“She can take care of herself,” I remind her. “And if she can’t, she has Connor.”
“Yeah,” Lily says softly, “you’re right.”
My phone vibrates in my palm. I read the text quickly.
I’m not invited. – Ryke
Really? That hasn’t stopped him before.
Do I need to extend you a written invitation? Get your ass over here.
I hand Lily my phone and then say, “Want a ride around this place?”
She nods with a smile.
I bend down and then lift her onto my back, my arms underneath her legs. I can practically feel the heat of the camera on us. Paparazzi had to stay outdoors. But the Princesses of Philly cameras just go wherever we do.
I expected it, but it’s different when it actually becomes your reality.
I carry Lily in a piggy-back over towards a painting of a watering can.
“It’s criminal, you know,” she says, her voice faraway in thought. “We didn’t even have communal showers our freshman year of college.” She pauses. “Do you think this is cosmic payback?”
“They’re not bad.” I don’t want her to be afraid of them. I’ve called her sex therapist to talk about the issue, and she said that I need to find a way to motivate Lily.
I feel like I’ve tried everything. I repeat the same words over and over, and she’s still scared shitless that someone will film us and put it online. She said she has a “bad feeling” about them.
“That’s a nice watering can,” she says, dodging the issue.
“You’re not going to take a shower, are you?”
“That’s a strong phrase,” she breathes. “I’m going to forgo the shower for a bit and opt for an alternative choice.”
I gently set her on her feet.
Her shoulders curve towards her thin body. She’s disappointed.
But this is serious. “A bath?” I ask, hoping but disbelieving she’d choose that option.
She tucks a piece of her hair behind her ear, the strands already becoming greasy. “More like a washcloth bathing experience.”
I don’t blink. “Not for six months.” It’s not a question.
“People in the wilderness do it.”
“People in the wilderness jump into a river when they smell. Are you going to jump into a river?”
She pales. “No.”
“Then take a shower.”
“Why are you being the hygiene police all of a sudden?” she questions, her eyes welling up with tears. My stomach drops. “You never used to care if I skipped for a week.”
I hate that I have to be a hardass. I lower my voice so Brett’s filming equipment can’t pick up the sound. “This is six months, and we live with other people now. You smelling like sex is not the way to go, Lil. They may think we’re fucking more than usual and then they’ll be all over us.” Her pleading, watery eyes try to sway me. “Skip tomorrow, fine, but I’m going to have to start being careful when I come on you.”
She frowns. “You haven’t done that in…”
“A long time, I know.” Crazy sex has been out of the picture for a while.
She glances at her boobs like she’s visualizing the event.
“Lily,” I snap. “What’s wrong?”
“I was just thinking…” She turns red all over. “…about your plans.”
I hug her close and kiss her lips lightly.
“Your phone just buzzed,” she tells me as we part. She hands me the cell, and I open the text.
Is everything okay? – Ryke
I don’t know. I type the text and think of more to add, but so many phrases pop in my head. I realize I’m just overwhelmed.
Not all days are easy.
Most of them make no fucking sense. A good handful tears me apart, limb from limb. The best days are the ones I try to remember, but sometimes, even those are swallowed by the bad.
I send the text as it is. Three words.
I’m on my way. – Ryke
I’m about to pocket my phone, but it vibrates again.
Don’t drink. – Ryke
He’s told me that a million times before, but it’s this one time that affects me the most. Don’t drink. I won’t turn this bad day into a terrible one. For me.
But really, for her.
Fear of failing Lily—it motivates me in ways that no one can understand.
{ 15 }
0 years : 05 months
January
LILY CALLOWAY
Lo and I walk around the museum in deadened silence, a camera shadowing us. Ryke arrived about ten minutes ago and pulled Scott outside while Savannah, a pretty redheaded girl, films them. When we passed the glass windows, I saw Ryke shouting at the producer, but his fists weren’t raised.
