Lily puts her half-eaten churro back into the box. “We wanted to wait until they were older. High school, at least.”
She’s taken the news with Moffy better than I imagined. Lily might’ve prepared herself for the moment he’d learn about her sex addiction, and when it arrived, it blew like the wind and not a storm.
Rose taps her nails on the iron table. “Maybe we can let the little kids wait that long, but the older ones are already finding out information before we’ve had the chance to tell them ourselves.”
The sun has almost completely fallen, darkening our surroundings. We’re quiet, and their minds click and turn rapidly.
Lo is the one to stand. “Moffy, Charlie, and Jane?”
Just three for now.
Daisy and Ryke nod, both at ease keeping Sullivan in the dark a while longer. Lily joins in, nodding decisively.
He already knows my stance and Rose’s, so he flicks on the patio lights and disappears inside to bring out the children.
Rose finishes off her glass of wine, eyes pierced. Our children may see us differently after this, but I’m content with a simple fact. They’ll learn our reality, the truth, and that matters most to us.
Rose raises her chin, my hand tightened in hers, and she looks to me with eyes made of fire and warfare. “Our children are growing up.”
“I would be more concerned if they didn’t.”
She glares at my lips. “I was attempting to be sentimental, Richard.”
“I believe we were speaking truths—”
She covers my mouth with her palm. My grin is extraordinary. She tries to murder me with her yellow-green eyes, but I’m unbreakable. And amused.
I put down my wine, just to pry her hand off my mouth. I lose time to speak. Lo enters with Moffy, his son in plaid pants and a Spider-Man pajama shirt. Jane is next, more ruffled like she was woken from sleep. Her collared, pastel blue pajamas are wrinkled, a sleeping mask on her forehead.
Charlie trails behind and stays leaning against the wall. My oldest son looks more interested in this event than every activity from the past few days. He stuffs his hands in his gray pajama pants, his plain white shirt ironed and crisp.
“Why us?” Charlie speaks before we do.
“Why do you think?” I return the question.
Charlie tilts his head in thought. “We only have one commonality. We’re in the same school grade.”
“That is a variable,” I say in agreement.
Charlie is deeper in thought, more curious. He shifts his full attention on us. To acquire Charlie’s attention to this degree might be even harder than acquiring mine.
Moffy and Jane sit side-by-side on a patio ottoman, my daughter stifling a short yawn. She sneezes.
“Bless you,” Moffy says.
“Thank you.” Jane gestures to the wine. “May I?”
“No,” Rose and I say together. Jane knows the reasons why.
“That’s indisputably fair, but just to prepare you, I may ask once more.” Jane sneezes and then smiles.
I don’t need any preparation, but it’s sweet of my daughter to believe I do.
Jane might appear more disinterested than Moffy and Charlie, but she’s not. Her mind travels quickly. She juggles topics, thoughts and actions like one has plenty of room for the other: ask for wine, be concerned, share in Moffy’s curiosities, and peek at the churros.
And smile at Rose.
And smile at me.
Lo returns to his seat, Lily on his lap. In seconds, our expansive view of the theme park distracts them—and also Ryke and Daisy.
Everyone looks outwards.
In the darkness, the castle is lit and glittering. I have no problem with this kind of fantasy for my children, but I don’t feel magic in the setting like Lily and Lo.
I do see innocence. Purity. It’s just at a distance, sentiments not attached to me.
“They should build a Neverland theme park,” Lily ponders.
Lo hugs his wife to his chest. “And we could stay there forever.”
“And never grow up.”
“You’re already grown up,” Moffy tells his parents with a fleeting smile. When his throat bobs, everyone focuses intently on Moffy, Jane, and Charlie.
Rose pulls back her shoulders. “We want to show the three of you We Are Calloway. You deserve to know more, and we trust all of you.”
“Even me?” Charlie wonders, as though he’s given us ample reason not to trust him. He believes he can wander as far as he wants to wander, but it’s an illusion. He’s restrained by society, and he’s restrained by his own self-beliefs. Don’t upset my mother.
