“She’s a sex addict. It’s not going to be good exposure,” I say, frustrated. I glance down at Lily, who no longer tugs on my jeans. She stares faraway at the carpet, her neck red like anxiety is creeping in.
I’m about to tell my dad to get out, but his brutal glare silences me. “Loren.” He says my name like I’m a complete fucking moron. “When you’re making something out of nothing, bad press is good press. But when you’ve already established a reputation, bad press can kill you.” He points at me. “You have nothing right now. Bad press is what you need. Use it. Don’t be stupid.”
I just don’t want Lily to feel like she lost out on something else because of the media. We didn’t expect the attention to last for this long and to just keep on escalating. At this point, I don’t think it’ll ever die down. There’s just too much interest in my relationship with her and my half-brother.
It’s like a tabloid’s wet dream.
“I need more time,” I tell him, trying to find a fucking excuse. “It’s not ready yet. We still have inventory that needs to arrive—”
“I was just down there. If it’s not already stocked, then you’re overstocked.” He stands up. “It opens by the end of this month, and if you don’t set a date then I’ll put an ad in the paper myself, and you’ll just have to fucking deal with the line outside this building.”
I grip the edge of the table, my teeth aching as I shut my mouth. You’re okay. It’s a dumb pep talk considering all I want to do is explode…and yeah, a bottle of Jameson sounds great.
He stops by the door to adjust his tie. “Also, word of advice. If you want to have blow jobs in your office, you really do need an assistant.”
What the fuck?
My face falls.
My dad looks at the desk like he can see right through it. He can’t. “Lily, try not to breathe so heavily next time. You give yourself away.” With that, he saunters out of my office and out of fucking sight.
Just like my dad to have an exit as dramatic as his entrance.
“Oh my God,” Lily says with wide eyes, not crawling out yet. I look down at her splotchy red face. She’s way more embarrassed than me.
“Don’t worry about it,” I tell her. “We’ve both seen him come home after a one-night stand before.” If a woman wasn’t leaving with smudged makeup in the morning, then he was coming inside the house at 10 a.m.—fully clothed in his suit from the previous night.
No shame.
Ever.
My father doesn’t work that late unless he’s getting laid.
She doesn’t say anything.
I roll my chair back and dip my head down to meet her gaze. “Come out.”
She’s immobile. I think I may have to pull her out. Which, oddly, wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to retrieve my girlfriend from under a desk.
I go to raise my jeans up to my waist, and this stirs her from her hiding place. “No, I’ll finish you,” she tells me, crawling towards my lap.
My stomach suddenly sinks. I know I have to reject her. She’s too anxious—and sex shouldn’t be used to demolish those hard-hitting feelings. She has to deal. When she places her palms on my knees, I say, “No, not this time, Lil.” I scoop her hands and tuck them back to her chest. Then I pull up my jeans, zipped and buttoned to solidify my choice.
Still on her knees, her shoulders sag. She looks lost. I lift her onto my lap, and she places a leg on either side of the chair, straddling me. Christ. I don’t want to keep rejecting her, but I also selfishly don’t want to move my girlfriend.
Instead of bringing up sex, she surprisingly veers into another direction. “About Superheroes & Scones…” she trails off, not able to find the words. She places her hand on my chest, no happier than she was on the ground.
The store has been a safe place for Lily away from the house, and we both know if it opens, that safe place ends.
“We can wait,” I offer. Her despondent gaze is really fucking scaring me. “I can convince—”
“No,” she interrupts, but my muscles keep tightening. “He’s right. We should open it soon.” I know she doesn’t believe that. “I’ll hire a general manager and just keep in contact through phone and texts, so I know what’s going on…”
“Lily,” I say her name but I can’t say anything else. My lungs constrict, and when I look at her, all I see is a girl trapped in her own world.
Hell, she’s trapped in her own fucking body. She just needs time, but no one seems to be giving it to her.
