Fuel the Fire

by Krista Ritchie

  I clasp her forearm and help her up, but she staggers against me. It’s easier for me to carry my wife, so I cradle her in my arms and kick open the door before it closes, then Ryke helps Daisy the same way.

  “We’ve decided on a sleepover,” Daisy declares behind me, her arms wrapped around Ryke’s neck as he carries her into the room with one king-sized bed.

  I set Rose on the hotel bed and she sprawls out and hugs a pillow. “No boys allowed,” Rose adds a requirement, which further leaves me alone with Ryke. We have four hotel rooms, and I hoped the girls would want to talk with each other for another hour and then let us split them apart.

  Clearly that’s not happening in my favor.

  Ryke obliges and actually tosses Daisy on the bed beside her sister. She laughs, and Rose spreads out her arms as though she’s suddenly at sea, sinking on the Titanic. Her hairband is lost in the depths of the white comforter.

  I lean over my wife and comb her hair out of her face, and her eyes narrow at me, even glazed they still contain heat. Blood pools in my cock. I can always tell when she’ll start her period because my body grows more primal, attracted to every physical move she makes.

  She emits pheromones around this time, and the chemicals usually send me over until I fuck her—but tonight is different.

  She looks closely at my lips. “Why do I love you?”

  I rile her. “If you really want me to list all the reasons why, I’ll be here all night.”

  She tries to cover my mouth with her hand, and she misses completely, swatting air beside my head. I laugh.

  I notice Ryke sitting on the edge of the bed with Daisy lounging drunkenly across his lap. “Big bad wolf…” She reaches up to touch his hair but her arm sags limply next to her. “Eat me.”

  It’s a provocative, intoxicated statement that I do my best to block out.

  Ryke lowers his head to her, kissing Daisy once…twice and then he says, “Every fucking day, sweetheart.”

  “Where’s Lily?” Rose asks me.

  “Her hotel room with Lo.” They’re fucking, something I’d prefer to be doing with Rose, instead of sharing Ryke’s company.

  “Where’s Poppy?”

  “Her hotel room with Sam.”

  “Where is Willow…and where’s her boyfriend?” Rose swats the air for answers. I clasp her hand.

  “Lo’s sister didn’t want to go out,” I remind Rose. Willow turned eighteen last week, but Lo said that she preferred to spend the night at her apartment and read a comic book. “And she doesn’t have a boyfriend.” I know Rose must be referring to Garrison.

  Rose snorts and tries to wave me off, but I have possession of her hand. “I’ve seen them flirt,” she says matter-of-factly, as though that’s evidence enough.

  “Your logic isn’t sound, darling.” I tug her dress down when it rides up her thigh. I’d let her be, but Ryke is on this bed too. “We flirted for years, and you never called me your boyfriend.”

  Her mouth falls and eyes flame. “What we did wasn’t flirting.”

  I arch a brow. “When I was seventeen you said you wanted to perform an autopsy on me, to crack open my ribcage and squeeze my heart until it burst between your fingers.” What is that—if not flirting?

  She lifts her head off a pillow to near me, propping her elbows on the mattress. “That was me hating you, Richard. I dreamed of your death.”

  “You dreamed of clutching my heart,” I rebut.

  “Of killing you,” she emphasizes.

  I lean closer to her, our eyes locking. “Vous m’aimiez.” You loved me.

  She breathes shallowly and collapses back against the mattress, conceding early, mostly due to the alcohol. Her heavy-lidded eyes fight to stay open longer, just to glare at me.

  When I turn to look at Ryke, he’s staring between Rose and me with more suspicion than I’d like to meet. “You know,” he says, “for so many years, I’ve never fucking understood why you both occasionally use vous instead of tu.”

  My muscles still stay flexed, even if this is a pointless topic for me.

  Rose answers before I do. “It’s formal.” We’re both not natives of France. Since we usually only converse with each other, we do what we want.

  “You were fucking dating and now you’re married,” Ryke retorts. “Your relationship is informal.”

