Some Kind of Perfect (Calloway Sisters #4.5)

by Krista Ritchie

  I brighten with my features. “Thanks, Lo. That means a lot.”

  “Hold onto it because I only give one compliment a year and you just hit your limit.”

  I act like I grab the compliment out of the air and pocket it in my bra. I pat my chest. “Safe keeping.” I’d literally do this with only Lo or Ryke—Ryke because he understands my humor the best. Lo because of his what the hell reactions.

  He grimaces. “Now I have to bleach my brain when I get home.”

  I wince. “Sounds painful.”

  “Not as painful as other things…” His gaze and voice drifts towards the lake. Ryke said that November had been the worst month for his little brother, but he persevered.

  Jonathan Hale left his house specifically to Lo. He was the one who grew up in those four walls, who had memories in each room. Ryke said that Lo wanted to part ways with the home—that it was a past he could revisit but ultimately one he knew he had to leave behind.

  In March, Lo found the strength to walk through his father’s house.

  In April, he sold it.

  The rest of Jonathan’s other assets were split between his three children, per his request.

  If you saw Lo now, you wouldn’t find a weight on his shoulders. You wouldn’t see burden or torment behind his amber eyes. He stares towards the lake like he’s met the pain he mentioned, but today and tomorrow, all he feels is free.

  He only turns when Ryke emerges on the dirt path, caring a huge tree trunk. About eight-feet long.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Lo shakes his head in disbelief. “Did you stumble into a time warp and come out as a lumberjack? Bring back my brother.” He teasingly shoves Ryke’s shoulder.

  Ryke almost smiles and sets the tree trunk on the ground. Bark flakes off.

  “Look at the size of that log.” I wag my brows at my husband. “What is it, eight, nine, ten-inches?” I zero in on his crotch.

  Ryke raises his brows at me. “Hey, Calloway?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Wrong log.”

  I feel my smile pull my scar. “But it’s my favorite.”

  Lo scrunches his nose, his head swinging between Ryke and me. “I’m still in earshot, raisins. Wait until I’ve left before this begins.” Then he points to the log. “Seriously, bro, what the fuck?”

  “It was rotting,” Ryke says. “I didn’t want it to fucking fall on anyone.” Lo can act like his brother is crazy, but when it comes to safety of little kids, he can be even more cautious.

  “My brother,” Lo declares and then tilts his head to me. “You’ve married this person, you realize that?”

  I look to Ryke while he looks to me. His darkened features conceal a million dangerous adventures. Ones that we’ve taken together. Where we’re anything but alone. His lips begin to lift higher and higher. I pick up our wiggly two-year-old in my arms, and his smile touches his eyes.

  You’ve married this person, you realize that?

  It’s a familiar question from Lo but with a new twist. Usually he asks Ryke if he realized who he married. I grin right at Lo because he knows me and loves me for reasons beyond bringing his brother happiness. He loves me for me.

  “What?” Lo asks me like I’m the strangest person in the world. I just grin more, and he throws up his hands. “You know what, don’t tell me. You’re probably grinning because the sun is in the sky.” He nods to his older brother. “You know who you married, right?”

  Never leaving me, Ryke says, “That I fucking do.”

  [ 49 ]

  July 2026

  The Lake House

  Smoky Mountains

  ROSE COBALT

  “I declare this a sworn pact between Calloway sisters and our honorary sister, Willow Hale.” I raise a sharp knife, and my three sisters and Willow exchange wary glances. We’ve gathered in the kitchen, a baby monitor close by and our youngest four girls in a living room playpen together.

  Our husbands and the rest of the children play outside since yesterday’s rainstorm confined everyone indoors. We’ll join them in a second, but first, we have to finish this pact. Last night, we all collectively shared a similar mode of feeling, and it only seems right to solidify this promise together.

  Poppy’s maroon bohemian dress flows to her ankles and hides her bathing suit. We’re all in cover-ups, mine sheer and black. I already set my floppy hat aside. Now we stand in a circle between the kitchen counters.

  Lily raises her hand. “Can’t we just spit on it?”