The whole day, I sensed how distraught Lo was becoming. He has a lot to worry about. Halway Comics, Superheroes & Scones, his father breathing down his neck, alcohol…and me.
It hurts to realize that I can’t take away his pain today and that in a small way, I may be contributing to it.
We sit on a bench, a mammoth painting hung on the wall before us. A white angel battles a dark-haired man in red silk; the man is most likely on the losing end.
Angels always win.
I don’t know its true meaning. Or the context. But the longer I stare at the image, the sadder I become.
“I’m sorry,” I breathe.
I feel him turn to look at me. “For what?” He edges closer, his thigh against mine. I stare right into those amber swirls, seeing his agony, his love and his vice. All at once.
“You have so much going on,” I say softly. “I don’t want you to constantly worry about me too.”
He frowns. “I’ll always worry about you,” he tells me. “It’s impossible not to.”
“In a future,” I whisper, “I’d like to think that you just know wherever I am, I’m smiling…and content.” No agonizing. No stress over my wellbeing. “It’s just whether that future is ours or someone else’s.” I focus on the bench again.
He presses his fingers underneath my chin, lifting my gaze once more. “You remember when we were in tenth grade and we decided to ditch comics in Earth-616 for all the alternate universes and realities?”
I nod. “It was fun for a few months.” We read some of the most bizarre comics during that time, and months later, we preferred the main continuity in Marvel comics. Earth-616.
“And you know what we decided at the end of it all?” Lo asks me.
“That Magneto and Rogue should never be allowed to date—in any universe.”
His lips rise. “Yeah, and that alternate universes usually have the worst endings with the unhappiest conclusions.” His warm hand slides to my cheek, and his eyes bore into me, intense and unyielding. “But we’re in Earth-616, love. We’re going to have our happy ending. It just may take us awhile to get there.”
My chest lifts at his rare optimism, stirring something powerful inside my heart.
It fills me with so, so much hope.
{ 16 }
0 years : 05 months
January
LOREN HALE
I check rat traps that Connor, Ryke and I set in the crawl space. Daisy found two dead ones in her room, not surprising since we saw droppings on the basement stairs when we first arrived.
“Your cat isn’t doing her job,” I tell Connor while I squat by the small door, a trash bag in hand. Ryke has already crawled through, and I wait for him to return with hopefully a dead rat or two.
“She’s already killed three of them,” Connor defends his pet. He leans his arm against the wall, staring down at me. “Anymore and I’d question her domestication.”
“I hate to break it to you, Connor,” I say, “but your cat is feral.” In private, Lily calls her the orange beast. I mean, Sadie scratched the hell out of Rose when she tried to put a collar on her. I thought Rose was impenetrable to almost everything.
“I found Sadie, you know.” He cups a mug of steaming coffee. “She was i
n the rain outside my boarding school. The mother was dead. So were the three other kittens.”
I don’t know how many other people he’s told this to. “I never pegged you as the nurturing type.”
“I’m not,” he says honestly. “It wasn’t like she tugged at my heart in that moment.” Of course not. “I just knew I had the power to save her life, so I did.”
That was fairly conceited, but I try to dig around that. “And now that she’s older and angrier?”
“I raised her exactly how I wanted,” Connor says. “She doesn’t need me to survive anymore. Though she loves me most.”
Huh. I scrutinize the way he rests against the wall, tired. His body isn’t stiff and straight like usual. Dark rings lie beneath his eyes. “You look like shit,” I say. Seriously. I’ve never seen him so worn down before.
He sips his coffee. “I’m a grad student trying to take over a multi-billion dollar company. If I didn’t look like shit, I’d be on drugs.”
I forgot that he’s been trying to take the reins of Cobalt Inc. I almost mention Scott, but even the thought of him irritates every nerve in my body.
I look back through the crawl space just as Ryke hits his head on one of the pipes. “Fuck me,” he curses.
“Fornicating with the rats already?” Connor asks with a grin.