  “We weren’t always dating and we weren’t always married,” I explain now, referring subtly to our days in prep school where we were competitors. “We began as formal and so now we switch between the two whenever we like. We’re well aware of the rules. They just don’t apply to us.”

  Rose is grinning from ear-to-ear.

  She says she hates when I’m conceited, but I’m more than certain she takes pleasure in the real me, even if I’m an arrogant prick.

  Ryke shakes his head like he wishes he didn’t ask, and then Daisy rolls off of him, closer to Rose, and the girls begin whispering together.

  I stand off the bed the same time as Ryke, and we exchange a look of recognition.

  We have to spend actual alone time together, beyond just passing each other in the morning and conversing sporadically for ten minutes. No Daisy. No Loren. Nothing that bridges us together.

  Wonderful.

  [ 33 ]

  CONNOR COBALT

  I finish taking a shower after Ryke. We spoke a few words earlier that basically confirmed we’d be spending the night in this hotel room together. We don’t hate each other enough to hassle the front desk at 4 a.m. for an extra room on St. Patrick’s Day. And I’m not foolish to believe Ryke would just drop his suspicions if we separated.

  He’ll bring them up sometime, so he might as well let it out tonight.

  After I brush my teeth and put on pajama pants, a light still floods beneath the door. I assume he stayed up to question me, and I never really thought he’d go to sleep without broaching the topic.

  I quietly exit, passing a mirror-covered closet and entering the main portion of the modern hotel room: a desk, a chair and one king-sized bed, nothing more. Before Ryke sees me, I catch him on his side of the bed with his knees bent, something hidden behind them.

  He’s in gray cotton track pants, bare-chested with a dark tattoo along his shoulder, rib, and hip. When one of his knees falls, I spot his scar from the transplant surgery. It begins right below his sternum in the exact center of his chest, and it stops before his belly button, veering beneath his ribs, almost like the shape of the letter L.

  It now accompanies the small scar on his eyebrow from the Paris riot.

  I’ve never viewed people as physical canvases for their life, revealing time and memories outwardly like Ryke, whether by choice or by circumstance. I may be a blank slate, but not all people are.

  I move closer, and he drops his other knee, his head rising. That’s when I notice the book in his hand. He’s reading. Strangely, I’ve never seen Ryke read before.

  He stuffs the book behind his pillow. “I have to ask you something,” he tries to distract me.

  My curiosity has escalated, and I’m not about to let it go. I head over to his side of the bed, and he immediately stands and blocks my passage to his pillow, his jaw hardening and features darkening.

  I’ve never been intimidated by him.

  “I have to seriously fucking talk to you.”

  I know. “Why are you so ashamed of what you’re reading?” I question, knowing it’s not about shame.

  “Fuck off.” He scowls. “I’m not ashamed of anything, so don’t twist this your way.”

  I am twisting it my way, but I’m not done yet. “If you’re not ashamed, then you shouldn’t have any problem showing me the book.”

  His nose flares. “What does it matter to you if I read the back of a shampoo bottle or Ulysses?”

  “I value intelligence,” I say easily. “I find it agitating that you hide yours.”

  “Well there you go.” He gestures between my chest and his. “I don’t rank people above or below me based o
n whether or not they can outscore me on a fucking math test.”

  That’s how he sees me then? I shake my head. “You’ve pegged me wrong. I’m not saying I look down on Lo or Lily because they’re not as intelligent as me. They have other qualities that I admire and value and that I personally lack, but they don’t hide these qualities from anyone.”

  “I’m not fucking hiding.”

  “Your book is literally sitting behind a pillow, hidden from view.”

  His jaw tenses. “And I’m saying that book isn’t me. I could do this all fucking day, Cobalt.”

  “It’s nighttime,” I correct.

  “You’re so fucking annoying.” He grimaces and sighs heavily. I don’t move a muscle, and it’s irritating him enough that he reaches over and grabs the book. He shoves it in my chest.

