Lo can’t soften his features all that much, but he clears his throat before he speaks again. “Where were you?”
“The mall and then…Garrison Abbey’s house.”
Connor and Rose look more than perturbed. They’re not fans of Garrison, for very good reasons. I don’t risk reading anyone else’s expression but my brother’s.
Lo repeatedly rubs the back of his neck, and then he says, “Everyone, you all should leave while I talk to my sister alone.” Lo quickly adds, “I can handle it. Alright? Go.” He snaps at them and then shoos them away with two hands.
Rose combats, “We’ll stay quiet.” I think she must like to be in-the-know about everything.
Lo points at me. “Not your sister, Queen Rose. She’s mine.”
Surrendering, Rose huffs and then departs upstairs with Connor. Lily trots slowly and tentatively behind them. Lo looks regretful for shooing her away, but he stands by the decision, not calling her back to the living room.
Ryke waits for Daisy, and she nods to me like everything will be okay and then exits into the kitchen with her boyfriend.
Lo takes a seat on the couch, forearms on his thighs, and a moment passes before he collects his words. “You’re just seventeen, and I get it.” He stares off like he’s imagining himself at that age. I wonder who he was back then. What he was up to. If he loved Lily all the same. “I get that you’re old enough to do everything I’m doing now.”
I make a choice and set my backpack on the ground. He just told his support system to leave, and if he’s strong enough to do that, then maybe I can be strong enough to let go of a crutch.
One day, I want to feel safe and powerful without holding my backpack tight.
“I still can’t drink alcohol. I’m not twenty-one yet.”
Lo wears a bitter smile. “Trust me, from experience, you can still drink. It being illegal didn’t stop me.” He hangs his head for a second, then lifts his amber eyes to my brown. “Maybe I gave you the wrong impression.”
My lips downturn. “About what?”
“About Garrison, for one,” he says. “Christ, I never expected you two to be…” He cringes like it’s painful to think about.
“Friends?”
He tries to relax at that title. “Yeah, that. I know guys like him. I was like him—it’s why I’m nicer to Garrison than I am to most people—but that doesn’t mean I approve of you hanging out at his place on a Sunday night. Or any night. No sleepovers.” He pauses. “Can I make that rule?”
He’s my brother, not my dad, but I see that he’s just trying to protect me. “Yeah,” I nod. “I like that rule.” It means he cares.
Someone wants me home at a certain hour.
Someone wants me safe.
Lo hesitates and stares off again, his face a bit murderous, and I wonder if he’s thinking about Garrison. Regretting giving him a hand.
“I’m glad you’re nice to him,” I say. “I think he needs that more than me.”
Lo shakes his head once. “You’re my priority.”
It swells and breaks my heart. “Don’t hate him because of me.”
Lo runs his tongue over the bottom of his teeth, and he barely nods. It’s hard to take that as an affirmation. “You should know something,” he says almost inaudibly.
“What?”
“I’m petty.” He flashes that iconic half-smile. “I hold grudges, and in past history, I’m not the good person. But goddamn, I’m trying to be.” He lets out a deep breath. “It’s hard, and I can’t…I just can’t promise anything, Willow.”
I wipe my nose that runs before my eyes leak. “I understand.”
We’re all complex people with many layers and strings, and I can’t sit here and pretend to know all of theirs. All of his. But in time, maybe I will see more.
Maybe I will know the kind of person they all were and maybe I’ll be here to witness the kind of people we’ll all be.
My car won’t start.
I’m trying to return to my apartment, but my gold Honda sits like a hunk of junk in Lo’s driveway. Hood popped, Ryke tinkers with the contents while Connor points a flashlight towards the engine.
“You already checked the battery’s water level,” Connor says. It’s not his first comment or probably his last. `
Ryke glowers. “What the fuck did I say two minutes ago?”
“I purposefully ignore you when you tell me to shut the fuck up, especially if you’re wasting time repeating actions you’ve taken.” Connor points the flashlight towards another part of the car and instructs him—much to Ryke’s annoyance.