She actually turns her head to look at the space underneath the desk, like she’s contemplating returning. Don’t you fucking dare crawl back there, Lil.
Slowly, she climbs off my lap. “I’m going to go count the inventory,” she says in this really soft voice, all her humor gone. My biggest fear barrels into me. Losing her.
“No you’re not,” I snap. “You’re going to stay here and help me with this pile of shit.” I wave at my desk, motioning to the comics. She considers this like it’s a suggestion. It’s not. I don’t trust her to be alone right now.
“Please, Lil,” I add. “I’m getting bogged down here. I need your help. You can do the inventory another day.” That does the trick.
She walks back to the desk and picks up a thick manuscript.
It’s terrifying how the both of us can ride highs and lows so quickly. She slumps down on the chair and opens a comic, her lips slightly downturned. But I’d take a Lily at a low over no Lily at all.
That’s the truth.
{ 4 }
0 years : 01 month
September
LOREN HALE
We opened Superheroes & Scones last week.
Three hours before we unlocked the doors, we had to rope off the sidewalk to contain the lines and lines of people outside. The crowds haven’t died down since. The shittiest thing: We barely sell any comics. People buy a cup of coffee and sit their asses in a booth, waiting to spot Lily or me.
We’re the products on display.
Lily spent the last two weeks holed up at the Princeton house, hiding from the reenergized media. I invited her to lunch, and she threw out some excuse about studying. But I know she’s binge-watching a TV show.
Right now, I ignore Ryke and Connor, the latter of which accepts our drinks from a waitress. She wears a multicolored Sombrero. Apparently it was some kid’s twelfth birthday, so they sang in Spanish to him and shook maracas. The boy looked pretty happy.
I focus on my cellphone and text Lil.
I’m checking Netflix when I get home. I press send, not clarifying. She’ll understand where I’m going with this.
She replies quickly. Do it. I’m studying :P – Lily
Did you just stick your tongue out at me?
:P – Lily
While adorable, the emoticon is her way of being evasive. I wish she was here. It’s easier to know where her head’s at when I can actually see her.
“Are you joining us for lunch, Lo?” Connor asks me as the waitress leaves us with more chips and a bowl of guacamole.
I pocket my phone and attempt to clear the frustration from my features. It’s like a permanent appendage, this pissed off I fucking hate you look. I can’t get rid of it.
I don’t know how.
My gaze drifts to that young kid in the center of the Mexican restaurant, at a table for ten, probably all family surrounding him.
While he opens a present, his mom collects the tissue paper and folds it neatly.
His dad snaps photos.
I hate everything about that kid. I hate that he’s smiling. I hate that more than one person hugs him. And I hate that I hate him. Why does other people’s happiness have to feel like someone punching me in the gut?
“Lo,” Ryke snaps.
I face my half-brother and Connor. They can barely withstand each other sometimes, so I’m surprised they’ve chosen seats side-by-side. “I’m here, aren’t I?” I say sharply.
I lean back against my wooden chair, trying to lo
osen my taut muscles. We sit in the back, away from lingering eyes and the glass windows.
No cameras. No paparazzi.
It’s more freeing than I can explain.
“Physically, you’re here,” Connor replies. “But I prefer one-hundred percent attention from people.”
Ryke lets out an unamused laugh. “You never change, do you? Still a narcissist.”
I eat a chip and say, “I was going to call him an attention whore.”
“I’m that too,” Connor agrees with a burgeoning grin. “So I love myself. Not many people can say the same thing—which is a shame.”
I wait for him to look at me.
But he stares off at the salsa bar, sipping his water.
I pop another chip in my mouth and try to relax. I don’t question Connor’s black button-down or his expensive watch or his wavy brown, perfectly styled, hair. The guy is put together, unlike my brother who seems to have rolled out of bed, disheveled dark brown hair, unshaven jaw and a University of Pennsylvania track T-shirt.
I think I fit somewhere in between.
At least I hope so.
