They start speaking in French again, and Lo scoots me closer to his chest, resting his arm around my collar. I pick up the remote and unmute the television, which hangs above the fireplace mantel.
“Thirty seconds,” the host counts down.
I think back to last New Year’s where Lo was in rehab, where I spent most of the night with Daisy, where we sat in Ryke’s car—stuck in traffic—as the clock struck midnight.
“Twenty seconds.”
Now I’m in Loren Hale’s arms.
He’s sober.
I’m in recovery.
I wasn’t sure if we’d ever be at this place. I glance at Daisy who balances her spoon on her nose with a bright smile—the first genuine looking one I’ve seen from her tonight. Ryke stares at her for a long moment before messing her hair with his hand. The spoon falls to her lap.
Connor and Rose stand only inches apart by the coffee table, his hands on her hips. Her chest rises and falls faster than his, but his gaze is glued to Rose, entrapped, like she’s beyond gorgeous—like he could take her right there without hesitation.
I turn back to Lo and rest my knees on either side of his waist, straddling him.
“Ten seconds,” the host declares.
“I missed you last year,” Lo murmurs, his hand on my cheek, his thumb stroking my skin.
I kiss his sharp jaw, and before I pull away, he kisses the outside of my lips, nerves singing at the touch. Yes.
“Remember how when we were little?” I whisper. “You’d chase me around before midnight.”
“Eight!” the television blares. “Seven!”
Lo’s fingers comb into my hair as he holds my face. “You always ran out of breath.”
I smile. “I wanted you to catch me.”
His amber eyes dance along my features, like he’s engraining every detail. “I thought so.”
“Five!”
“Catch me,” I whisper.
“Four!”
“I already have,” he murmurs.
Our bodies press together, as though they’ve never drifted apart, not for three months or years or any moment’s time.
His lips touch mine, his hand gripping my hair. I pull even closer to his body, the kiss magnetizing me to him.
“One!”
In this moment, everything else is just background to our story.
It takes a few minutes to actually hear the cheers from the television, the people in Times Square celebrating with confetti and more kisses.
Connor and Rose are full-on making out. Like passionate, powerful kisses that would occur after pent-up emotions from a fight. He’s in control, one hand on her ass, their lips never disconnecting as he walks her backwards. Her shoulders hit the wall.
“Whoa,” I say. Before Lo covers my eyes, I shift my gaze. I don’t want to be aroused by that. How embarrassing—on my part.
“Do you guys realize what this means?” Daisy asks, drawing my attention to the couch.
At first I think she’s talking about Connor and Rose. To me, it means that their nerd love is in full orbit. Where it should be.
But her eyes aren’t on them. She’s staring at the TV screen, and Ryke has his hand on the couch behind her head. They don’t look like they shared a New Year’s kiss, but I wonder if they thought about it. Even for a second.
“What?” I ask.
She stares off in thought, neither excited nor scared. “In a few days, we’re going to be filmed.” She pauses. “For a reality show.”
Oh.
Shit.
PART TWO
“That's how I survived. Time and time again. That's my secret. I survived because I willed it to be ... How did I survive apocalyptic fire? I simply refused to feel the flames.”
– Emma Frost, Dark Reign: The Cabal Vol 1 #1
{ 12 }
0 years : 05 months
January
LOREN HALE
“So you have to film everything we do?” I ask the short, pudgy camera guy. Brett can’t be any older than twenty-five. When Lily explained the reality show, my first thought was fuck no. Why would we voluntarily participate in that kind of torture? And then she started stammering about how this might relieve the guilt and how people might see us as a real couple.
She only sold me when she said, “I’m doing this, Lo. With or without you. So if it’s without you, then we’re not going to be seeing each other all that much for six months.”
Six months without her.
It’s never happened before.
I try to wrack my brain for a memory that doesn’t consist of Lily for that period of time, and I can’t come up with a single one. The only future I want is the one that ends with her.