Our breath smokes the air, the November temperature dropping fast tonight, but we all put on coats and shoes. I cup a mug of hot chocolate thanks to Daisy. Lo is on the phone, sending work emails I think, but he’s close by—and Lily and Rose stay indoors for warmth.
Daisy said Rose would probably be out here helping, but Jane started crying through the baby monitor.
“I can just drive her in Rose’s car,” Daisy suggests for the tenth time.
“No,” all the guys say in unison. Because apparently she’s a reckless driver, and I’m not even sure if she has her license beyond a motorcycle one.
“It might be a clogged fuel filter…fuck.” Ryke winces, his finger caught in something, but he shakes it out.
Daisy’s face contorts, a little concerned for him. He’s a rock climber, after all—his hands are precious. “Maybe we should take the car into the shop tomorrow,” she says. “We can let Willow spend the night. That’s probably what Lo wants, too.”
“No, it’s okay,” I interject. “I can call an Uber or something.” I think everyone needs space from me for a while.
“That seems unwise,” Connor tells me while shining the flashlight for Ryke. “It’s late and people know who you are.”
“Famous people take Ubers all the time in Los Angeles…I think. And I mean, I’m not famous like all of you. You know…?” I want to stop talking now. Thanks.
“We’re not in LA. We’re in Philadelphia,” Connor says in a way that makes me feel dumb for making the comparison.
“Fuck off, Cobalt,” Ryke says from beneath the car hood.
Daisy suddenly swings her head to the left, and I follow her gaze. Warm lamplight illuminates the neighborhood street, but darkness lies beyond.
She solidifies, eerily motionless. “Did you hear that?” she asks me.
I listen closely, but besides Ryke toying with the car’s mechanisms, I can’t hear much else. “Not really…”
Daisy breathes shallowly, her knuckles whitening on her mug of hot chocolate. “Something’s out there,” she says under her breath.
My own fear spikes, partly afraid of what she sees and partly afraid for her—I’ve never seen someone look so haunted before.
Connor watches her closely, and Ryke turns his head to Daisy. His brows furrow, intensely concerned.
“Do you hear that?” she asks again. “Something’s…not right.”
“Hey, sweetheart,” Ryke says in a gentle tone, “you’re fucking safe. Nothing’s out there.”
Daisy flinches, so abruptly—like someone threw something at her—and she drops the hot chocolate to shield her face. The mug shatters on cement, and no object flies her way. She’s about to crouch, but Ryke immediately reaches her side.
“You’re okay. I’m here.” He wraps his arms around Daisy. “I’m fucking here, Dais.” He hugs her tight, clutching her protectively to his chest, and his features simultaneously darken and harden.
I don’t know what to do or say. I waver uneasily and just stay quiet. Daisy is immobilized by fear, and so Ryke effortlessly lifts her in his arms. Cradling her body, he carries her towards the house.
As he passes Lo, my half-brother asks him, “What the hell happened?”
Ryke doesn’t answer. I think it might’ve been a rhetorical question. Lo knows everything that has happened to Daisy and why the dark would scare her. All I know is that Garrison and his friend
s didn’t help with her fear.
Not when they shot paintballs at the windows, among other things.
Connor clicks off his flashlight and lowers the hood of the car. I wait to figure out what to do next while he towers above with supreme confidence.
In his presence, I feel small. I feel awkward.
I doubt he’s ever felt either.
I push up my glasses and adjust my backpack straps. “I’ll call an Uber.”
“You’d choose the unwise option just to avoid us,” he states aloud like it means little when it actually carries too much weight.
“I’m not…avoiding,” I say, unable to even look at him.
Lo quickly finishes typing his email, about twenty feet away.
“To avoid: to keep away from or stop oneself from doing something,” he defines. “You’re stopping yourself from spending the night here, which is, in fact, avoidance.”
I clear a lump in my throat. “Do you always define words for people?”
“Only for people who need definitions.”
Boom. Mic drop.
