Pro: successful business, sweet, loves her long-term boyfriend (and her rumored second bf)
My teeth ache, and I realize I’m clenching them too hard. I go through Rose’s list.
Con: sex tapes
Pro: successful boutique, married, A-type personality
How the hell is A-type personality even on here? Rose will be great at keeping track of her kid’s schedule; I’ll give her that. I’m pissed at myself for even entertaining this article. I chuck it in the trash and return to Connor and Ryke about the same time that Rose struts into the kitchen.
“Baby in the room,” she says, cradling her newborn with one arm and holding an empty bottle with the other. Her hair is damp like she just took a shower and didn’t have time to blow it dry.
“When you have eight children, are you going to announce each of their entrances too?” I banter.
Rose gives me a long glare as she makes her way to the refrigerator to grab another bottle.
“I’m just trying to prepare myself,” I say.
“You won’t have to prepare for eight kids. It’s not happening,” she retorts. Connor opens his mouth, and she raises the hand with the bottle to silence him.
“That would be more effective if you actually covered my mouth, darling.”
“Don’t make me hurt you,” she snaps, and Jane lets out a noise close to a giggle. Rose is smiling from ear to ear, a smile that I’ve pretty much never seen from her.
“Ugh, stop,” I say, shielding my eyes. “It’s creepy.”
“I love my daughter,” she says adamantly. Jane does bring out something in Rose, a lighter side of her that’s hard to spot sometimes. But she’s still the same, so I wait for it. “She may mutter inarticulately, vomit on me, and look clueless until a certain stage of her life, but she’s my unintelligible thing.”
I bow. “I’m sorry, your highness.”
Rose rolls her eyes, but there’s a smile in them.
“I’ll swap you,” Connor tells his wife. “Baby for bags.”
Her eyes pierce him, even if she’s not on the offensive. “What bags?”
I just now notice the Chanel and Dior shopping bags beside Connor’s feet. Of course he went to the stores this morning. Rose’s demeanor shifts, her back no longer arched, and I worry she might chuck the baby in Connor’s arms.
Jane lets out another squeal of delight, kicking her legs that are clothed in a green onesie. Orange tabby cats printed along the arms. And we all smile. She’s ridiculously cute, even if she’s spawned from Rose’s womb.
“Looks like she’s already inherited Rose’s love of fancy things,” I say.
“She’s a baby,” Rose tells me. Instead of hatred, the word “baby” is filled with mild disdain. “She doesn’t know what we’re even talking about.”
I feign surprise. “So you’re admitting that you don’t have a genius child?” I turn to Ryke. “Did hell freeze over this morning?”
Before Ryke even reacts, Rose speaks. “I’m admitting that my child isn’t superhuman.” Rose hands Jane off to Connor and then goes for the shopping bags.
“With Rose and my genes, she’s still very likely a genius,” Connor adds.
Yeah. I know.
Rose unwraps her bags at the bar, the first item: a black silk blouse, one that Rose delicately folds into its original paper after examining it.
I nudge Ryke. “What’s Daisy doing this weekend?” I genuinely care about other people’s everyday lives—it’s bizarre. Something I never saw four years ago, addicted and selfish.
Ryke just casually shrugs. “I don’t know.” He takes a swig of his orange juice from the carton. Rose is too busy fawning over her gifts to notice my brother’s bad habits.
“What do you mean?” I ask him. “You’re dating her.”
“We like our fucking space.”
Rose straightens at the sound of the f-bomb, and I punch Ryke’s arm with force. He winces, since that spot is tender for him now.
“I forgot,” he tells Rose, not even bothering to rub his bicep.
“I don’t care if she swears when she’s older,” Rose tells him. “I just don’t want her first word to be fuck.”
“My sentiments align with Rose’s,” Connor adds, his daughter falling asleep in his arms as he rocks her.
We have a system in place: punch Ryke every time he curses in front of the baby. It’s fun for all of us but him, and so far it’s not really working that well. His arm was bruised the entire first week Jane was home, and he still has trouble training himself to keep it clean.
“I’m trying my best,” he says.
