“After he found out?” I say. “He locked the pool.” I toss my crumpled napkin on the table.
“He was worried about you drowning?”
“No,” I say sharply, irritation bearing down on me the longer we discuss this shit. “He asked me if I wanted to swim competitively. I told him no. So he told me that the pool wasn’t a privilege that I’d earned yet.” Before my brother can say anything, I ask, “Was he like that with you?”
“Kind of,” he says vaguely, staring off at the glass walls that overlook a courtyard. Rain beats against the panes.
“How’s your mom?” I prod a bit further.
“I don’t know. Fine, I guess.” He hasn’t talked to her in forever. Not since she leaked Lily’s sex addiction to the press.
“Wow, it’s nice talking to you, big bro. Let’s do this again sometime. I get so much out of it.”
He shoots me a look. Yeah, he’s been there for me many times, more than I can describe. “I don’t talk to my mom, and I sure as fucking hell don’t talk to my dad, so I don’t see what there is to say.”
“Did you ever like Dad?” I ask. “Like growing up?” That’s what I want to know.
“Sure,” he says. “In the beginning.” He chugs his can of Fizz and then nods to me. “Have you heard anything from Scott?”
I’ll take the deflection, only because I do have an opinion on this. “He texted me twice, once to say: I’m in Barbados, bitch. And then another time to send me an actual picture of himself tanning on a damn yacht.” I blocked his number after that. Like I need to be reminded that he’s profiting off of Connor and Rose’s sex tapes.
“Motherfucker,” Ryke mutters under his breath. “I hate that Connor threw out the lawsuit. I tried talking to him about it, and he told me to fuck off.”
I actually laugh.
Ryke extends his arms. “Why is that funny?”
“Because Connor told me that you yelled at him like ‘a Neanderthal trying to debate higher knowledge’—it was funny.”
“Hilarious,” Ryke says dryly. “You can’t honestly agree with him.”
“No way,” I say. “I don’t care if he’s using the publicity to grow his diamond company. Scott is sunbathing on a yacht and swimming in his pools of cash. That sick fuck deserves to be in a prison.”
“Or at least bankrupt,” Ryke says with tense muscles.
Lily squeals, and we both turn our heads to the pool. She’s on Daisy’s shoulders, trying to knock off Rose who sits on Connor’s, playing a game of chicken.
“Get her bikini strap!” Daisy yells.
Lily tries the dirty move, unclipping Rose’s black bathing suit top, but Rose swats her hand away.
“Cheating!” Rose accuses. “I win.”
Connor grins and speaks to her in French.
“Nooo way,” Daisy says with a laugh. “That is so legal.”
Lily is in a one-piece, so Rose can’t retaliate.
“Are we just going to leave Scott Van Wright to him?” Ryke asks me.
“Isn’t that what you’ve always done?” I turn back to my brother.
He nods. “Yeah, I guess it is. We have to choose our battles, don’t we?”
“Yeah.” And Connor wouldn’t want us stepping near that one.
{ 42 }
1 year : 06 months
February
LILY CALLOWAY
I heave my body out of the pool, water splashing on the indoor stone floor. I carefully walk to the stack of white towels without slipping, but five-year-old Maria darts out of nowhere, skirting straight in front of me.
“No running!” Sam yells at his daughter. He sits on one of the wicker sofas next to Poppy, her cheeks a little flushed from the mojitos that the servers carry around. The raspberry mojitos were tempting, but I passed on them, as did Lo and Ryke.
Maria tries to slow her stride, a piece of paper with crayon drawings in her hand. She comes to a halt by Daisy, who’s on the pool ledge.
“Aw is this for me?” Daisy asks with a smile.
Maria nods and then whispers in her ear.
Thankfully I make it to the towels in one piece. No broken bones. I wrap the soft cotton around my waist and near Lo and Ryke at their iron table. They both look to me when I approach, their conversation ending.
Lo opens his arms, and I take a seat on his lap.
“Who won that game of chicken?” Ryke asks me.