Maggie would love his burn towards me. She once tweeted: All I want for Christmas is for Connor Cobalt to insult me. Please and thank you. It’s supposed to be an honor. At least, to the online community. For everyone off Twitter and Tumblr, I don’t think they’d appreciate being called stupid, and I doubt he’d care.
I try to nudge my already pushed-up glasses. “Do you have…an extra car I could borrow?” I risk asking him, of everyone, but if someone else stood on this driveway, I’d definitely be asking them first.
Because Connor analyzes all of my words, all of my edgy movements, and my quick glances to Lo.
“We have many cars you could borrow,” he says, “but Lo will want to ride with you.”
“No, no, that’s okay. Never mind.”
He’s so unsurprised by my reaction. It’s kind of unsettling.
Thankfully, Lo pockets his phone and approaches us. “So what’d we decide?” He appraises my Honda from afar, hood closed but still broken.
“I don’t know. We couldn’t fix it…” I trail off as a limousine pulls to the curb and then idles. Exhaust gurgles out.
Lo swings his head to Connor. “When did you call your driver?”
Connor Cobalt’s limousine. It’s nearly as famous as Lily’s Wampa cap. Jane Cobalt was born in that limo. It’s like this sacred relic. I’m stunned silent.
“The same time Ryke lifted the hood of her car,” Connor answers.
My brother laughs into a small smile, and he pats his friend’s shoulder. “Goddamn, you make life easier.”
“It’s what I’m here for.” Connor spins his attention onto me. “I trust my driver. I’ve known him for years, so you’ll be safe by yourself. I’ve already given him your address.”
It takes me a solid minute to find words. “Thank you.” I say my goodbyes to Lo, and he tells me to text him when I reach my apartment.
I dazedly enter the limo, the black leather seats perfectly intact and shined. A few water bottles sit unopened in a refrigerator section.
The limo rumbles to life, and the driver takes me home. I check my Twitter messages to find a new one from @garrisonwither.
How’d it go? You okay?
I message back: Strange … but good, I think.
I hope.
I lean back and look around this limo, and I imagine all of them here with me. Lily, Loren, Connor, Rose, Ryke, and Daisy—and I wonder how many places they’ve been. How many conversations they’ve had right here. Days and weeks and years ago.
I sit in a place that has held thousands of memories for infamous people—people that I can call family. I have trouble accepting this as reality. I feel like I’m part of someone’s Princesses of Philly fan fiction.
But this is real life. My life. Canon.
14 PRESENT DAY – December
Smoky Mountains
GARRISON ABBEY
Age 22
“I think us being together—like sexually and not just seventeen-year-old chaste friends—is starting to finally click with your brothers,” I say on the porch of the lake house. It’s this huge place that the Calloway sisters and their husbands all share and use every Christmas and other holidays and generally when they want to escape Philly and the paparazzi.
I pinch a cigarette and blow smoke up in the air, my skin freezing from fingerless gloves.
It’s fucking cold as hell, and I’m still reeling from my invite here. Without even knowing if Willow could fly down for the holidays, Lo asked if I wanted to join them at the lake.
Sure, I’ve been living with him for almost a year now, but he could have easily left me in Philly.
Willow is bundled in a pale blue ski jacket and sits on the wooden table. She pushes up her glasses with a gloved finger. “They’ve known that we’ve been sleeping together for a while.”
“Yeah, but we’ve been separated the majority of that time. It hasn’t been in their face. Now that we’re with them and also together, it’s right there.” I raise a hand to her beautiful, rosy-cheeked face.
She smiles, a giddy nervous one that lifts her carriage, like this is the first interaction we’ve ever had and she’s bracing herself. It’s magical.
It makes me smile back, and after a quiet moment that I hang onto, I say, “Honestly, I think Ryke was glaring at me this morning.”
She leans closer, hands on her thighs. “He glares at everyone.”
I bounce on my toes, trying to circulate blood in the cold. “This was different. His eyes said you’re sleeping with my sister. Fuck you.”