Rose nods. “I appreciate it.” She returns to her clothes, and I backtrack to my initial conversation with Ryke.
“You like your space?” My brows furrow. “I don’t get it. Are you taking a break or something?”
“What?” Lily’s voice echoes from the doorway, and she enters the kitchen with eyes like saucers. It doesn’t help that she wears her Wampa cap, dinosaur slippers, black cotton pajamas and a fur coat. “You’re on-on a…” Her green eyes somehow grow wider. “…a break?” Shit.
“For fuck’s sake—”
I punch his arm, and he lets out an exasperated sound. It’s the system in place. I can’t help that. “Sorry, bro.”
He sighs. “We’re just not keeping tabs on each other. We’re still together. We’re still fu—screwing.” He turns to me and points. “Do not effing punch me.”
I clap. “You managed to avoid an f-bomb. Barely.”
“Progress,” Connor chimes in with a smile. Ryke even looks surprised by the compliment, not even a backhanded one. Maybe he can tell Ryke’s seriously frustrated today.
Lily walks further in the kitchen. “Are you sure, Ryke?”
“Yeah, Lil,” he tells her, sincerely. “We’re not like you and Lo, okay? We like to give each other room to breathe.”
“We breathe,” Lily defends our relationship. My brows rise. Let’s not kid ourselves. We struggle with our codependency on a daily basis.
“What in the world are you wearing?” Rose asks her sister. Lily waddles her way to the fridge. I want to wrap my arms around her and pull her close to my chest. I hesitate because A) we just had sex and I’d rather not tease her too much and B) that codependency, room to breathe thing.
“It’s cold in here,” Lily explains.
Everyone looks to Ryke, the person who constantly lowers the thermostat. He glowers. “It’s summer. It gets hot.”
Lily shuts the refrigerator door, empty-handed, and snatches a banana from the countertop. “I also have an announcement.”
Everyone quiets, and I go rigid. Whatever it is, she hasn’t told me. Her eyes flit to mine briefly before they focus on her sister. “I’m going to remain inside the house until I have the baby. I can’t risk having a limo-delivery. The only times I’ll leave are for doctor appointments.”
Fine with me. Knowing she’ll be at home actually eases my worries. Someone will always be here with her.
“So that’s the real reason you’re dressed like the abominable snowman in July,” Ryke says like it’s not his fault for keeping the house cold if she doesn’t meet the light of day.
Lily shoots him a middle finger and begins unpeeling her banana. I grin. God, I love this girl.
“Hey, guys.” Daisy slips into the kitchen with a yawn. “What’s everyone doing today?” Her hair is still platinum-blonde, but she wears it in a braid. She hangs around by the stove, putting distance between herself and Ryke.
“Taking care of a baby,” Rose says easily.
“I have her, darling,” Connor replies. “You can spend the day with your sisters.”
Rose speaks in French with Connor at this, and Lily eats her banana slowly, watching them talk in the foreign language with no real clue what they’re saying. And then she focuses on Ryke and Daisy, and I see the fear flash in Lil’s eyes. No one wants their relationship to work more than her.
“Can you two just hug
it out?” I tell my brother and Lily’s little sister.
Daisy breaks into a charismatic smile, and she faces her boyfriend. “Do you want to hug me?” she asks playfully.
“No,” he deadpans. He better be sarcastic, and I hate that I can’t tell.
Daisy only smiles more and she stretches her arms out on the counter. “Do you want to…” And she mouths, fuck me?
Oh shit.
“Every fucking minute, Calloway.”
I punch his arm, and he turns around and decks my bicep with the same force. “Jesus Christ,” I curse. And he double taps me again for those words. Shit.
“It hurts, doesn’t it?” he tells me.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” I wave him off. It’s better than a swear jar. Money isn’t a big enough penalty.
Lily is still entranced by Ryke and Daisy. After a couple seconds, I catch her attention, and her gaze falls on mine. I motion between us with my hand, and then I make a crude gesture with my mouth and my tongue. I watch her freeze, the banana mid-air while her face flushes in a deep shade of red.