I steal a fry from Lo’s plate. “Daisy and me, definitely. Rose and Connor will say otherwise though.”
Daisy steps out of the pool with her card from Maria, hearing me. “Yeah, there’s no rule against elbowing someone in the boob.” She locks eyes with Ryke, reading his confusion. “Lily’s elbow. Rose’s boob.” She wags her brows with a growing smile.
Ryke gives her a hard, unamused look—his normal, brooding expression. “At least we all know which Calloway girls play dirty,” he says. I easily read into the sexual innuendo.
“No dirtier than you,” Daisy says, passing us.
Ryke stiffens, realizing that conversation went south…closer to his penis than he probably intended. Or maybe he did mean it. Ryke watches her open the glass sliding door.
I lean forward and whisper-hiss, “Are you staring at my sister’s butt?”
“What?” He cringes at me like I’m the crazy one.
Daisy disappears inside.
Lo shakes his head at Ryke. “Just no.”
Ryke sighs heavily and rolls his eyes, visibly frustrated.
I clear my throat, realizing that this is the best time to discuss a certain subject on my mind. “Speaking of dirty things,” I tell Ryke. I straighten on Lo’s lap, folding my hands on the table. Seriousness intact.
Ryke’s brows rise. “Do I need to step out of the room?” He looks between Lo and me.
“No, this is about you,” I say.
Ryke looks to Lo. “What the fuck?”
Lo raises his hands. “I’m not involved in her suspicions.”
“They’re facts,” I say. I focus back on Ryke. “I’ve been observing you…” That came out so wrong. “I mean, watching you.” Nope. Not better. I redden while both guys now stare like I’ve sprouted wings. Dear God, help me out a bit. “You know what I mean.”
“I fucking don’t,” Ryke says easily.
This is going badly. I take a sip from a Fizz Life can and gag. Ew. That was flat. And not mine.
“Lily,” Ryke growls, impatient. He picks up his water.
“We need to talk,” I say, “about your sex addiction.”
He chokes on his drink, coughing hoarsely.
Lo and I pat his back at the same time. “It’s really, really out of control,” I tell him.
And then Ryke wipes his mouth with his arm. “You can’t be serious.”
“We just had to let go of Michelle. That’s the third store manager you’ve slept with. And I really liked Michelle.” I would’ve kept her around, but it complicates things. “And I completely understand. You can’t control yourself, but if you wanted to get away with hiding your addiction, you shouldn’t have slept with people we know. That’s sex addiction 101.”
Ryke leans back in his chair. “That doesn’t make me a fucking sex addict.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “I know it’s hard to admit, especially since you’ve been with so many women. But we’re here for you now. You can get this under control.” I put my hand on his arm in comfort.
His lips part a little. I think he’s finally out of the denial stage. And then he says, “I can’t tell if you’re being fucking serious.” He looks to Lo. “Is she for real right now?”
That should’ve worked. I did all the serious things that serious people do. The complacent face. The folded hands. The stiff spine. Check, check, double check. “You don’t have to be afraid anymore,” I add.
“Lily…” Ryke’s eyes darken. “I’m not a fucking sex addict. I know you wish I was, so I could join in your little sex addicts not-anonymous club, but it’s not
happening.”
I thought I’d crack him this time.
Damn.
I slouch again. Fuck sitting up straight. “Can you at least admit that you screw more than the average male?” I ask. He always gets numbers from waitresses when we eat lunch out, and I’ve seen him slip into so many bathrooms with girls. He does one-night stands with zero shame. In and out. Sex, sex, sex.
Wow.
That does sound like me. Except for the zero shame part.
“No,” Ryke snaps back and points to Lo. “Your boyfriend fucks more than the average male and way more than me. You two have sex once every night.” Twice. Sometimes three or four times.
“He has an excuse,” I defend. “He’s dating a recovering sex addict.”
Ryke laughs into a grin. “Don’t fool yourself,” he says kind of meanly. His eyes flit over my shoulder to Lo. I can feel his smile as they both gang up on me. “He wants it just as badly as you.”