Willow laughs. “There was no fuck you in his eyes.” Her lips start to fall. “Well, if there was it wasn’t directed at you.”
She touches my shoulders, and I stop bouncing. My cigarette burns between my fingers. Even though she doesn’t smoke, she joins me on most of my smoke breaks. I’m going to try and quit again—I’m going to.
Just not right now.
I think she might say something super positive, but instead her brows furrow. “I’m usually the one overthinking everything,” she murmurs. “This is…different.”
I nod. “I’m getting a taste of inside your head, Willow, and honestly, gotta say, I don’t like it.”
Her lips quirk. “They’re probably not thinking about us having sex. One, that’d be weird if they zeroed in on that. Two, I’m sure they’re more likely questioning whether we’re going to stay together.” Her eyes don’t have those questions. They hold this powerful confidence.
“You don’t believe we’ll break up,” I say, putting the cigarette back between my lips.
She shakes her head. “We’ve rode out the bumpy parts.”
“Are the bumpy parts named Salvatore Amadio?” I wonder.
Since August, I haven’t been back to London. My one weekend at their flat was enough of a hurricane between me and Mr. Dickbag. AKA vampire-knockoff. AKA Salvatore.
Willow has had a pretty rough time living at the flat. I always thought she had this perfect thing going on in London, and it doesn’t make me feel better knowing it’s been shitty recently.
The apartment parties are sometimes as bad as three times a week, even after she politely had a “roommate meeting” and told them house parties aren’t her thing.
She was probably too polite. I wasn’t there, but she rehashed the conversation. She said they sometimes remember to lower the volume of the music. But that’s about it.
She still loves Tess and Sheetal, just not as roommates, and I know she’d GTFO like yesterday. But she signed a lease, and she’s stuck there till May.
I don’t have to love Salvatore, but I have to find a way to tolerate him while he’s still her roommate. I’m trying to get there.
“Maybe one Salvatore bump,” Willow says softly.
After I blow smoke up in the air, I step closer and her gloved hands wrap around me. The backdoor slides open, and Daisy’s white husky bounds out, sprinting down the stairs and
descending the snowy hill towards the dock.
Coconut’s fur matches the white landscape, blending in with the scenery.
“Nutty!” Ryke yells and follows the husky. Heading down the deck stairs, he nods to Willow and me, and I swear there’s another stern glare.
I whisper to Willow, “I’m not imagining it.”
“That’s his normal face,” Willow says.
“Jesus Christ, who left the door open?” Lo’s voice filters outside, and he appears in the doorway. He looks between Willow and me.
“Ryke,” I answer, not caring about throwing him under the bus. He, technically, was the one who left the door open anyway.
Lo leans outside, only in a pair of drawstring pants and a short sleeve T-shirt. “Ryke, close the damn door next time!”
Ryke gives him a middle finger.
Lo is about to retreat indoors. He stays, eyes on us. “Both of you. Your room is right next to Jane’s and Sulli’s. Remember that tonight before you start doing things. Actually, why don’t you two just not do things tonight.”
Wasn’t dreaming. Lo and whoever else have definitely been talking about the fact that Willow and I are having sex. Maybe because of the whole “blow job” slip-up back in August. Who knows?
Willow’s eyes are saucers, skin pale.
“Do things,” I say, almost near laughter. “How old are we?”
“Seven years younger than me,” Lo says swiftly like he has comebacks on speed dial. “And I was censoring myself for my sister. I could definitely be cruder if you’d like. Would you like that?”
Wow, he’s pissy today.
“No,” I snap. “Got it. Loud and clear. All of you can have sex, but we’re celibate.” And I realize my mistake as soon as I say it.
“No, sweetheart, you get to be celibate just like me and Lil,” Lo replies with a half-smile and all. That’s right—Lily and Lo are not allowed to have sex for the six weeks after Luna was born. Since Luna Hale came into this world at the end of November, Lo still has some time left with just his hand.
Wherever You Are (Bad Reputation Duet Book 2) Page 13