Don’t hurt my brothers and sisters.
Don’t disappoint my father.
We grounded him for wandering from Lily and Lo. His punishment was a two-thousand word letter on the consequences of his actions before the morning. While three-fourths was satirical, he stated one sincere truth in the end.
When and where I go disturbs the ground beneath certain feet. Ones that are not my own. People I know, and people I love. It was not my intention, and now I see.
Signed,
Your wisest son
We trust Charlie.
Rose tells him, “Even you, my gremlin.”
Charlie begins to grin at the endearment.
Moffy looks between every one of us. “I want to know everything.” Resolve centers his gaze, green pinpoints that refuse to fissure.
“You will,” Lo nods, assuring his son.
“How much more is there?”
Years.
Lifetimes.
On a different occasion, half of us might frown. The other half might recoil. I’d always stay impassive, but tonight, in this moment, we all just smile.
Our histories may contain darkness, but there is great light.
I found love in that time. Love that extends to these five people.
“You’ll see,” Lo tells his son, and Moffy takes a breath, ready for it all.
Fireworks explode. Bright, glittering and sparkling above the castle, we all watch. Innocence. Purity. Vibrant colors flash across our faces, and my gaze drifts to Rose.
She turns to me. A rare, sentimental smile at her lips. I take it all in.
[ 60 ]
July 2027
Disneyland
California
ROSE COBALT
“Please let me.” Audrey speaks relatively clear for her age. She hikes onto her strawberry-pink suitcase, carrot-orange hair in a tiny braid, and she attempts to shut the luggage closed.
She’s horrible at this.
“If you must.” I raise my hands, watching her failure with a tortured heart. “If you need help, I’ll be in the next room.”
I leave Audrey be, and then pass an adjoining door, Connor inside. His wavy brown hair looks better today, and most days it looks too good. God. I’m complimenting him in my head.
What has Disneyland done to me?
I also blame the fact that he’s shirtless and folding my clothes. He lays every garment into my suitcase while I make rounds to all the children. I cross my arms, my eyes burning hot up and down Connor. Just watching him fold my clothes.
It’s sexy.
I could scoff, but it’s hard to deny. So I breathe in this fact. Connor Cobalt folding my clothes almost makes me wet. When he straightens up, his head turns, and he arches a brow at me, a smile lifting the corner of his lip. As though he’s known forever that I’m attracted to his folding, his hair, his abs—all beneath his words.
I walk further into the room like he does not attract me. “Keep folding.” I wave at him like he’s nothing to me.
“It’s still amusing that you think you can order me around.” Connor faces me, deserting our luggage for a moment. “Come here.”
“And who said you can order me around?”
Connor grins. “Rose.”
I don’t add the perfunctory, Richard. I march to the dresser and pretend to inspect the star-shaped knobs. I plan to
annoy him like he’s annoying me, but he knows just what to say to completely startle me.
“You asked me something years ago, and I never gave you an answer.”
My mind traces back, and I search for the long-lost memory. What did I ask? What did he not answer? He waits for me to question him, and then the moment from many years’ past jolts me. The tea party in Jane’s room.
When you were a teenager, did you ever fantasize about me?
I turn and face my husband, my neck tight. “Have you been waiting nine years with this information, just to use it as arsenal?”
Connor shakes his head once, his smile never diminishing. “No. I just remembered the moment yesterday. Jane was reminiscing about her tea parties, and it hit me.”
“And?” I cross my arms again, waiting. Nervous.
No, I am not nervous. I’ve made love with this man. I’ve made seven children and listened to his every word the way that he’s listened to mine. We’ve had war and peace, and there is nothing that could shake me.
“And I have an answer for you, darling.” He reaches for the pile of clothes on the bed. My clean panties.
I try not to shift my weight. He’s studying me. “It’s taken you nine years to form an answer.” I try to make him feel inferior, even when it’s impossible.
“I’ve always had the answer. I just waited nine years.” He picks a black lace pair of panties and slowly folds them, still facing me.