  I glare. “There’s a reason why it’s called a blood oath and not a spit oath.”

  “I’m game.” Daisy smiles wide, her blonde hair tangled and still wet after jumping in the lake. Water collects at her bare feet. My littlest sister turned thirty in February, but Lily still looks five years younger.

  Willow pushes up her glasses. “Is this safe?”

  “Probably not.” Poppy never raises her voice, not even when combatting me.

  I give my oldest sister a cold look. “It’s sterile. I have matches, and we’ll clean the blade after someone uses it.” They hesitate, so I add, “Calloway sisters don’t welch.” Coconut barks in the background, pawing at the sliding glass door to come in.

  We all turn our heads. Outside, Ryke scratches Coconut affectionately by her ears and then whistles for her to move further onto the deck. Then he notices us through the glass. His what the fuck expression drifts away with him.

  “We’ve welched plenty of times on your blood oaths,” Lily notes, but that fact crinkles her brows like maybe they’ve been terrible sisters. Maybe in all the years I asked, they should at least give into this one moment to solidify something between us through blade and blood. “Okay…I’ll do it.”

  Willow nods, bravery in her eyes. “Me too.”

  “Why not?” Poppy smiles and looks to me. I press my lips together to keep from grinning eagerly. Bells are ringing. Confetti is falling. All the annoying sentimental things that I usually can’t stand—even birds with their brutally irritating chirps—I hear them and I only think, I love my sisters.

  “I’ll go first.” Without flinching, I knick both of my palms with the kitchen knife, sliced deep enough that blood shows in the cut.

  I clean off the knife, sterilize, then pass it to Daisy.

  She’s been rocking excitedly on her feet, and she raises the knife in the air. “Rejoice!” Then she cuts her palms without trouble. Poppy goes next, and when it’s Willow’s turn, she winces a little. Daisy cheers her on until she finishes.

  Last is Lily.

  I clean off the knife. “You’ve given birth. You can survive a cut.”

  Lily places her hand on her heart. “I’m not a warrior. I’m the village person who hides in their hut and waits for help.” I don’t think she always believes this. Maybe just in the face of these daring tasks opposite people like Daisy and me, she forgets all that she’s ever done.

  My hands hover over her shoulders. “Lily. You’re a fucking warrior. You slay enemies left and right. You stomp on critics and you’ve risen from ash.” I narrow my eyes at her. “Say it.”

  I’m much taller than her in heels, so she has to look up. “I’m a warrior?”

  Dear God. “Say it like it’s true.”

  “I’m a fucking warrior.” She nods slowly. “Yeah…” She nods faster.

  “Yeah!” Daisy raises her fist in the air.

  “Yeah!” Lily shouts like she gets it. “I’m a fucking warrior. Take that. Ha!” She tries to do a side-kick, but she whacks a cabinet. “Ow.”

  Daisy laughs and gives her a thumbs-up.

  “Hold out your hands,” I tell Lily.

  She focuses and splays out her palms for me. I knick her skin less than I did mine, but enough that blood appears. She keeps her eyes tightened closed the entire time.

  “Done.” I set the knife aside.

  Lily opens one eye and relaxes at the sight of a small cut.

  “What are you crazies doing?” Lo has cracked the sliding glas
s door, and our husbands are gathered on the porch, acting like they’re not watching and just grilling hamburgers and hot dogs for lunch.

  They’re painfully obvious.

  “Go away, Loren!” I call.

  Lo waits for one of my sisters to explain, but no one is betraying this circle of sisterly secrecy and trust. “Don’t let her sacrifice you for a year’s worth of heels!”

  That’s it.

  I break ranks to shut up the naysayer.

  “Go, Rose!” Daisy starts clapping.

  My heels click-clack against the floorboards, and I yank the sliding door out of Loren’s grasp and shut it. His sharpened glare battles my piercing one, and I flick the lock before he can claim victory.

  He flashes a half-smile, and his next words are muffled through the glass, “Harm my little ‘puff, and see what’s up, Angelica.”

  “I’d sooner rip out your heart than I would yank a hair off my sister’s head.” Then I spin around and enter the circle.

