Текст книги "Kiss the Sky"
Автор книги: Becca Ritchie
Соавторы: Krista Ritchie
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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 26 страниц)
[ 7 ]
ROSE CALLOWAY
“You’re not supposed to look at the cameras,” I remind Lily for the umpteenth time. She’s trying to ignore Ben and Brett as they film us from two different angles, but I can tell they make her uneasy.
At least without Loren around.
Her boyfriend seems to take her mind off of everything else, melting her nerves to a placated pool.
Lily tags along by my side as I bustle around the kitchen and make a Cobb salad to bring with me to the Calloway Couture offices. I try not to overanalyze why she’s become glued to my hip.
She leans in to whisper, “What if I have a booger or something in my nose?” Her eyes flit anxiously to the lens again. “Or what if I get sauce or cheese or peanut butter all over my face? I’m a messy eater. Are they going to use the footage?”
I set the carrots on the counter and when I turn around, I almost bump into her again. She steps back and I place my hands on her shoulders.
“I don’t have any control over editing,” I tell her for another umpteenth time. I also want to tell her that she doesn’t have to do this. That if she wants out of the show, I’ll be okay. I’ll be happy.
But that’s not the complete truth.
The success of Calloway Couture relies on this show, and the success of the show relies on Lily and Loren.
“I’m going to get over it,” she tells me, reading my expression well. “It’s just new. New things are always kind of scary, you know? Well, you probably don’t know.” She laughs nervously. “You’re not scared of anything.”
That’s not true either. I was scared not long ago. Terrified. Someone—who I will not name—put his thumb in my mouth. And I think I liked it.
My phone buzzes on the counter, and I wipe my hands on a towel before I swipe the screen. I have two new texts.
The first: 5 months and 20 days until the wedding – Mom
I’m not even surprised at this point. I receive a daily countdown from her, reminding me that I’ve taken responsibility of planning Lily’s wedding.
I open the second text to distract me from all the things I still have to do.
Prince Charming, Robin Hood, Beast – Connor
Really? I texted him three brilliant female authors and he gives me Disney characters to choose from? Oh, he’s starting a war.
I type quickly, not even having to think twice about my choices. Kill. Marry. Fuck.
Less than a minute after I hit send, I receive another message.
You would fuck the Beast over Robin Hood? Explain.
You’re not even going to mention me killing Prince Charming? Deflection in a text is my specialty.
Not surprising. I would kill Prince Charming as well. Always believing every girl needs to be rescued from a tower. He’s an asshat.
I smile, my stomach fluttering at his words.
“Is that Connor?” Lily asks, eyeing my smile suspiciously.
My lips level and she peers over my shoulder to try and read the text. I hold it close to my chest, and her eyes twinkle in amusement.
“Are you texting naughty things?” she asks with glee.
Should I be? What couple texts about killing off Prince Charming? If I seriously evaluate my relationship with Connor, it will rank somewhere closer to strange than normal.
My phone buzzes again, but I don’t pull it away from the security of my blouse. “What do you and Lo text about?”
Her face wrinkles in thought. “Well, I text him things I’d like to do. And he usually replies with a generic okay even if at times he’s a big fat liar and we don’t do it anyway.” She shrugs. “He’s a brief texter.” Her smile brightens at another thought. “But sometimes he’ll randomly send me messages like this…” She holds up a finger for me to wait while she opens her flip-phone with her other hand. The old device doesn’t have internet or apps. The less temptations for her to look at porn, the better. “This is what he texted me last week.”
She raises the phone to my face. Brett and Ben’s cameras try to zoom in on the screen. Lily cups her hand around it protectively.
I read the text quickly. I miss your pussy. – Lo
How eloquent. Lily practically beams. “He doesn’t do foreplay texting,” she explains. “So whenever he sends something dirty, it’s like Christmas.”
She motions to my phone. “What does yours say?”
“Just work stuff,” I answer evasively.
I type back: Robin Hood is a manwhore. I’d want to join the Merry Men, not join a notch on his bedpost. The Beast is probably a virgin.
As soon as I hit send, my stomach falls. What the fuck did I do? I blame Lily who peers over my shoulder as I type, distracting me from rereading the message.
I basically just admitted to wanting to have sex with a virgin.
Connor is not a virgin.
I don’t have time to think. The doorbell rings. I pad across the kitchen and living room to answer it, leaving Lily by the refrigerator. I glance back for a quick second to make sure she doesn’t crumble without my presence. I relax when I see her focused on my salad, slicing cucumber.