“How’s Lily?” Connor asks me.
“How’s Rose?” I deflect and reach for my drink. A water.
“Busy. High-strung. You know she took over the wedding planning from Samantha?”
“Yeah.” I know. “Lily and her mom aren’t on speaking terms yet.” I don’t know if they’ll ever patch things up. It’s so complicated that I’m not sure if opening lines of communication is the right move. Lily was destroyed after her mom told her that she was a disappointment.
Samantha’s whole life is about protecting her family’s reputation, and her own daughter fucked with it.
Lily thinks our marriage will repair the shattered bond that she has with her mom—but I’m not holding my breath. I don’t want to watch Lily’s face crumble when she realizes that her mom still harbors deep-seated resentment.
So I’m counting down to our June wedding with nothing but dread.
Connor opens his mouth, and I cut him off. “Have you removed the wicked witch’s chastity belt yet?” I ask, redirecting the conversation to his relationship. “Or is it still welded together?”
“Rose is still a virgin,” he says like it doesn’t bother him at all. He’s almost been with her for an entire year and they’ve barely done anything, at least from what Lily and Connor have shared with me. Rose—she wouldn’t tell me the barest detail of her relationship, even though she’d like mine advertised. Just to ensure I’m not screwing up her sister’s recovery.
I’m not.
I grab a chip from the basket, waiting for the hot sauce to eat my chicken tacos. “Watch out for her nails. I wouldn’t want her to mess up your pretty face.”
“I’m not afraid of Rose, but thanks for the concern, darling.” He winks.
I touch my heart. “Anytime, love.”
Ryke rolls his eyes and slouches further in his chair, brooding. “How about save it when I’m not around?” he says.
“Homophobic?” I wonder, dunking a chip in salsa. I didn’t really peg my half-brother to be like that.
“No,” Ryke snaps like that’s the furthest from the truth. “Just irritated.”
I think he’s just jealous of the relationship I have with Connor. It’s simple. We’re friends. But with Ryke—it just…it can’t be like that. There’s too much shit between us for it to be anything other than complicated.
Ryke takes out his phone and texts someone before setting his cell on the table near mine. When the waitress returns, we place our orders, and then three girls giggle loudly at the bar. They notice us in the back and smack each other’s arms. I read their lips: that’s them.
All wear themed sorority shirts like Go Greek! and Tri and Beat Us with running shorts. In their twenties—the kind of girls that go to the college I was expelled from.
University of Pennsylvania.
Ryke openly checks the girls out, and they nearly shriek, their eyes bulging.
“You’d think that you just gave them a ride in your Maserati,” I say to my brother.
“I don’t own a Maserati.” It was a figure of speech. He stands up and tosses his napkin on the chair. “Give me five minutes.”
Connor pockets his phone. “That long?”
“Fuck off,” Ryke says easily before leaving to approach the girls.
I think the redhead on the end is going to faint.
They practically bounce on their bar stools, and Ryke slides in, using whatever game he has to pick them up. The short blonde with dark red lipstick speaks to Ryke, but she points right at Connor.
“Looks like one of them is into you,” I tell Connor.
He waves to them in the most noncommittal way I’ve ever seen. Friendly, not like a brush off, but half-removed like he’s silently disinterested.
“Cobalt,” Ryke shouts. “They want to know your IQ.”
“Higher than yours.”
Ryke rolls his eyes and turns his back on us, still talking to them.
“What a pickup line,” I say. “Damn, I missed the chance to use it on you.” When I first met him, I was sure he was asexual. Lily suspected that he was gay. Now, I honestly don’t even know what he is.
To me—he’s just Connor.
Maybe that’s the point.
“I wouldn’t have turned you down.” Connor leans back in his chair, checking his gold and black plated watch.
“Why is that?”
“You’re good looking,” he banters. “Not as good looking as me, but no one really is. So I wouldn’t count that against you.”
