I know it’s shorter. I could feel it the moment I had thirty feet left. “Six minutes flat?” I ask him.
He shakes his head with a smile. “Five forty.”
“Damn.” That’s really fucking good. I look back out at the tree tops. My progress, my journey—from being a curious six-year-old, to a punk teenager, to a determined adult—it just flashed quickly before my eyes. I think that’s what Sully had intended to happen all along.
“So you’re probably wondering why did Sully bring me to the top of this cliff and serve me cake?”
“Not really,” I tell him.
He smiles. “Besides your foul-mouth and that intimidating scowl thing you do, you’re probably the nicest person I’ve ever met. And I’ve been around for twenty-five years.” He laughs. “In climber life span, that’s a long ass time. I’ve already neared my halfway-point.”
I grab his water bottle and take a swig. I wipe my mouth on my shirt sleeve. “I’m only nice to you because you carry my gear when we climb together, and you’re the lead. If I anger you, you can turn around and cut my fucking rope.”
He snorts. “Right. I don’t believe that for a second.”
“Why?” I ask, seriously this time. “You’re always the one protecting me from a fucking fall.”
“Yeah, and I’m pretty positive I’m the only person who has that job when it comes to you, climbing, not climbing, doesn’t matter. I know you’ve been going through some heavy shit with your brother, and you still make time for other people and this sport.” He means I make time to meet up with him.
I nod. “Yeah,” I say, not knowing how else to respond.
“I remember you telling me that you had a brother when we were in Lancaster.” He shakes his head. “That seems like such a long time ago.”
My gaze darkens, recalling that day. I was too angry to climb, and it was one of the few times I opened up to him about my family. I didn’t civilly talk about it. I yelled. And the only person who ever heard the pain in my voice was a summer camp friend. “I called him a fucking bastard.”
Sully gives me a look. “We were fifteen. You were pissed.” He shrugs like it’s no big deal. “It’s what you do later that matters. Making mistakes and correcting them, that’s life.”
“We make a mistake on a mountain, Sul, and we die.”
“Here I am, being all metaphorical, and you have to go and be all literal.” He shakes his head at me with mock disapproval. He lifts the cake, acting like he may smash it my face. And just like that, we let the heavy shit go. Our friendship is the easiest one I’ve ever had.
“You do that, Sully, and I’ll push you off this fucking mountain.” We’re sitting on the edge, and if we start hitting each other, we could go over quickly.
“I was just going to tell you to take this back to Daisy.” He dips his finger back in the icing and licks it off. “I’ve never seen a girl melt over cake like she did.”
I took her to the gym to teach her how to rock climb, and Sully was there, instructing two ten-year-olds. I could never do his job full-time. I have a harsh way of speaking when people aren’t giving a hundred fucking percent, but that shouldn’t come as a surprise. He went with us to a café after his shift, and she ate three pieces of cake, all chocolate.
“She’s not in Philly,” I tell him. He doesn’t keep up with the gossip, so he wouldn’t know that she’s left for Fashion Week. “And she hasn’t eaten sweets in practically a month. She’d probably fucking drool if you put cake in her face.”
“Aww,” he says. “Poor girl. Where is she?”
“Modeling in Paris.”
He whistles. “She’s always all over the place, isn’t she?” He gives me another look, this time with a growing smile.
“What?” I snap.
He shrugs. “You two have a little thing. Not as cute as what Heidi and I have, but you know, you’ll get there.”
“We don’t have a thing,” I tell him.
He ignores me. “Don’t forget to invite me to the wedding, okay? I don’t have to be a groomsman or anything, but I do expect to be in the wedding pictures. I’m not against photo-bombing either.”
“Fuck off,” I say.
He touches his heart. “I love you too.”
My phone vibrates in my pocket. I pull it out and check the caller ID.
DAISY CALLOWAY.
Sully looks over my shoulder. “Think she heard us talking about her?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“Your voice is louder than mine,” he refutes, knowing where I was going with that.