“Fuck you, Cobalt.” He’s on his stomach, using his forearms and legs to army-crawl through the small area. “The shortest one of us should have crawled through here.”
That was directed at me. “If I knew you were going to bitch, I would have done it myself, and I’m only one inch shorter than you, bro.”
Ryke bangs his forehead this time. He makes an animalistic noise. “I’m still six fucking three.”
I watch him move at a snail’s pace. “Besides being a giant, what’s taking you so long? You set the trap. You should know where it is.”
“It must have carried the trap with it.”
“Just use your nose,” Connor says. “Dogs have the best sense of smell.”
I actually laugh.
“Fuck off,” Ryke retorts.
I’m pretty sure that Ryke can handle Connor’s digs. Even when Connor pisses him off, it seems like the comments never really eat at him. Ryke is the strongest person I’ve ever met. Stronger than me.
It’s why Connor taunts Ryke and praises me.
I don’t know if Ryke realizes it or if Connor recognizes how well I understand his relationship with me. But I see how Connor spends his time trying to build me up—so I believe that I’m just as worthy as my brother.
I’m not. I won’t ever be as good as him, but it’s nice to have a friend try to remind me of it.
Connor pulls his phone out of his pocket and starts texting. Less than a minute later, he asks, “Is Lily having more sex than usual?”
I stiffen. Keeping a secret from a guy ten times more intelligent than me is hard. But not impossible. I spent three years pretending to be in a relationship with Lily. I’ve got this.
“She’s not having it, but she wants it.” I fist the black trash bag and rise, my legs aching in this position. “This whole fucking reality show puts her on edge.” It’s the truth, but we’re fucking a lot more than people would like. Most of the time, we screw in her car, away from cameras and thin walls where people can overhear. I layer on everything he’ll expect, “And she medicates her anxiety with sex, which means I’m not getting laid for the next week, and she only gets my fingers.”
I find the nearest camera, hanging on a ceiling rafter, and I wave my fingers. And wink, just for further effect. Maybe it’ll distract Connor.
The cameramen are on lunch break, so fixed cameras are the only thing shooting us.
“So you’re not having sex?” he asks.
I can’t read the tone of his voice at all. I fucking hope I’m selling this well enough.
The longer he stares at me, the more I realize I may have overestimated my ability to lie to him.
Heat gathers on my forehead. I rub the back of my neck as I weigh the options in my head. I have to partially come clean. “No, I mean…” Just go with it. “We fucked the other day. She was a little compulsive afterwards, so I want her to abstain for three or four days and see how she does with that.”
She wasn’t that compulsive. She stopped herself from continuing past her limits, and there’s absolutely no goddamn way we’re abstaining. But I think it’ll appease him to hear a plan.
Not too long ago, I even asked him to keep an eye on us—to make sure we were keeping to a twenty-four-hour schedule. Sex every night, nowhere in between.
“And you used condoms?” he asks.
My lips part in shock, not expecting this. My stomach flips, and I slam my fist on the wall. “Ryke, hurry the fuck up.” I don’t want to share all the details of my sex life. Connor barely shares his. I need to keep something private, for fuck’s sake.
“Lo,” he says.
I spin to him, my eyes flashing hot. “This conversation is over.”
“I’m trying to imagine what Lily will look like pregnant.” His tone is conversational, not spiteful. “Would her entire body swell or just her belly?”
My chest rises with irritation and with something so dark. I’m selfish. But I don’t ever want to be that kind of selfish—to have a kid, knowing he or she could be plagued with this lifelong struggle.
“At least I’m getting laid,” I say, my voice like razors that physically pains me. But I keep going. “How long have you been fucking your hand?”
“My hand and I go way back,” he says easily, a warm smile attached.
My muscles loosen. It’s a mystery why people keep me as a friend.
“I’m not your brother.” Connor nods to the crawl space. Ryke is still searching for the traps. “I’m not going to curse you out for doing something stupid. But I am dating your girlfriend’s older sister, so my own balls are on the line here.”