If it means participating in a reality show, I can do it. Easy. All the drama will be supplied by us.
I stand outside of our bedroom door. In the Princeton house. Staring down a Canon Rebel and the stubby cameraman behind it. Lily clings to the door frame, shielded by my body.
Exactly where I want her in this moment.
Brett remains quiet, but my glare must motivate him because he finally says, “I can’t talk to you. You know…” He clears his throat. “The fourth wall.”
I raise my brows. Interesting. “So you’re just going to stand there silently—no matter what?”
He nods.
Maybe I overestimated how terrible this was going to be. No probing questions? No heckling from the cameramen? We can do whatever we want.
Huh.
I glance back at Lil, who wears a black romper and gold necklace. An outfit chosen by Rose. Apparently the girls have to wear clothes from the Calloway Couture line—for promotion.
Thankfully she doesn’t look like Rose.
She still has that delicate round face, the gangly arms and legs. She’s adorable. In every sense of the word. And she’s all mine to take care of.
I take a step closer to Lily and rest my hand above her head. When I stare down at her, she parts her lips in questioning like are you flirting with me?
I force back a smile. Yes, I’m flirting with you, Lil. I shove any concerns towards the back of my head. She can handle this without having sex. She has to. Because we can’t fuck every time I touch her this way.
With one hand over her head, my other falls to the hem of her romper. I slip my finger in the belt loop on her hip and pause.
Her breath hitches, her gaze flitting from my lips back to my eyes. And then her neck flushes. She glances at the goddamn camera.
Thing is—we have more free reign where PDA is concerned now that the cameras follow us. Instead of Rose thinking we’re having more sex, we just blame it on hamming it up for the viewers at home. Rose rarely scolds me now.
As long as Lily can handle it, we should be fine.
I clutch her waist, still hooked to her belt loop. My fingers dip below her hipbone, the romper’s fabric a lot softer than the jeans she normally wears.
Her back arches against the door frame, and her arms fly around my neck. I lean in to kiss her, and she tries to meet me halfway. I pull back a little and she catches air.
Her mouth falls, breathless. “No fair.”
“Didn’t you hear?” My lips curve upward. “I’m the biggest tease in Princeton.” I pause, smiling wider. “And Philadelphia.”
She lightly punches my arm.
My brows rise. “Is that a love tap?”
She hits me harder.
I rub my arm and mock wince. “Are you working out, Lil?”
She raises her arm and flexes her “muscle” which is a very tiny bulge. “Ryke gave me a five-pound weight for my birthday, remember? He said I needed to bulk up.”
I remember. “That was a shitty birthday present.”
“Yours was better,” she declares with a warm smile. It was a belated present, on purpose. During Comic-Con, I managed to get some of the artists to sign Lily’s favorite X-Men issues. It helped that we split up when she went to the director’s panel. I returned to the conven
tion floor just for their signatures.
The nearby camera fills the short silence, groaning as it zooms in on us. Lily freezes again.
Brett asks, “What did you get for Lily?”
I glare. So much for not asking questions. “You told us that we can’t talk to you, but you can talk to us?” How the hell does this work?
“Yeah,” he says evasively.
I grimace and scowl at the same time.
Brett takes one step back. “You don’t have to answer,” he mutters under his breath.
He’s probably scared that I’m going to slap the camera out of his hands. Something Ryke has done to paparazzi before and been severely fined for it.
I stare right at Brett and ask, “You want to know how I satiate a sex addict?” When I shift my gaze to Lily, she already holds her breath. I tilt her chin up, forcing her eyes to mine.
And then I kiss her. Deeply. Passionately. Like we were born to share oxygen. I part her lips with my tongue, tasting her, and then focus on her bottom lip. I suck gently, and her leg instinctively rises up to my hip, silently craving for me to fit between her thighs. I almost harden, especially as she clings tighter to me, blanketed with strong, feverish need.