I would have disagreed with him months ago, when Lo feared pushing me over the edge with his own needs, but now Lo shows his arousal way more. So it seems like the truth.
“So is Lo a sex addict?” Ryke asks me, his brows raised in combat.
No. He’s not. They’re both just horny. “Fine,” I surrender, “but can you not sleep with our next store manager? It’s hard trying to find the right girl for the job.”
“Then hire a guy,” he says.
“We just went through this,” Lo says. He touches my head. “Sex addict.” He motions to Ryke. “Not a sex addict.”
“How about this?” Ryke refutes. He waves to me. “In a relationship.” His hands lie flat on his chest. “Single.”
“He has a point,” I mutter.
“No way,” Lo says. “We’re not hiring a guy because of him.” He looks to Ryke. “Keep your dick in your pants or get a girlfriend, man.”
“Or…” I say, a light bulb blinking. “What kind of girl are you not attracted to?” We can just hire someone Ryke would never sleep with. Problem solved.
“I like all women,” he proclaims.
Problem not solved.
“That’s so something a sex addict would say,” I tell him.
He chucks a fry at my face.
I eat it. So there.
“I can tell you point-blank why I’m not a sex addict,” he says, crossing his arms and rocking back on two legs of his chair. “When I come, I don’t have to do it again.”
“The real issue,” Lo says, “is how you’ve actively slept with Lily’s store managers.” Lo’s hands dive to my waist. I hold them there as they slip by my thighs.
“It’s not like I was actively…” He trails off, his gaze rising behind our chair.
We don’t have to turn our heads to find his distraction. Daisy scrapes the chair back beside Lo, her plate full of raspberries and apple slices. She senses the awkward tension almost immediately and hesitates to touch her fruit. “Am…I not welcome?”
“No,” I say and then redden. “I mean, yes. It’s your birthday.”
Ryke runs his hand through his hair, looking rather uncomfortable.
“You were saying?” Lo prods.
He meets Daisy’s eyes for two seconds, but I can’t read what passes through them. “…I wasn’t actively seeking her out.”
Daisy crunches on an apple, not prying.
“So how’d it go?” Lo asks.
“How does anything like that fucking go?” Ryke says. “We made eye contact. We talked for a couple minutes. Exchanged numbers and hooked up. The fucking end.”
“Whoa, don’t get so hostile.”
Ryke takes a deep breath, glances at Daisy once or twice and then shakes his head. “I didn’t realize that’s why you were firing the girls. I wouldn’t have gone near them if I knew that was the case.”
“Who’d you sleep with?” Daisy asks like it’s everyday conversation.
“Their store manager.” He doesn’t even lie?
Lo and I glance between them. What kind of relationship do they even have?
“Bad call,” she says.
“No fucking kidding.”
And then a shadow casts over the whole table. I look up and there’s my mother. My veins ice over, realizing that we have not talked. In so long. Still, she barely gives me the time of day. Her attention remains fixed to my little sister.
“There’s too much sugar in that, Daisy. I thought we agreed to just eat the vegetables.”
“I didn’t think—”
“It’s fine. I’ll get you a new plate.” Our mom collects the dish right in front of Daisy’s face and marches inside.
Daisy looks ill. She sets her half-bitten apple slice on the table, silence weighing down on us all. I don’t know what to say. Our mom has no self-awareness. If she did, she’d realize how much she suffocates Daisy…and how much she ignores me.
But then again, maybe she does realize it. And she just doesn’t care.
I want to give her the benefit of the doubt though. She hasn’t cast me out of the family. She’s just…dealing. In a very passive aggressive way.
Daisy breaks the silence. “She’s right. My agent said I need to lose ten pounds.”
“You’re already too skinny,” Ryke tells her, his features downcast like the storm outside.
“In your eyes, maybe,” she says softly. “To the people that matter, I’m fat.”
“Do I not fucking matter?” he asks, hurt passing through his voice.
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Lay off her,” Lo interjects, glaring at his brother in warning. “It’s her birthday.”