Right. I nod. “The repercussions of getting into bed with a she-devil.”
“And I fucking like her,” he says, “so make my life easier and use a condom.”
I completely relax. I can imagine how annoying it must be having Rose in his ear all day. I contemplate whether or not Lily and I have been safe. I think we have. She’s on birth control. I mutter, “I’ll be better about it.”
Ryke crashes into more pipes, cursing and then shouting back, “There’s so much fucking mold down here. No one should be fucking living on this floor until we hire someone to clean it.”
I read in between the lines.
Daisy lives on the lowest level.
I saw the way he looked at her in the bathroom when we first arrived at the townhouse. For so many reasons, I can barely stomach the possibility that he could like her more than just a friend.
I squat again and see Ryke heading to the door. “If this is your way of getting Daisy to room with you, you can forget it. I’m just barely tolerating your friendship.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Ryke retorts. “There were rats in her bedroom, she’s living near mold, and your first assumption is that I want to fuck her?”
I glower, trying not to picture that. “I didn’t say anything about fucking her.”
Ryke groans. “I’ll fucking room with Scott,” he shouts. “Daisy can take my room. Or I’ll stay down here and switch with her. I don’t give a shit. None of the girls should be around this.”
“And what if she hears Lily and me fucking through the walls? There’s a reason she’s on the lowest level.” It’s hard to believe that Daisy is the one protecting our secret—a girl who jumps off cliffs, rides a motorcycle and runs headfirst into life.
I wish I could keep her ten-thousand feet from all of this. The basement is safe from Scott. From most of the leering cameras. From us.
Maybe she can grow up normal, have a real, peaceful adolescence that none of us really had.
Ryke gives me one of the darkest looks I’ve seen in a while.
&nb
sp; I frown and crane my neck over my shoulder, looking at Connor for his opinion.
“You can’t censor a girl who’s nearly seventeen, especially not a high fashion model,” he says to me. “She’s heard and seen everything you have, if not more.” So it’s too late for her then.
She’s all grown up.
“I’ll call someone to look at the crawl space,” Connor continues, “but until it happens, Rose would want her sister somewhere clean.”
I let out a breath. “Ryke, you’ll room with Scott?”
“I said I would.”
“Fine. More eyes on that prick, the better, right?” Especially if Daisy is moving upstairs.
Ryke mumbles a yes, and his arm thumps into a hanging piece of wood. “Fucking A,” he curses, reaching the door. I grab underneath his arms and help pull him through the small exit.
We both stand on our feet. He clutches the trap, a dead rat attached, the tail nastily caught in the silver metal.
Connor grins. “Have we found you a new profession?”
“At least I can get my hands dirty, princess.” He swings the rat trap in Connor’s face.
Connor remains completely stoic, his grin only spreading wider.
Ryke rolls his eyes and reaches for the trash bag.
“Wait,” I say, putting my hand on Ryke’s arm. My chest thrums, blackness stirring inside of me. “Maybe we can do something with this thing.” Scott needs more than just a few words to back off. He hasn’t stopped getting in my face, or Lily’s.
“No,” Ryke and Connor say in unison.
I narrow my eyes at them. “You didn’t even let me finish.”
“You want to use it against Scott,” Connor says.
Haven’t they seen what he’s like? Aren’t they worried at all about what he could do to us, to the girls?
We have to stop him now.
“He’s the fucking producer,” Ryke explains off my anger. “You start a war with Scott and he could turn you into a psycho on the show. Just fucking relax.”
“He made Lily bawl!” I scream. Don’t they get it? He shames Lily every time he nears her. I hate Scott more than I’ve ever hated another person. Because I did nothing to him. And he’s still coming at me. “I’m not going to sit here for six months and ignore all the shit he says. This is different than social media and gossip blogs. We’re living with this bastard.”
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