“I have to take this.”
“Don’t take her too hard. She’s young and impressionable.”
I flip him off, standing to answer the call while he laughs.
I press the green button and walk further onto the peak of the rock. It’s flat, and up here, people gather to repel back down, the chatter echoing from one side to the other. I check my watch.
8 a.m. here. 2 a.m. there.
The line clicks and then dies. I frown. I look at my phone. She fucking hung up on me? Maybe it was a misdial. I call her back.
Her answering machine cuts on this time. “Hi, it’s Daisy. Not Duck and not Duke. Definitely not Buchanan. I’m a Calloway. If you haven’t misdialed then leave your name after the beep, and I’ll call you when I return from the moon. Don’t wait around. It may take a while.” BEEP.
“Call me back or text me that you’re okay,” I say tersely before I hang up.
I’m about to return to Sully, but my phone rings again. She’s being fucking weird. “Hey, what’s going on?”
She sniffs and tries to speak, but her voice falters.
She’s been crying.
My chest tightens. “Fuck. Daisy, what’s wrong?”
She lets out a breath that shakes the sound from her lips, and then she inhales sharply and chokes like she’s unable to exhale.
Fuck. Fuck. I rest my hand on my head. “Dais…”
“I…I can’t…”
She cannot have a fucking panic attack while I’m here and she’s there.
“Shh, shh,” I tell her in the gentlest voice I can. Calming someone—that’s not a skill I possess. I jump after girls who dive off of cliffs. I accompany crazy chicks on their illogical adventures. I teach them how to stand back up. I hold them while they fucking cry.
But I’m not there to do any of these things. I’m thousands of miles away with no room for error.
“Take deep fucking breaths. Relax,” I say roughly, dropping my hand and clenching and unclenching my fist.
“I…feel sick…” She coughs, dry heaving until I hear her really fucking vomit.
Fuck.
Sully is by my side with concern. He looks at me like what’s going on?
I just shake my head at him. “Daisy,” I say, running my hand through my damp hair. “Hey, you need to talk to me right fucking now. Take deep breaths. You’re not dying, so stop acting like it.” Being a jackass is the only way I can think to get her to calm down. It’s the only fucking tool I have to work with.
She pukes, but it turns back into a violent cough. Then she begins to breathe somewhat fucking normally.
“Good girl,” I say.
She exhales shortly. “They took pictures…of me…and no one cared…”
What the fuck is she talking about? She’s a model; of course they take photographs. “You’re not making any fucking sense.” I can’t just stand on top of this fucking cliff. I can’t just fucking talk. I head over to Sully’s backpack, and he keeps up with my hurried stride.
“I was naked,” she says, a tremor in her voice. “The designer…she threw me out of her show, and she stripped me…”
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. I freeze, gripping my hair with one hand. “And no one did anything?”
She chokes on another cry.
I almost kick the fucking cake off the edge. I almost lose my shit. I bend down to a crouch to stop myself from screaming
. I fucking hate people. I hate that the ones I care about most are the ones that get shit on.
“Hey, fucking talk to me,” I say, realizing she’s completely silent now. “Daisy?” Nothing. “Daisy?!” I check my phone. Signal lost. The call dropped. I try again, but I have no more range. I look to Sully with panic.
“No signal,” he says, tapping at his iPhone screen.
I stand up quickly and switch into a new gear called Get the fuck off this rock. “We need to go down now.” I pick up his backpack and find the extra harness that I use when I descend with him. I put each leg through the fucking straps while Sully collects rope, repel devices and locking carabineers, his hands moving in a flash.
“Is she hurt?” he asks, his eyes flickering to me.
I tighten the straps on my legs. It’s not a physical hurt. It’s not like she crashed her motorcycle, but it fucking feels like she got into a head-on collision. “I don’t know,” I tell him. Truth is, I think she’s always been hurting. It’s just different when I’m not there to take care of her. “I need to get her back on the fucking phone.”