Ben follows me with his steadicam contraption, and without Lily constantly eyeing the lens, I have an easier time pretending he’s invisible.
When I open the door, my entire mood shifts. I hope I’m giving off the “I’d rather murder an entire bale of sea turtles than be near you” look. Scott Van Wright’s lips upturn into a cocky, holier-than-thou smile.
I must be doing something wrong.
“Most girls answer the door with a hello,” he tells me.
“Don’t you have work?”
“You are my work, Rose.”
Great. I still haven’t fully wrapped my head around the fact that Scott lives with us. I woke up at five in the morning with Connor just to use the showers when no one else (mainly Scott) was up to view the outline of my naked body. I know you can see shadows through the misted glass doors. I’m not an idiot.
And now he’s here.
He will always be around, I realize. I just have to fucking deal with it.
He holds up plastic grocery bags. “I come in peace.” His eyes dip down to my dark blue blouse with gold buttons on the shoulders. The cut is just slightly lower than the one I wore for the psychic party, but a gold necklace disappears between my breasts, the chain accentuating my small C cups more than usual.
“I see you changed your wardrobe. We’re out of the nunnery and now in grade school. Not perfect but we’re getting closer.”
I try to slam the door back on him. His hands are filled with groceries so he has to use his hip to keep it open.
“Talk about my clothes again,” I seethe, “and we’ll just see how close my foot is to your ass.”
“Fair enough,” he says easily, no snarky retort. I think he’s just trying to buy time to avoid spilling milk on the floor.
I let out a strained breath and open the door wider, leading him into the kitchen.
Lily looks up from the salad bowl, eyes big with questioning. She hasn’t been alone with Scott without Loren present. But it was only a matter of time before it happened. Everyone has places to be during the day.
Me: Calloway Couture in New York. The commute is killing me, so I rented an office in Philly. But I drop by the main office once a week to check in.
Connor: Penn or Cobalt Inc. in Philly.
Loren: His comic book business in Philly.
Daisy: Prep school in Philly.
Ryke: Well, I’m not quite sure where the hell he is. Maybe indoor rock climbing at the gym. He graduated last year like me but has made no move to do anything with his journalism degree. He even stopped working for The Philadelphia Chronicle.
And then there’s Lily.
Now that she takes online classes from Princeton, she’s the only one home alone. I’m nervous about Lily spending so much time with Scott. Maybe I can convince her to come to the Calloway Couture offices with me.
Scott sets the plastic bags on the kitchen counter, and Lily scoots out of his way, avoiding his eyes, his body, anything that belongs to him.
“I don’t bite,” Scott tells her.
“I know, I just…” Her gaze stays firmly planted on the ground.
Frown lines crease his forehead.
I’m sure he imagined my sex addict sister to be this confident, unabashed girl who falls on her knees at the presence of a cock. Most people do. All it takes is a five-minute conversation to understand that my sister is none of those things. She is shy, nervous, and plagued with social anxiety. Her confidence is only in sex.
Sometimes, I believe we’re opposites.
“She’s shy,” I say for her. “Don’t take it personally.”
“A shy sex addict?” He stares at Lily like she can’t possibly exist. “Are you fucking with me?”
She flushes almost instantly, and I glower. “Leave her alone.”
Lily raises her hands. “No, it’s okay. I want to explain myself…” Her eyes flit to the cameras.
“Don’t look at the lens,” Scott scolds like she’s a child. “It’s not a hard concept, honey.”
“Can you say anything without sounding like a pig?” I ask.
He grins like I offered to blow him. Ughhh. I am a challenge, I get that. I am the bitch he wants to ensnare. But my insults really, really shouldn’t turn anyone on this much. If I started complimenting him, would he suddenly be disinterested?
Lily gives Scott her attention. “I want the viewers to have a real, honest portrayal of sex addiction. At least one story. My story. So maybe if there’s another girl who’s like me, she won’t feel so alone.”
“All right,” Scott says with a nod. “I’ll bite. Why the hell do you look scared around me? Shouldn’t you want to get on your knees about now?” He opens the refrigerator and shelves the sour cream and milk.
“I’m in recovery,” Lily refutes. “I have a boyfriend. I don’t want to have sex with anyone but him. So, no, I don’t have any desire to drop on my knees. And I’ve always been shy. Just not…during…it.”