Her eyes dance around the room, checking to see if anyone is watching us. They aren’t.
And then she points to her chest and mouths, me?
I nod. Yes, Lil. You. Two more seconds later, I close the space between us and I have her wrapped in my arms. These are the kind of embraces I live for.
{ 33 }
LILY CALLOWAY
Still no photos of Jane Cobalt.
The headline on today’s Celebrity Crush article has Rose full of glee. Since Jane was born, she’s been on a mission to keep her daughter away from paparazzi. Yesterday, Rose stepped outside the gated neighborhood with Jane, taking her to the Calloway Couture boutique, and cameramen swarmed her.
I know this, not from firsthand account, but watching entertainment news. In the video, it looked like Rose was walking through a concert festival of photographers, just to reach the front doors of her store. I hadn’t seen her so protective and mad in a long time. If she wasn’t holding Jane to her chest—the baby shrouded by a blanket—she would’ve definitely nut-kicked a guy.
Her bodyguard held them back, and I could even detect Rose’s appreciation for Vic. She won’t utter the words, but our parents were right about the extra security. The bodyguards are a helpful force.
Rose paints my toenails on her bed while Daisy makes faces at Jane at the foot of the mattress. The baby sputters happy noises at her aunt.
“Does it annoy you,” I ask Rose and gesture to Jane, “that you can’t talk to her yet?”
She dips the brush into the purple lilac polish. “It’s aggravating at times. Life would be easier if they just came out of the womb with proper verbal skills. It’s one of the many reasons babies are intolerable…” She pauses and her eyes flit to her baby. “But Jane is different. She makes up for the blubbering in other ways.”
Daisy clasps one of Jane’s little hands. “Like what?”
Rose stays quiet for a moment and pensively watches her daughter, those big blue eyes and soft cheeks. “She just gets me.” Her glare turns on me first. “And I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s what I feel, so it can’t be wrong.” She might as well go ahead and flip her hair over her shoulder to cap it off. Rose twists the polish, sets it aside and scoots closer to the foot of the bed where her daughter lies.
She scoops Jane in her arms, still a little stiff, but Jane snuggles into her mom’s chest anyway. Not offended by Rose’s cold nature.
Rose touches her daughter’s head, thinly combed brown hair. “Don’t tell Connor,” she says to both of us, “but I was nervous she would like him more than me.”
“I was too,” I tell her.
Her yellow-green eyes pierce me, and Daisy laughs lightly, pooling her platinum hair to the top of her head.
“What?” I ask. “I thought we were being honest.” This was sharing time, right?
“In all honesty, Jane likes us equally,” Rose explains. “She’s already perfect. Not choosing favorites.” Rose plants a small kiss on the top of Jane’s head and sets her back down on the light blue comforter. “You’re going to be amazing, aren’t you?” she asks her.
Jane smiles big and it reflects off Rose’s eyes, softening her icy exterior by a hundred degrees.
When Rose speaks to Jane, she uses her normal voice, so does Connor, no baby talk.
“I can’t wait until you’re old enough to choose your own clothes,” Rose tells Jane, “and your own hair styles, and your own words. And I get to see what kind of girl you grow up to be.”
It almost brings tears. Rose doesn’t want her daughter to be just like her. She wants her to be herself, a unique individual, to have an identity all her own.
My phone vibrates in my hand. I check the text.
You. Me. Bedroom. – Lo
My pulse begins to race as I text him back.
Now? I press send.
Unless you’d like to wait until later. – Lo
No way.
Now is good.
I take a practiced breath before I climb off the bed, my back aching from carrying so much weight. My stomach is so heavy that I feel like I’m going to explode at any moment. But I just think about those six weeks without sex, and I decide that I want to get as much Loren Hale time as I can.
“Where are you going?” Rose asks.
“Lo wants me.”
“In bed,” Daisy finishes with a goofy smile.
I roast another shade of red, but I don’t deny it. “We’re making up for the six weeks of abstinence.” I pause and ask, “How is it going for you?” Partly, I wonder if it’s really hard, but her struggle will be different than mine, I recognize. Jane was born on June 10th, and it’s already July 13th, so if Rose really wanted to, she could have sex now. Four weeks in. But the doctors recommended six, and Rose usually follows the rules.