My collarbones protrude. “You’re neglectful then.”
“I’m patient,” he rebuts, his fingers brushing the intimate fabric like they’re on me.
I heat. “So what’s the answer?” I cannot be horny right now. Lily even confessed that she abstained all week—and if she can be that epically self-controlled at this theme park, then so can I.
Connor places my panties in the suitcase, and his deep blue eyes flit to me. “Did I ever fantasize about you, sexually, when I was a teenager?” He steps towards me, until his hand brushes the bareness of my neck. “I don’t live in fantasy, Rose. I live in vivid reality, and in my reality as a teenager, I thought most often and most fondly and most passionately about you.”
I inhale strongly, my skin tingling beneath his hand. “More specifically,” I challenge.
His lip rises more, his smile inching closer to me. Towering. Our bodies draw together, his other hand on my hip. “More specifically,” he breathes, “I would masturbate to these realities.”
“No fantasies?” My hands are on his waist, gripping like my knees might buckle.
“One or two,” he says deeply, “but they would all come true.”
Sudden, abrupt, annoying clatter alarms me. I flinch and break apart from Connor. I fix my hair like he just fucked me.
He grins like he did.
Honestly.
I touch my stinging lips. His words kissed me.
Get it together, Rose.
I shake out of my stupor.
“I’ll check on the boys,” I say with purpose, strutting to the door. I feel Connor’s unbridled confidence all around me, as though he’s still right beside me. I push out, into the suite, and towards the room with all of our boys.
I’m excited to finally go home. I miss my own bed, peeing in my own toilet, and curling up on my own couch. I even miss the spirited Lady Macbeth and that exasperating little Pip-Squeak. Being on vacation is nice, but sometimes it’s more comforting to be surrounded by my own things.
I grab hold of a new door frame and skirt into a disastrous room. I do not enter further. I scan their progress, which is pitiful.
Only Charlie and Beckett packed their bags, and they’re no longer in this room. That leaves Eliot, Tom, and my youngest, Ben, all standing on the bed.
I spot the casualty: an overturned lamp.
“One of you will be picking that up before we leave.” I point a manicured nail at the fallen lamp.
Eliot laughs and starts bouncing on the bed, Tom following suit. Ben falls to his ass, but his brothers keep jumping.
Their clothes are wrinkled everywhere, most thrown haphazardly into the suitcases. “Did I not teach you how to fold?” I ask them. I most certainly remember that lesson because Tom face-planted on the clean clothes by the end of it.
“Mommy, I need help,” Ben says, sliding off the bed.
“Me too, Mom!” Eliot calls, leaping onto the floor.
“Me too!” Tom now lands beside his brother, both rushing to their suitcases.
I don’t care what their true motives are—at least they’re beside their luggage. I grab one of Tom’s black shirts, a gravestone on the front.
He never grew out of these prints.
“I’ll demonstrate,” I tell them, “and then you can finish your suitcase yourselves.”
Eliot drums his lips. “What if I opt to forgo the folding?”
“Then when you’re twenty and in college and you have no idea how to iron or fold, you’ll wish you listened to this lesson.”
“Go ahead, Mommy.” Ben crawls into his suitcases like he found a new home, laughing like he made a joke. “I’m listening.” He’s five, and I cherish all the ridiculously strange things my children do. In a blink of an eye, they’ll be grown and gone.
My bones are rigid as I fold Tom’s shirt.
“But…” Eliot frowns.
“But what?”
“I can call you when I’m twenty and in college, can’t I?” he asks. “You’ll still be around to teach me how to fold?”
Tears brim, and I nearly shed an actual tear. I skim my finger beneath my eye, avoiding smudged mascara. Having children has been like viewing the Titanic a million times in succession. I could cry at the stupidest, silliest, most inane and nauseatingly adorable moments. I could cry at the sight of any of them, for any reason, for anything.
I take a deep, vital breath that grips my heart. “Whenever you need me, I’ll always be here.”