“I’m not trying to lay into her,” he retorts. “You do realize that she’s moving into my apartment complex when she graduates in May?” Oh yeah. Ryke proposed the idea since Daisy doesn’t want to go to college, and our mom has been scheming to extend Daisy’s stay at her house for an extra two or three years. Which means more plate grabbing and general hovering.
Lo, surprisingly, has trusted Ryke with this idea, but it comes with some suspicions. How much of what Ryke is doing because he cares for Daisy as a friend? And how much of it is because he wants to have sex with her now that she’s legal?
I want to think better of Ryke, but his track record with women points big neon arrows to the latter.
“So?” Lo says. “Does that mean you can be a dick to her?”
“I’m a dick to everyone,” Ryke states, extending his arms again.
“Loren!” Jonathan Hale’s rough voice echoes against the glass ceiling and walls. One hand in his charcoal slacks, the other clutching a crystal goblet of scotch, filled to the brim. “Come here, son.” He practically chugs three-fourths of his drink, standing tensely next to a hanging fern and pool bar.
“Don’t,” Ryke says under his breath to Lo.
Jonathan’s eyes pulse with something familiar, something inhuman and soulless, like he’s ready to slaughter any man in his wake, like he’s ready to verbally tear through his son. My heart sputters in panic.
“It’s fine.” He picks me up off his lap and stands with me at the same time, the chair scraping back. Then he forces me in the seat and gives me one deadly look that says: Don’t follow me.
“Lo—” I start.
“It’s probably just Halway Comics,” he cuts me off. “I haven’t talked to him about my company in a while. I’ll be right back.”
This seems so much larger than that.
{ 43 }
1 year : 06 months
February
LOREN HALE
On the short trek to my father, I look back at Ryke once. He shakes his head at me like I’m going in the wrong direction, facing the wrong man. But I’m not filled with false bravado. This is a person I’ve faced my entire life.
He’s my future if I’m not careful.
And he’s Ryke’s biggest demon that he’s buried.
I’m not even five feet from my father before he starts talking, out of hearing distance from everyone else.
“How tough are you?”
My face contorts in malignant irritation. He did not call me over here for this shit. “Tough enough to not roll my eyes at you.” I don’t have a chance to flash a dry smile.
When a foot separates us, he clamps a hand on my shoulder, his fingers digging in. I hear little shit on his tongue, but he swallows that insult down with his drink. “How fucking tough are you, Loren?” he asks, the bar behind him.
I grit my teeth. “Is there a fucking level? Scale one through ten? A numerical system? What do you want from me?”
He breathes heavily, his nose flaring. “In a few weeks, we’re going to see what kind of man you really are. You can sell me down the river, son.” He sets his glass too forcefully on the bar, and a fissure snakes through the crystal.
“What are you talking about?” My pulse kicks up a notch.
“You’re going to be hearing some things soon,” my dad says with a curled lip. He’s drunk. Wasted. I can see it in his glazed, pained eyes. “Maybe it’s punishment, on my part. For thinking that I could raise a bastard as anything more than what you are.” His tongue runs over his teeth in distaste. No guilt flashes. No fucking remorse.
His words slice straight into me. My jaw locks, my muscles burning as they tighten. I’m just a bastard then. “Tell me what’s going on,” I sneer. “Is it about Lily?” I hate the desperation in my voice.
“Don’t whine like a little girl,” he says with a grimace. His hand lifts off my shoulder and clutches the side of my face. I can see Ryke stand up from his chair in my peripheral.
He can’t get in the middle of this. I need fucking answers. I try to give my brother a look that says: don’t come near me. But my father forces my face towards his.
“Look at me,” he growls.
I have no other choice. Our foreheads almost fucking touch we’re so close. I smell the alcohol on his breath, and it grips my stomach in new, horrifying ways. His hand drifts to the back of my head. “Are you tough, son?” he repeats, drunk out of his fucking mind, upset about something he heard.
“Just tell me,” I say lowly. “Why can’t you fucking tell me?” He has all the answers. He’s always had the answers, and he keeps them from me. He always does.
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