“Connor thinks he can have his way with me the exact day I’m physically able to have sex again, and it’s infuriating. Maybe I don’t want to have sex on that day. Maybe he isn’t going to win this time.”
Daisy and I exchange smiles at how worked up Rose is becoming over her husband.
Daisy adds, “Maybe you don’t want to be tied up too.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “Maybe you’d rather be spanked.”
Rose gives me a look.
“I was being serious, not mean like Lo,” I defend myself. I feel badly about throwing Lo under the bus, but I’ll make up for it in the bedroom. I internally nod at this plan.
Daisy raises her fist in the air. “Girl power.”
Rose exhales a breath and then her eyes suddenly light up, as if a devilish idea has sprouted in her brain. “What if I don’t have sex during your six weeks of abstinence too? It’ll be a solidarity pact.” Rose loves those, but I can tell this is mostly about beating her husband in one of their mind games.
“That’s an extra month for you,” I remind her. It sounds crazy and tough, but my sister isn’t a sex addict. She was a virgin until she was twenty-three, proudly.
Rose pulls back her shoulders in confidence. “I’m married to the man. I can have sex with him every day for the rest of my life. An extra month won’t kill us.”
I try not to contemplate Connor’s sexual needs. I’m not sure if he’ll be upset by waiting or if he’ll consider this an even bigger challenge and try to win Rose over.
“I’ll join too,” Daisy says with a smile.
My mouth falls. Whaa…
Rose claps her hands. “Perfect. I’ll call Poppy and we can all abstain in honor of Lily abstaining.”
I whip my head around, wide-eyed. “You all don’t have to do this.” I point to Daisy, who twists her thumb ring in a fidgety manner. “You seriously shouldn’t be doing this.” Ryke is going to kill me.
Daisy’s lips just pull higher. “You think Ryke will blow a fuse?” She gasps and her eyes grow big. “The danger.”
I snatch a throw pillow and toss it at her. She laughs while Rose p
rotectively lifts Jane to her chest, avoiding a pillow-assault on her baby.
“In all seriousness,” Daisy says, “it’s a big deal for you, and I want to be supportive too.”
My throat closes up for a second. All of my sisters are willing to share in my struggle, and maybe they’ll even show me that it’s not as bad as I think it may be. I’m happy to be so close to them now.
I have to thank Rose for that. She never gave up on me. Every time I pushed her away, she just kept walking right back into my life, refusing to let me be ostracized. Now here I am, living in a house with my two sisters. Happy.
I’m happy.
“No more crying,” Rose tells me. “That should be our second pact. We can make that one a blood oath.”
“No,” Daisy and I say in unison.
Rose glares. “I always sterilize the knife.”
I smile and wipe my eyes that have misted with tears. My phone buzzes with another text.
Lil. Where are you? – Lo
When I glance up, I catch Rose typing on her own cell. She has a smug and possibly smitten look on her face. “Connor is not winning this.”
I edge towards the door with a stupid grin. It’s good to know that even with a baby, the nerd stars still align the exact same way.
* * *
I take five steps into the hallway before a dull ache pounds against my back. My limbs freeze as worry and confusion run through me. My phone impatiently buzzes once more.
Lily Calloway. Don’t make me come get you. – Lo
He rarely sexts me, and this infrequent moment is being ruined by pain. I am not so far away from him. The door is right in sight. I can just brush it off.
As soon as I walk forward, a sharp pain grips my abdomen. Shit. This can’t be happening. What did Rose call them? False contractions? Yeah, they’re fake. Pretend contractions. My water hasn’t even broken yet.
Wait…
Rose is not reliable.
She had a baby in a limo because of the same mindset. I quicken my pace to my bedroom and swing the door open. Lo lounges on the bed with an open comic book, his phone right beside him as he waits for me. When his gaze rises to mine, concern crushes his sharp features. “What’s wrong? Lily?”
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