She wears her insatiability with every breached moan and grind against me. I feed into it with every coarse, rough movement that slams against her thin body. It’s a hunger that only compulsives and addicts know well. It’s why people look away when we kiss. The raw desire grips my cock, my lungs, my mind. My lips drift to her neck, and my hand perilously rides the edge between her waist and her abdomen.
When we kiss full-force again, my head just explodes and I lose sense of my surroundings. I don’t care about anyone else but Lily. I raise her hand above her head, laced with mine like I’ve done so many times before.
She moans into a kiss, but we don’t stop.
I’m going to love Lily how I want to love her.
Overwhelmingly, uncompromisingly.
Look away if you have to.
My one hand on her hip falls between her legs, and I squeeze. She tries to stifle the cry, but it escapes her lips. I grin into our next kiss while she moves her hands up to my chest and shoves me back.
Her eyes flit to the camera.
That may have been the first time she’s rejected me—since we’ve been an official couple that is.
Jesus, maybe this reality show will actually do some good.
My lips sting. She breathes heavily.
I follow her gaze, and my grin stretches.
Brett’s cheeks are flushed red, and he makes a concerted effort to avoid our eyes.
Lily said she missed the teasing. I didn’t realize how much I did too, until now.
A thin sheen of sweat is gathered on my forehead. “You hot and bothered, Brett?” I ask him.
He makes an uncomfortable noise that sounds like a grunt. “You can’t…”
“Talk to you? Right.” I flash a half-smile.
Six months of a reality show—we can do this. Easy.
Lily’s cell chimes. She takes her flip phone out of her pocket, and her mood clouds. “Rose is asking about cake tasting.”
I try to suppress a cringe, but I’m sure it passes through my features. I’m not Connor Cobalt. I can’t hide what I’m feeling. “What do you want at the wedding?” Our wedding. Now I really grimace. Shit. I train myself not to glance back at the cameras.
We’re being married for appearance’s sake, even though it’ll be real. I love every single part of Lily, but I hate that this day is being dictated by her mom and my dad.
I’d rather just elope.
But that’s not part of the “image rehabilitation” plan.
“I don’t really care,” she says in a small voice.
I shrug. “Me either. Just tell her to choose.”
Lily nods, her shoulders drooped.
When she finishes texting back, I pull her close and wrap her in my arms. I don’t say anything. I just hold her.
Six months until our wedding—yeah, shit just got real.
{ 13 }
0 years : 05 months
January
LILY CALLOWAY
In just three days, our world has warped. Whether this is a terrible change or a catastrophic one is to be seen.
“Have you checked out the bathrooms?” Daisy asks me, plopping on my bed.
“Not yet,” I say. I’m on another mission.
Empty cardboard boxes litter the floorboards of my new bedroom in a Philadelphia townhouse. I still can’t find my canopy net. Either the movers took it for themselves or Lo tossed it when we were unpacking. I didn’t realize I’d grown an attachment to the thing until I lost it. Pretending to be in a jungle safari at night just won’t be the same.
I cautiously eye the door in case Brett or Ben or Savannah (the camera trio) dart into my new room to film us.
I need to be incognito for a few minutes. I hoist my body on the dresser that the movers just heaved in here. With a broom in hand, I do a piss poor job, but I manage to stand on two feet.
Daisy collects her long blonde hair into a high, messy bun. “What are you doing?”
“Checking for bugs,” I say. The electrical, peeping Tom kind. In the hallways, living room, kitchen and other common areas, rafters make up the ceiling, rigged with so many wires and cameras. Rose said we had to move to the townhouse for better sound, but the contracts say we can’t be filmed in the bedrooms.
I’m not taking any chances.
The world already thinks I’m a sexual nutcase. I don’t want them to have footage of private acts between Lo and me. With the end of my broom, I poke at the wires and a suspicious looking black box. I stand on the tips of my toes.
Oh my God.