  All my sisters are smiling.

  “What?”

  “You’re badass,” Daisy is the first to say.

  “So are you.” I’m quick to encourage her.

  “Not in that way.” Daisy smiles. “I’m really glad you’re my sister.”

  My eyes are burning. Tears are coming and we haven’t even finished this.

  Lily nods in agreement. “We’d all be worse off without you.”

  “You’d be fine,” I say.

  “No…I don’t think we would’ve.” Lily awkwardly tries to lean her weight on the counter, but it’s too far away. “You’re our Emma Frost.”

  I’m not entirely sure what that means. I know of the comic book character, but I don’t know much about her except that she means a lot to Lily.

  That’s enough for my heart to grow. “Enough with the sappiness. We have an oath to finish.” I clasp hands with Lily, then she clasps Poppy, who grabs hold of Willow, to Daisy, and finally Daisy and I close the circle.

  “We’re here today, to make a promise,” I say. “We promise to always be there for one another, to support each other’s choices, to be the tides that wash away negativity and foes.” I look around at all the girls, and they nod, remembering how we all stayed up until three in the morning, just talking. We might have families of our own, but when we can be together, it’s like no time has passed at all. “However long we live, however hard life becomes, we’ll never lose sight of this sisterhood.”

  We raise our clasped hands, and my sisters and Willow make a second and third and so forth motions, and as I stare between them, I’m truly grateful for these women in my life.

  They’re each so different from me, but I wouldn’t want them to be the same. I love them for all their oddities and for all their strengths.

  * * *

  We joined our husbands on the deck outside and they will not shut up about our bandaged palms.

  “I fucking hope you all used Neosporin,” Ryke says while flipping a burger on the grill. Daisy sits on the railing of the deck and shucks corn, Coconut lounging beneath her with constant tail wags, content.

  Connor helps grill, a perfect distance away to avoid grease splatter on his bare chest.

  Ryke is a messy cook. And I can’t believe he’s the one bringing up Neosporin. As though he’s a model for cleanliness.

  Lo sips a Fizz Life, sitting on the deck’s picnic table next to Lily. Both are physically clingy. Even in the heat, they’re hugging onto each other like it’s more unnatural if they separate.

  “Does it hurt, love?” Lo keeps asking Lily, grimacing at her palm that is barely cut. Down below towards the grass, their dog, Gotham, is chasing butterflies, his ears flapping.

  Sam passes Poppy a margarita. “How did Rose rope you into this?”

  “You think I persuaded her?” I cut in, busy trying to re-knot a string to my sheer cover-up. “I can’t even convince Poppy to get a bikini wax with me.”

  “I like it all natural.” Poppy waves towards her vagina.

  Lo says, “Things I didn’t think I’d ever know: Poppy has a bush.” He gives her a half-smile.

  Poppy combats him with a replica of his half-smile.

  “Poppy, when’d you get so feisty?”

  She sips her margarita. “I’ve always been this way. You just never notice.”

  After I finish tying my cover-up, I catch Connor grinning at me. I muster the hottest glare, and then reroute my gaze to torment him a little more.

  Garrison and Willow sit close together on a patio couch beneath a tan umbrella. Their two-year-old daughter, brown pigtails and blue-green eyes hidden behind toddler sunglasses, sucks on a banana-flavored popsicle between her parents. Vada is more cooperative than every baby I’ve ever had. She will hum theme songs to video games and minds her own business on international flights.

  I don’t think their baby is human. Vada is obviously some sort of deity. Like a Greek goddess. Like Athena—only I’d think Athena would have better sense than to transform into a little two-year-old.

  Willow helps Vada hold the popsicle stick, and Garrison watches his wife and daughter with fondness. He whispers something to Willow, and then he kisses her cheek before kissing her lips.

  I whip my head back to Connor. His attention is on the grill, not me, and I try to stifle my disappointment. You did the same to him. I did, but most commonly, he’s the one who chases after me.

  My focus diverges anyway.

  Splashes escalate from down below, and I can even hear combined exclamations from Moffy and Jane, the eleven-year-olds.