“Double your rope so you can get down faster.” He tosses me extra rope for my descent, and I tie two together with a Double Figure-8 Fisherman’s knot. Then I tie an extra knot at the end of the rope in case I fucking fall. It’s the last safety I have to catch me.
“Ready,” Sully says. “I only have one anchor. You take it. I’ll go after you since I have to pick up my gear.”
I nod and hook into the anchor. I take a breath to relieve the pressure that bears down on my chest. As I stare at the 200 foot drop, everything fucking clicks.
I am so emotionally involved with that girl. If someone told me she was crying two years ago, I would have called Lily or Rose to deal with it. But I want to be the one to protect Daisy. I want to be the one to hold her in my arms. I want to comfort her until she reanimates in pure fucking happiness.
I don’t want to miss a day with her. I don’t want to be here while she’s there.
And I can’t take back these feelings.
I can’t go in reverse.
I just drive forward at a hundred and fifty miles per hour. I’m racing towards her when I should be slamming on the fucking brakes.
I know how to stop.
But I’m not going to.
I don’t want to.
That’s the fucking truth.
< 19 >
DAISY CALLOWAY
The paparazzi found my hotel.
I peek out of the balcony door once, just to confirm that the SUVs lined on the curb are in fact cameramen and not kickass secret service. The flashes blind me. Click, click, click in a wave. I shut the door instantly, my heart beating wildly.
I tried to lose them every time I exited my hotel for work, but with Mikey riding a moped next to me at a leisurely pace, we couldn’t exactly dodge all of them. Now he’s back in his hotel room, and I’m in mine.
It’s been one day after being thrown out of the runway—which has made headlines—which is why I’ve now become bigger news than before. One day after Ryke talked to me—calming me down by recounting his time at the quarry.
It almost felt like he was here.
But he’s not.
And now I have my mom rapidly texting me: You need to go talk to the designer right now and make it up to her. Apologize. Buy her something… And she goes on and on. As though I can march to the designer and bribe my way back into her good graces, demanding her to like me. That’s not how this works.
The rejection is harder to accept when my mom won’t let it go.
And I can’t even think about the pictures of me undressed backstage. If they surface…they haven’t so far, but it makes me sick. The thought caused me to cling to the porcelain toilet yesterday night.
I twist my hair into a high bun, pacing anxiously in my room, peeking through the curtains again. My stomach tosses, and a layer of sweat gathers across my forehead. It’s midnight, and I can’t do anything. I can’t go outside without being swarmed, but I can’t stay here and be a prisoner in this hotel room, suffocating in my extreme paranoia.
I have to get out. I have to breathe.
I pocket my wallet in my jean shorts, change my tank top into a long-sleeve sweater that says keep it surreal and hightail it out of the room on impulse. I can ride my moped as fast as it’ll go without Mikey and lose the paparazzi. I can go somewhere. A lake, a river, whatever, and take a freezing cold dip. Something. Anything.
I settle with this spontaneous plan, and I open the door to the stairwell. I dislike riding in elevators without someone I trust beside me. Like Ryke or Mikey. Without them, I’ll rock back and forth on my heels, staring with bugged eyes at the lit numbers, praying that the elevator doesn’t stop to let anyone on.
Stairs are better. It’s more private, less chance of running into someone I know, like an old friend. In Paris, that possibility is slim to none, but the fear still propels me towards the staircase.
My heart never slows from its quick panicked pace. Because even though stairs are better—it’s not by much. I haven’t been attacked in a stairwell, but in movies, it’s the first place villains go, right? It’s the place where the bad guy chases the hero.
But the hero usually escapes up the stairs. I think I could too.
I’m on the fifth floor, so I hop skip some steps as I head down to the lobby, fluorescent lights blinding in some corners and dim in others. The levels are painted on the walls.
4.
I pause for a second, listening. A door bangs above me. Oh God. Someone followed me here? From my floor. They sound close.
I sprint.
3.