  I read the title in Spanish. El cuento de la criada by Margaret Atwood, a foreign edition of The Handmaid’s Tale. “Have you read this before?” I ask. I’ve only read the English edition, but it’s largely popular and actually one of Rose’s favorites, a science fiction novel with feminist themes.

  “Yes.” He snatches it back. “I’m not having book club with you at four in the fucking morning—or ever.” He returns the book to his backpack.

  I wander over to the window, the maroon curtains open to a glittering view of Manhattan. “Your intelligence doesn’t belong to your mother, you know,” I say. “It’s yours. You earned it. She didn’t.” I look over my shoulder, and he’s standing stiffly by the bed, quiet. In the many years we’ve known each other, I can count on one hand our personal heart-to-hearts. I don’t know why I bring it up now.

  Maybe to prolong the discussion about my secret with Rose.

  Maybe because I think he’ll actually open up tonight.

  The longer I look at him, the more I’m certain that I’ve hit the real reason why he shuts down so often. I can see it as he stares off, shaking his head.

  “I did everything my parents asked growing up. Every fucking thing. I can’t dissociate learning four languages from the rest of the shit my mom pushed me into.”

  I’ve gathered most of these facts through observation, but hearing the grit in his voice starts to churn my stomach. I lean my arm against the window, slightly uncomfortable, and I realize he’s triggering empathy inside of me that only extends to people I care about.

  He looks straight at me. “You want the truth. I went to college and I wanted to just be me. I had no fucking clue who that was, but I thought I’d figure it out.” He lets out an angry breath. “I couldn’t determine if I loved Spanish, Italian, French or Russian because she wanted me to love them or because I really did. I switched my majors five fucking times my freshman year, so you fucking laugh that I landed on a thing like journalism that I’ve never used, but I tried almost everything and nothing felt right.”

  I digest each of his words and the emotion behind them.

  Before I can speak, he continues, “Look, she made it fucking harder for me to find my identity, but if I asked her to rock climb, even when she didn’t really like it, she’d still let me. My mom and dad spun lies and I had to abide by them to protect their reputations. I used to be smarter and athletic for their pride, not mine, but now I read for me. I run for me. I fucking speak for me. But I was conditioned so much that I know some things are just my parents in my head.” He extends his arms. “So there are some languages that I’d like to forget.”

  “Which ones?” I question.

  “Russian…French.” That’s why it’s like pulling teeth trying to get him to speak French to me.

  I walk over to the room’s desk and lean against it, my hands on the wooden surface. “I don’t think you’ve ever spoken this much to me,” I say. “…I appreciate it, for whatever that’s worth to you.” My life was nothing like his.

  I never once struggled with my identity the way he did. But someone in our group did grow up as the yes kid, just like him. “You always saw yourself in Daisy, didn’t you?”

  He tenses and nods. “Yeah.”

  “Now we’re back to one-word responses.”

  He sits on the edge of the bed. “Maybe you should tell me what the fuck you were doing tonight.”

  This is why I think he divulged more than normal. He thought I’d do the same in kind. “I’ve given Rose a lap dance in front of you all. This isn’t different.”

  “You stripped in front of a fucking pub, not just the five of us, and that lap dance was part of a bet during the reality show.” He adds, “It also never fucking aired on television. This was live.”

  It never aired because it would’ve shown the physical chemistry I have with Rose, and Scott was trying to edit the show to make it look like Rose was attracted to him, not me.

  “And?” I ask.

  “And what the fuck was it for? I’ve been trying to make sense of everything that you two have been doing, but I can’t…” He shakes his head. “I know something is going on, and I’m asking you as my friend to tell me.”

  “It’s better if you don’t know.”

  He stands off the bed, which forces me to stand. “I will fucking deck you.”

  “This is why I can’t tell you,” I say calmly, even as he edges closer, pissed. “You’d respond like you are now, and I need rational, level-headed people on my side.”

  “I’m assuming Rose knows the truth. You think she’s that fucking rational?”