There’s so much space between the rafters that a whole body could crawl on top of them, army-man style, and then they can hang down like Mission Impossible and film us while we’re sleeping.
“What’s wrong?”
I spin at Lo’s voice and the dresser wobbles underneath my bare feet. While I concentrate on not falling, Lo scoops me up in his arms and sets me safe on the floor.
“Are you cleaning?” Lo asks with raised brows. “Because I have never seen you pick up a broom.”
“She was checking for bugs,” Daisy tells him, legs crossed on the end of my bed.
Lo frowns. “I thought Rose already hired an exterminator.” The townhouse is old, which made Rose upset more than anyone else. She likes clean areas, not musty, moldy creaks and crannies filled with spider webs and the occasional daddy-long-leg. I don’t mind it so much. Maybe because I’m so focused on the cameras.
“Not those kind of bugs.” I point at the black box. “That’s a camera.”
His frown morphs into a scowl and then he follows my finger. “That looks like a battery.”
Really? My neck heats. “I just wanted to check.” Now I’m a compulsive, paranoid freak. “Crawlers may be up there, too.”
I realize that made absolutely no sense to anyone outside my brain.
Professor Xavier would have understood it.
Lo sets his hand on my waist and draws me to his body. “I’ll check the rafters with Ryke.”
“Crawlers are people,” I say lamely.
He just smiles. “I figured.”
I gasp. “You can read my mind now? Your superpower finally kicked in.”
“No,” he breathes, staring down at me. “I just know you too well.”
Oh. “Will you let me know when you get your superpower?”
He nods, and his fingers slide across the base of my neck. I love that he touches me so much more. “I have to warn you though, I may not have one.”
“That’s okay,” I say. “Sometimes I like the idea of just being mortal with you.”
Lo leans in to kiss me, but a loud clatter tears us apart. Brett tripped over a lamp on the ground, landing on his knees.
“Nice catch,” Lo says dryly. Brett didn’t drop his camera, but it’s strap
ped to his chest with some weird device that looks like a bulletproof vest, only plastic. I think Connor called it a steadicam.
Ryke passes by our room and stops when he notices Brett. He helps him to his feet and then enters. “Have you checked out the bathrooms?”
Daisy asked the same thing. They must know something that we don’t.
“Not yet,” Lo says, not as concerned as me now.
Daisy rises off my bed, and the four of us stand in more awkward silence.
We’re all living together.
This has never ever happened.
It’s new and weird and something the production company wanted so badly. It’s a big reason why we moved to this townhouse. The six months filming Princesses of Philly just got a lot more interesting.
Daisy breaks the quiet. “I’ve never lived with a guy before,” she exclaims, just putting it out there with more confidence than I would have. She’ll be in the same house as Lo, Connor, and Ryke. I’ve spent most of my time living with Lo, so it’s not so different for me.
Ryke and Lo share a look that I can’t decipher, and then Ryke says, “It should be similar to what you’re used to.”
“I doubt that.”
“Why?” he asks.
“I’m not used to six-foot-two guys sleeping two floors above me.” Daisy chose the basement, of all rooms. She said something about coming home late from modeling shoots and not wanting to wake up everyone. The stairs are creaky. And she’s nice. That combo led her to the darkest room.
I’d rather have her up here.
It smelled like cat pee in the basement, and since Sadie, Connor’s feline, is now living with us too—she could have been the culprit and already chosen her first target.
Sadie is a born criminal.
“I’m six-foot-three,” Ryke corrects with hardened brows.
Daisy shrugs. “Same thing.”
“No,” Ryke says a single word.
Daisy tries not to smile. “I’ve also never shared a shower with a guy before.”
Lo and I frown together. He beats me to the question. “Don’t you have your own shower downstairs?”
Daisy’s smile fades, and she exchanges a look with Ryke. Okay, everyone is sharing looks without me. I feel like the kid picked last for dodge ball.
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