  “Go, Sulli!” Jane shouts. “Overthrow our adversaries!”

  “You got this, Beckett!” Moffy cheers. “Come on! Come on!”

  In the shallow parts of the lake, Jane has Sullivan on her shoulders while Moffy has Beckett on his. The two eight-year-olds wrestle, attempting to knock one another off in a classic game called chicken.

  We all fall hushed on the deck, observing the children for a moment. I nearly smile, sensing the years that have passed, seeing what our futures have become. This morning Connor said to me, “The lake house puts our lives in vivid perspective.” I didn’t quite grasp the full meaning until now.

  Without background noise—the tabloids, cameramen, and our jobs—we’re left strong together, with simple moments that drum ferociously through us all.

  Jane takes one hand off Sullivan’s leg and tries to push Moffy.

  He dodges Jane and laughs, “What was that, Janie? Can’t get me!”

  “Don’t be so sure, Moffy! Just you…ohhh…no.” Jane starts falling backwards with Sullivan, but Sullivan careens her weight forward and clasps Beckett’s shoulders, keeping them in the game.

  I can’t pick an allegiance to either team. Jane and Beckett are my children, and my heart is with them both equally.

  “Jesus Christ.” Lo grabs his megaphone and switches it on. “MOVE AWAY FROM THE DOCK!” They’re not close enough that they’d hit their heads. I never thought Loren Hale would be the most anal, but I did think he would be as overprotective as he is.

  I quickly scan the backyard for all my gremlins. Eliot, Tom, and Luna are on the hammocks, strung between maple trees by the water. Three-year-old Xander and my four-year-old Ben play with Legos on the hill, right beside the red Adirondack chairs and an incredibly silly basset hound, leaping after air particles now.

  I swing my head left and right. “Where’s Charlie?”

  Connor sets down the spatula, his phone already in his hand. He calls our son, putting the speaker to his ear. My back arches, prepared to stomp around the entire house in search for our son. It wouldn’t be the first time. Yesterday, I found Charlie on the roof of all places. I truly wondered if he was my child until he pompously jabbered about physics and scientific theories like he discovered them himself.

  He is a Cobalt, through and through.

  “He’s not answering,” Connor tells me, incredibly calm since this is a common event. It’s why we’ve given Cha
rlie his own cellphone.

  “CHARLIE!” I shout at the top of my lungs.

  “There goes my left eardrum,” Lo says with edge.

  I point my nail at him. “You used that.” The megaphone.

  “My voice doesn’t sound like cats are being slaughtered.”

  I produce a hostile glare, and right when I go to rip the megaphone from Lo’s hands—about to use it myself—the sliding glass door opens.

  Charlie, who looks more and more like Connor every day, barely acknowledges us before skipping down the steps and heading towards the dock. I love him so entirely, like all my children, that my hatred towards his disappearing acts diminishes to just a handful of worry.

  “Is he okay?” Daisy asks, passing shucked corn to Ryke for him to grill.

  “He’s mentally bored,” Connor says. “I’ll play chess with him later.”

  Charlie sits at the edge of the dock. Maria, now eighteen, tans on a yellow inner-tube nearby, her Ray Bans blocking the sun. When I sweep all the children again, my jaw unhinges, and I take off down the steps.

  He did not.

  Oh yes he did.

  “Ben Pirrip!” I shout, my heels sinking into the damp grass. I get stuck on the way to my four-year-old who has walked off the quilt, left Xander and the Legos, and found himself a giant sinking hole of mud.

  I do what I never do.

  I abandon my heels.

  I free myself and go barefoot across the hill to this terribly disgusting muddy area near the tree line. “What are you doing?” I have never birthed a child more unpredictable than this one.

  Ben rolls in the mud, giggles, and tries to remove all his clothes. I sense Connor reaching my side about the same time that our youngest boy frees himself of his pants.

  “Are you sure he’s ours?” I ask Connor without tearing my gaze off Ben. His big blue eyes shimmer with an inordinate amount of light, the rest of him covered in mud.