She’s told me that she feels like a completely different person during sex: empowered, strong. It’s the only thing she believes she’s good at, and she’s taken the knowledge to heart. After sex, she’s flooded with shame, thinking she’ll never amount to anything more—that she’s truly just a slut, that her one talent in life is fucking. And she’s compulsive with the act to the point of being unhealthy. A female who’s great at sex—who has it five times more than the average male—is not something she can gloat about. Not in a society that easily labels her as a whore.
Lily’s lifestyle is filled with humiliation. There’s no triumph in that.
And I wish I could protect her, but you can’t shield a girl from the world without taking her out of it.
“You can’t even say the word sex?” Scott says with a laugh. “Jesus Christ.”
She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear and turns to me, trying to ignore him but I see the hurt shadowing her face. “I’m going to start some homework,” she says in a small voice.
“Hey…” I wipe my hands on a towel and touch her shoulder before she leaves. “Don’t listen to him,” I whisper. “He’s disgusting.”
“I know. Connor told me the same thing this morning.”
I frown. “He did?”
“Yeah, he said that Scott would make fun of me and I just had to remember that everyone hates Scott and loves me.” She laughs but her eyes brim with tears. She wipes them before they fall. “I don’t mean to cry so much this week, honest. I think I’m on my period. I can use that excuse, right?”
I give her a hug, even if mine are the rigid kind. My heart breaks for her every time someone condemns her addiction. As if it’s a stupid joke. It’s not. And she’s not gross or weird or pathetic for how she feels. If the world slandered my name every day on social media sites, I’d be worse off than some tears now and then.
“Will you call Lo?” I ask. Even though he irritates me, he always seems to say the right things to brighten her mood.
“Yeah, I think I might.” She gives me another hug before leaving to her room. And leaving me alone with Scott.
My anger boils inside of me, and I have the impulse to slam open drawers and find a serrated knife to wave at his dick. I spin back towards the double-door refrigerator and notice that Scott has almost emptied all of the grocery bags.
“You’re a vile human being,” I tell him coldly, “and I could rip you apart right now, but I actually pity you.”
“Why is that?” He narrows his eyes and shuts the pantry door.
“Because you just insulted the only girl you should have never picked on. Once you’re on Loren Hale’s shit list, you generally don’t ever get off.”
“The guy with the sharp cheekbones, right?” Scott muses, as if he doesn’t know the twenty-two-year-old guy all over the news, who he’s met and lives with. “He doesn’t look that threatening.”
“He’s going to make your life hell,” I say with a smile, “for six long months.”
“Well, while you’re celebrating my demise…” He reaches into the last bag and then hands me a chocolate bar. “I bought you this. I heard it’s your favorite.”
My smile only widens as I turn the dark chocolate over in my hands. Connor. My eyes rise to Scott. “I despise dark chocolate. But nice try.”
He clenches his jaw as I shove the chocolate bar back in his chest.
I head to the staircase, and I can feel his hot gaze plastered to my ass during my short trek there.
I don’t dare look over my shoulder to verify.
No way is he stealing my win.
[ 8 ]
CONNOR COBALT
The crew is on a lunch break, so the only cameras that film us are attached to the walls and ceilings. It’s a slight relief not having to ignore someone in the room.
Ryke, Lo and I are on the lowest level of the townhouse. A few days ago, Daisy found two rats squeaking in her closet, feces inside her boots. If that had been Rose, the house would have been flipped upside down. But Daisy was quiet about the whole ordeal and just mentioned it to Ryke. She wanted us to handle the issue without alarming her sisters.
So I lean against the wall while Lo squats in front of the crawl space with a trash bag. Ryke has disappeared inside the three-foot tall basement, the surface a brown soil, and the strong stench of mold and mildew permeates from the small square door.
We wait for Ryke to check the rat traps that we set.
“You look like shit,” Loren so eloquently tells me.
He’s right. Dark circles shadow my eyes, and if it wasn’t for the wall supporting my body weight, I’d be on the ground. I’m fueled by two hours of sleep. Being Saturday, I planned to catch up this morning, but I received an impromptu text from my mother. I had to take Cobalt Inc.’s senior advertising team to breakfast and talk about product placement.
I suppose I could take a nap now, but I sip my coffee instead. I’d rather not miss this.
Watching Ryke inch around a cobwebbed space in search of a dead rat. I smile. Fuck sleep. It’s the little things in life that matter most.
