious job.” Felix wiggled his eyebrows. “The one where you’re surrounded by hot rich girls all day.”

If only he knew.

The Valentine sisters walked into first period together, a synchronized unit of purple eyes and wine-red hair. Harlow waved enthusiastically. Cassidy smirked. Sabrina nodded once. Vivienne pretended I didn’t exist.

Completely normal. As if none of them had tried to jump my bones three days ago.

This was worse than I expected.

“So, a sub-atomic particle walks into a bar—”

“I’ll stop you right there,” I interrupted Harlow’s third physics joke in five minutes. “We need to finish these practice problems.”

We sat in the east wing study room, physics textbooks spread between us. Harlow had claimed she needed help with her upcoming test, but so far she’d spent more time telling science jokes and “accidentally” brushing her hand against mine.

“You’re no fun today.” She pouted, her pink-streaked hair falling around her face in a way that was absolutely designed to make me stare. “I thought you liked my jokes.”

“I like it when you pass your classes more.”

“Hmm.” She leaned forward, her uniform shirt pulling just enough to make me redirect my eyes to the ceiling. “That’s not what you said when I was wearing my vampire costume.”

My neck tingled where her teeth had left their mark. “We’re not talking about that.”

“Why not?” Her voice dropped lower. “I think about it all the time.”

I flipped her textbook to the correct page. “Problem six. Roller coaster at the top of the loop with mass m. Calculate normal force.”

She made a show of sighing before picking up her pencil. “You’ve been different since the weekend.”

“I’m the same as always.”

“Nope.” She drew a little heart next to her free body diagram. “Vivi noticed it first during yesterday’s session. Then Cassidy mentioned it this morning before I came here. And Sabrina—well, Sabrina doesn’t talk much, but she gave me this look when I said I had tutoring with you today.”

The pencil in my hand stopped moving. “What kind of look?”

“Like…” Harlow paused, thinking. “Like she was calculating something. You know how Brina gets when she’s working out a puzzle.”

Perfect. Just what I needed. Four sisters coordinating their observations about my behavior.

“Mhm.” She nodded, purple eyes still focused on her paper. “We talk about you, you know. Compare notes.”

My throat went dry. “Compare notes on what?”

Her smile turned mischievous. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“Not particularly.” Biggest lie I’d told all day, and it wasn’t even noon.

She continued solving the problem in silence, but I could feel her watching me. The Valentine sisters were always watching me lately. Like I was some science experiment they were all conducting with different methodologies.

“Normal force equals mg plus mv²/r,” she said finally, pushing her completed work toward me. “And you like me.”

I checked her math. “That’s correct.”

“Which part?” Her eyes sparkled with challenge. “The equation or the other thing?”

“The equation.” I turned the page in her textbook. “Problem seven.”

“You’re blushing.”

“It’s hot in here.”

“Is it?” She pressed her palm to my forehead like checking for fever. “Maybe it’s just you.”

I removed her hand, ignoring how soft her skin felt. “Focus, Harlow.”

“I am focused.” Her smile turned softer, more genuine. “I can multitask. Think about kissing you and solve physics problems at the same time.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Too much?” She looked genuinely concerned. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. It’s just… we all agreed to give you space, but space doesn’t mean I stop feeling things, you know?”

Something in my chest twisted. “We shouldn’t be talking about this.”

“Why? Because of my mom? Because of your job?”

“Both. Either. Take your pick.”

Harlow sighed and returned to her textbook. “For the record, we’re working on those problems too.”

“What problems?”

“The mom problem. The job problem.” She shrugged. “We Valentine sisters are pretty good at solving problems when we put our heads together.”

That sounded ominous as hell.

“Problem seven,” I reminded her.

“You’re really good at running away,” she observed, but picked up her pencil anyway.

Cassidy bounced a tennis ball against the library wall. Thump. Catch. Thump. Catch.

“Could you stop that?” I asked for the third time. “Some people are trying to study.”

“Some people should study somewhere else then.”

Thump. Catch. Thump.

“If Ms. Patterson catches you, you’ll get detention.”

“You gonna tell on me, scholarship?” Her smirk crawled across her face, slow and taunting. “Gonna get me in trouble?”

I snatched the ball mid-bounce, my reflexes surprising even me.

“Nice catch.” Her smirk widened. “What else can those hands do?”

“Math, apparently, since you still need my help.”

“Need is a strong word.” Cassidy leaned back in her chair, balancing on two legs. “Want fits better.”

“Your test is Friday.”

“I’m aware of my schedule, thanks.” She let her chair fall forward with a bang. “And I’m ready for it.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Really? So I can quiz you on quadratics right now and you’ll ace it?”

“Try me.”

I flipped open her textbook and rattled off a problem involving a projectile’s motion.

She solved it in her head, rattling off the answer with a bored expression. “Next.”

I tried a harder one. Same result.

“You actually studied,” I said, surprised.

“Don’t sound so shocked.” She stole her tennis ball back from my hand, her fingers lingering against mine. “I told you I was playing the long game.”

“The long game for what?”

Her eyes held mine. “You figure it out, scholarship.”

I broke the stare first, uncomfortably aware that we were in the same library where she’d nearly climbed into my lap three days ago.

“So if you don’t need math help, why am I here?” I asked.

“Because.” She tossed the ball straight up, caught it. “I have a different proposition for you.”

“I’m not interested in propositions.”

“You haven’t heard it yet.” She leaned forward, elbows on the table. “I want to cash in that bet.”

My stomach dropped. “What bet?”

“Don’t play dumb. The pet bet. Remember? I fail, I’m your pet for twenty-four hours.” Her smile turned dangerous. “But I didn’t fail. I got a ninety on the last quiz.”

Relief flooded through me. “Good. Bet’s off then.”

“Not so fast.” She held up a finger. “I want to reverse it.”

“Reverse it how?”

“I passed, so you’re my pet for twenty-four hours.” Her eyes glinted with mischief. “Starting Friday after my test.”

I laughed. “Absolutely not.”

“Scared?”

“Sane.”

“Come on.” She moved around the table until she was sitting next to me instead of across, her uniform skirt hiked up just enough to distract. “It’ll be fun.”

“Your idea of fun and my idea of employment are mutually exclusive concepts.”

She rolled her eyes. “God, you sound like Vivienne. All business.”

“Speaking of business, I should go. Your sister needs help with—”

“A photoshoot, I know.” She caught my wrist as I stood to leave. “Think about my offer. I promise I won’t make you wear the collar in public.”

“There will be no collar, public or private.”

Her laugh followed me out of the library. “We’ll see about that.”

The photoshoot was being held in an industrial warehouse downtown. Concrete floors, exposed brick, massive windows letting in natural light. The kind of place that charges five thousand dollars a day just to exist in it.

Vivienne spotted me the moment I walked in. “You’re late.”

“By three minutes.”

“Which is three minutes of lost productivity.” She checked something off on her clipboard. “The stylists are running behind and the lighting isn’t right for the mood board.”

I looked around at the organized chaos. Models in various states of dress, makeup artists wielding brushes like weapons, assistants scurrying with garment bags.

“What exactly am I doing here?” I asked.

“Providing moral support.”

“That’s not in my job description.”

Vivienne’s perfect mask cracked just slightly, revealing a flash of vulnerability. “Please? This photoshoot is for the winter catalog. Mother is expecting it to be revolutionary.”