The extra footsteps echo loudly, and they start to quicken, matching my stride. My breathing is so off-kilter. I exhale deeply just to ensure that I’m not holding it in.
2.
My hand glides along the railing, my feet moving in a blur.
“Daisy!”
I freeze. I go cold. It can’t be…
I turn around and my mouth falls. I’m losing my mind.
“You can’t be real.” I pause. “You’re in Philadelphia.”
< 20 >
DAISY CALLOWAY
Ryke stands four stairs above me, wearing a leather bike jacket and dark jeans. “I flew in after you called me. I just fucking got here.” He scrutinizes me from head to toe, a long once-over with stone-hard eyes that heats my body, snuffing out the cold. He looks real. “When I got off the elevator on your floor, I saw you going into the stairwell. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Relief tries to surface. He’s here. For me? “I’m not scared,” I tell him.
“You look petrified,” he says flatly. I watch his eyes dance over my features again, his chest falling and rising in a deep rhythm. He bridges the gap between us, descending the four stairs. He still has height on me, staring down to meet my eyes.
“I’m not anymore,” I say softly.
He nods a few times, processing this, and then he asks, “Were you going to meet up with that weird fucking guy?” His eyes darken.
I sense a hint of jealousy. Or maybe he’s just trying to protect me from Ian. Not jealous at all. “Didn’t you hear? He was a very uncomfortable pillow.”
“I thought I was your fucking pillow.”
I stiffen. “You didn’t want to be my pillow, remember? In fact, you told me to find a replacement.”
“How’s that going for you?” he asks roughly. I can feel him tapping into his asshole side pretty fast.
“Amazing,” I say. “Sleep has never been better.”
“Must be why you have dark circles under your eyes.”
“You caught me,” I say with a shrug. “I haven’t found a decent pillow replacement, but I’m still on the hunt, per your request.”
With a deep inhale, his muscles flex, and anger shrouds his gaze.
I add, “You replaced me too.” A lump rises in my throat “It looked like you enjoyed going down on her.” He s
tares unflinchingly, that rage brewing. When he doesn’t reply, I just shrug and add more, “Which is good, you know. You’re dating other people, I’m dating other people—”
And then his lips meet mine, kissing me with abrupt, forceful passion that explodes my chest. A breathless moan leaves me before I can catch it.
Our bodies connect like they’ve been dying for this affection for years. He hikes both of my legs around his waist, pinning me to the wall, to this place, to him. His tongue effortlessly slides into my mouth, wrestling with mine in the most natural way possible. My fingers slide into his thick, soft hair, gripping and exploring in ways I’ve only dreamed of.
He breaks away once, his hand above my head as his whole body weight melds against me. He says in a low masculine voice, “You don’t need to replace me. You can have me, sweetheart.”
I pant for air. “Say that again.”
His lips brush my ear, hot breath warming me. “How about I just fucking kiss you?” He finds my mouth again, and we attack like we’re thirsty for each other. I drink him in with every kiss, my body curving towards his chest and his hardening against mine.
I cross my ankles around his waist, dying in this heat, in this insane pleasure. I don’t stop to think about what all of this means. I just focus on the feelings, some I’ve never even met before.
He breaks away again, this time to suck on my neck, his lips soft but the pressure hard and aggressive like him. My next moan sounds like a piercing cry. The spot between my legs has found his cock, only the fabric of our clothes separating us. The more he sucks, trailing a line to my breasts, the more my back arches, bucking against him. And in turn, his crotch drives a little harder into me.
I barely notice that he’s untied my hair, the band around his wrist. The long blonde strands stick out wildly. The intensity between us stirs our need, and I thrust forward while he grips my ass, lifting me off the wall. He suddenly spins me around, and my back digs into the stair railing.
He kisses me again. I cry out as he hoists me higher, my bottom resting on the railing now. I sense the forty-foot drop behind me in the stairwell, the danger present, the risk quickening my heart.
Hothouse Flower (Calloway Sisters) Page 14