  My jaw twitches, and I rub my lips to hide my irritation. Rose isn’t rational all the time, but she’s far less aggravating than Ryke. They have a lot of similarities, and the things that make them different make me exponentially more compatible with her and exponentially less compatible with him.

  I have one inch on Ryke, but we’re still nearly level.

  “You have no idea how badly I want to fucking punch you right now,” Ryke growls. “You need to stop manipulating me, Connor. I can see every time you do it.”

  I let him share, thinking that I’d share in return.

  I didn’t.

  What hits me out of everything he says—it’s not the I want to fucking punch you or the you need to stop…it’s his use of my name. He rarely calls me Connor and not Cobalt, and when he does, I can practically taste the severity of our friendship, trembling in the balance between broken and whole.

  A real friendship is a two-way street. I’ve driven down it with Loren. I’ve given him vulnerable parts of myself, more of me, and he’s let me see his weakness. Ryke might’ve been brick-walled in the beginning, but I’m the variable that makes this friendship sit at a standstill, not him.

  “Take a step back and I’ll tell you,” I suddenly say. I don’t want to manipulate my friends. I don’t want to deceive him. I want something real.

  Ryke hesitates. “Don’t lie to me.”

  “I won’t,” I assure him. “I promise.”

  With this, he takes a couple steps away from me, putting about five feet between us. “Let me talk all the way through before you interject.” My voice is impassive, holding no endnotes of irritation or defeat. I spend the next few minutes detailing what I’ve done with Rose, first to help Moffy and bury an article, then our test to see if we can redirect the spotlight off our children.

  When I finish, I watch him run his hands repeatedly through his thick, brown hair. His eyes set on the carpet, processing the complete truth. The first thing he says, “I could’ve fucking helped you.”

  If someone asked me to name the first two attributes of Ryke Meadows, aggressive wouldn’t even be on the list. In the heart of his soul lies kindness, wrapped tightly in selflessness that shows in almost every action.

  I recognize, unflinchingly, that I don’t share his compassion with the world and with so many people, but a part of me longs to understand on a deeper, more human level.

  “It was easier on me if you didn’t help,” I tell him the truth.

  He exhales roughly. “That’s my fucking brother and his kid. That rumor was partially about me. I could’v
e done something so Rose didn’t have to.”

  “Rose wanted to,” I remind him. I’m a little concerned that he’s going to share this information with Lo. “You can’t tell him, Ryke. You realize this?” It’d send his brother to a dark place. Guilt weighs on Lo more than it ever hits me, so we have to keep secret anything that’d push him to drink.

  Ryke sets his hands on his head and takes a couple deep breaths.

  “Please confirm with me,” I say, unable to read him past frustration and anger.

  He drops his hands. “I won’t ever fucking tell him. It’ll always just stay between you, me and Rose.” I hear Lo in the back of my head, joking about an older kid’s club.

  It exists during times like this.

  “I want to fucking help,” Ryke tells me, taking one step closer.

  “You don’t need to…” I see his fist tighten and then the angle of his body. He’s going to hit me. I don’t turn out of it.

  He decks me in the jaw, my gums pressing into my teeth, tasting iron from blood on my tongue. I don’t touch my face, I just rotate to him once more while he settles down.

  He’s been waiting years to punch me. He’s stopped himself short countless times before. His features relax, the hardness of his jaw less apparent. His face holds no malice, no aggravation anymore.

  He’s content.

  Ryke nods to me. “Tomorrow you can tell the press I hit you and that we fucking hate each other or you can make up another story.” He walks back to the bed, giving me a headline to stir the press away from my daughter.

  I let out a laugh, stunned and amused. “This is your way of helping me?” I follow him, my jaw throbbing but I don’t complain. In my life, I’ve given Ryke more shit than any other person.

  Because I knew he could take it.

  Still it added a thin layer of animosity over our friendship—jokes half in jest and half in irritation—and I just now feel that layer begin to slowly peel away.

  “Yeah,” he confirms. “I never had a better fucking reason to hit you until today.” He climbs back on his side and slips under the covers.