< 61 >
December 2027
The Woods of the Meadows Cottage
Philadelphia
DAISY MEADOWS
I swing my axe and split a log in two.
Ryke places another log on the tree stump where we’ve been chopping. A secret spot in our woodsy backyard. Yesterday’s sudden snowfall layers the ground and trees in white. Coconut has been tired lately, so she’s inside staying warm. Our girls are currently at school, which leaves me alone with Ryke.
We’ve been silent for the past fifteen minutes, exchanging coy glances here and there. Ryke skims me from head-to-toe again, and I draw out the heady tension, staying rooted to this place. I’d like to just slink forward, to run my fingers through his thick hair, his scruff.
My wolf.
I smile with the next swing, but I barely split this log. I try again, the wood too tough. Ryke extends his hand, and I go to pass him the axe. He tries to grab, then I playfully retract.
He raises his brows.
“You want this axe?” I hold my axe towards my crotch. I stroke up and down the wooden handle.
Ryke Meadows is indestructible, barely batting an eye. It drives me wild. My smile constant, never receding. I’m the one who steps forward. About three feet away. I nearly pant, winter air rushing cold through my lungs.
Ryke stares darkly down at me, and when we’re an arm’s length away, he tears the axe out of my hand.
And throws it aside.
What is he doing? What does he want? Where is this going? The mysteries light my eyes, and I rise and fall on the tips of my toes.
So suddenly, so swiftly, Ryke shuts the distance, his hands on my cheeks. Lips on my lips. I lose breath, my fingers scraping through his soft hair. His tongue wrestles against mine. Our animalistic energy snaps the air.
I quickly kick off my boots, and he yanks my jeans down my legs, along with my panties. He pulls me closer with a feral kiss. My body sings a song of love, affection and happiness. Ryke kneads my head like hey, sweetheart.
My hands speak back, the same motion on his h
ead.
And then he breaks apart and effortlessly hikes me up onto his shoulders. My lungs eject, and my legs dangle down his back.
I cup his rough jaw, my smile out-of-this world.
The danger of it all.
Ryke stares up at me while he kisses between my legs. The cold nips my skin, and mixed with the warmth from his mouth, all my nerve-endings shriek in delight.
“Ryke,” I cry, gripping his hair.
He sucks hard, and I tremble on his shoulders. Oh…
My head lolls, ahhh… I cry out, his hand on my thigh, the other on my bare ass. Fuck.
His tongue. That tongue.
My fevered moan pitches into the air. I contract, dots blinking in my vision. Skin on fire. My eyes roll back, fuck fuck.
“RYKE! DAISY!”
Connor Cobalt.
We’re close enough to the tree line that he might be able to see me partially naked on Ryke’s shoulders.
Oh God.
It takes me a second for my world to realign. Ryke slides me down his body, his head whipping towards our cottage. I see the outline of Connor’s body, but thankfully his back is to us—and he’s not walking further into the woods.
Ryke starts helping clothe me, rapidly, while I descend from a mind-numbing orgasm. Panties first. Then jeans.
“Fuck it.” Ryke says midway through, abandoning my boots. He picks me up to save me from the snow, and he cradles me in his arms. Where I’ve been so many times before.
I couldn’t discern Connor’s tone of voice. Worried? Panicked? Angry? Elated? It remains to be seen, which is why Ryke runs with me.
We break through the tree line to our yard and then just stop. Connor stands right there, poised in an expensive black woolen coat. His gaze sweeps us, landing on my bare feet, and then his blue eyes flit to Ryke.
“Where are your phones?” Connor asks calmly, but I have trouble reading his gaze.
I pat the pockets of my jeans and sweater.
Ryke lets me down and touches his pants.
Nothing.
“Fuck,” Ryke curses. Maybe we left them inside or maybe we dropped them somewhere in the woods.
“They might be inside,” I tell Connor, my soles freezing. “What happened?”
“The school called Lo since he was your first emergency contact. Sulli needed to be picked up.”
Some Kind of Perfect (Calloway Sisters #4.5) Page 58