Before I was sober, I’d sit at a bar with Connor and people would fawn over him. Six-foot-four with those obnoxiously confident blue eyes.
Connor Cobalt is catnip for pussy and cock.
He knows it and he almost just doesn’t care.
Turns out Connor does have a type, and she happens to be strutting through the restaurant right now. I let out an audible groan when I hear her five-inch heels and see her piercing yellow-green eyes. But Rose has zoned in on one person.
She raises her Chanel sunglasses to the top of her head, and then occupies Ryke’s seat next to Connor. He greets her with a few words in French, and she replies back in the same language. His arm slides around the back of her chair, his body leaned towards her in possession.
If the girls at the bar didn’t realize he was legitimately taken, they do now.
“Hey, Rose,” I say unenthusiastically. “I thought you couldn’t make it to lunch.”
“I have ten minutes,” she says, flagging down the waitress. “I thought I’d stop by just to piss you off. It’s number three on my list of daily activities.”
“Thought so,” I say. “Is filing your talons number four?”
She shoots me a glare.
I shoot one back.
“Children,” Connor says, “can you fight while Rose isn’t near knives and Loren isn’t near tables that he can flip? I find cafeteria brawls wildly amusing, but not when I’m in the crossfire.”
“You’ve been saved,” Rose tells me like a villain in a bad action flick. She’s half-serious which is the stupid thing.
“Thank you, Darth Vader.”
She flips me off, just as the waitress approaches and clears her throat. Rose is caught with her middle finger in the air.
I laugh—this is rich.
Rose looks hardly embarrassed. She lowers her finger and says, “I’d like a margarita, frozen, no salt.”
“Can I see your ID?”
Rose pops open her clutch wallet and flashes her ID to the waitress.
“Thanks. I’ll get that right out to you. Anything else?” She fixes her Sombrero.
“Yeah,” I say, “a blow torch to defrost my girlfriend’s sister.” I smile dryly. “Thanks.”
“And I’d like a fly swatter so I can smack my sister’s boyfriend.”
The waitress opens her mouth, partially, but no words escape.
> “A margarita is all,” Connor tells her with a warm smile.
She swallows. “I’ll have that ready in a sec…”
When she leaves, my phone buzzes on the table. I collect it and open the text.
See you tomorrow. – Daisy
I go entirely rigid.
I flip the cell over and notice the dark green casing, unlike my black one. I accidentally picked up Ryke’s phone.
Morality, ethics—I was taught to shit on them.
I don’t even hesitate. I just scroll through the messages quickly, reaching the top of the conversation. My fingers rise to my lips in anxiety, my rapid thoughts drowning out Connor and Rose’s French talk.
You left your shirt with me, you know. – Daisy
Keep it. – Ryke
What the fuck? I breathe heavily, dark emotions pooling into me from so many places. Some indistinguishable, others really clear. Daisy is only sixteen.
It’s all I can think right now.
Back in Cancun, I made a promise—to trust Ryke, to lay off him about their growing friendship. I’ve been seriously trying.
My eyes flicker to my brother at the bar. He works the brunette girl, her figure curvy and her hand on his arm as she laughs at something he said.
She’s working him just as hard too.
And I imagine Ryke messing with Daisy’s head—just like that. Like she’s another girl at a bar. Like he’s trying to fuck her one night or for a week, maybe a month.
Nothing more.
I imagine the teasing.
The flirting.
I don’t know what he’s playing at with Lily’s little sister, but it’s not right. He can sleep with any girl—why does he have to go after her?
Or is he just leading her on, with no real plan to do anything more?
Does he get off on that?
I’ll ask him, I think. It’s the only thing that stops my leg from jostling.
I return to the texts.
I can just give the shirt back to you when we go riding. – Daisy
Whatever you want. Just make sure to wear fucking boots this time and not flip-flops. – Ryke
They were sandals. I also just found your shorts. I’ll wear those the next time I see you too ;) – Daisy
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