“I’m a grad student trying to take over a multi-billion dollar company,” I say to Lo. “If I didn’t look like shit I’d be on drugs.”
I hear Ryke bang his head against a pipe. “Fuck me,” he curses.
“Fornicating with the rats already?” I ask, cupping the warm mug.
“Fuck you, Cobalt,” he says with a grunt as he moves slowly. “The shortest one of us should have crawled through here.”
Lo immediately takes offense. “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 hits his head again and lets out a frustrated growl. “I’m still six fucking three.”
Lo rests his forearms on his thighs as he squats and watches his brother through the door. “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,” I suggest. “Dogs have the best sense of smell.”
Lo laughs while I casually take another sip from my coffee.
“Fuck off,” Ryke curses, which sounds really less threatening through the wall.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. I take it out and read the text quickly.
Have you given *the* talk to Loren yet? – Rose
I’m not surprised Rose has reverted back to fixating on Lily and Loren’s problems. She likes caring for her sisters, but I think focusing on Lily and Lo distracts her from dealing with her own issues.
I text back: I’ll do it right now.
One less problem that she obsesses over, one less stress in her life. I pocket my phone, and as I turn to Lo, I frame Rose’s question as my own. “Is Lily having more sex than usual?”
Rose doesn’t know this, but Lo is surprisingly forthcoming about sex with Lily. He’s motivated by the fear of enabling her again, and it helps that he trusts my sage advice.
“She’s not having it, but she wants it.” He stands up, the trash bag still in hand. “This whole fucking reality show puts her on edge. And she medicates her anxiety with sex, which means I’m not getting laid for the next week, and she only gets my fingers.” He looks at the camera attached to the corner of the ceiling and wall, and he waves his fingers at the lens. Then he winks.
And that is why this show is going to be popular. The unfiltered narrative is exactly what makes good television.
“So you’re not having sex?” I say, not adding any disbelief to my tone, even though it rings in my head. They’re almost always fucking at night and in the morning. It’s easy enough to hear through the walls.
Loren rubs the back of his neck, probably trying to decide if he’s going to lie or not. When he drops his hand, he says, “No, I mean…” He takes a breath, and I wait it out patiently. “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.”
“And you used condoms?” I ask.
He goes quiet for a second and then bangs on the wall with his fist. “Ryke, hurry the fuck up.”
“Lo,” I say.
He turns on me with heated eyes. “This conversation is over.”
“I’m trying to imagine what Lily will look like pregnant,” I say casually. “Would her entire body swell or just her belly?”
“At least I’m getting laid,” Lo refutes, pure malice edged in his voice. “How long have you been fucking your hand?”
He clenches his jaw after he says the words, holding back a grimace. Lo has a way of cutting people up with words, and he’s improved from the first time I met him. He was a drunk asshole. Plain and simple. Now he’s a sober asshole who regrets when his filter doesn’t work properly.
Lucky for him, I’m difficult to piss off.
“My hand and I go way back,” I say nonchalantly and even produce a smile.
He seems to relax when he knows he hasn’t pushed me away.
“I’m not your brother.” I motion towards the crawl space where Ryke has effectively disappeared. “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.”
He nods like he understands. “The repercussions of getting into bed with a she-devil.”
“And I fucking like her,” I refute, “so make my life easier and use a condom.”
I don’t tell him that he’s not ready to be a father, that the idea (for anyone) of Lily becoming pregnant is frightening. I don’t tell him that alcoholism is hereditary or that he’s too busy to raise a kid right now. He knows all of this. He’s heard it a thousand times from Rose and his own brother.
What Rose and Ryke don’t understand is that if you say something over and over again, you can become desensitized to it. Andy Warhol used the theory in his painting of the electric chair. He repeated the image until you could no longer see it as something heinous.
It lost its meaning.
I don’t repeat what’s already been said. I want my words to mean something.
So I gave him my selfish reason.
I’m the asshat who only cares about himself.
I am what he needs me to be.
He stares at the ground for a long moment, processing. “I’ll be better about it,” he mutters under his breath.
Noise from the crawl space ends our conversation. Ryke must knock into three pipes at once. He coughs and says, “There’s so much fucking mold down here. No one should be fucking living on this floor until we hire someone to clean it.”
Lo bends down to the door again. “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 room, she’s living near mold, and your first assumption is that I want to fuck her?”
Loren’s eyes narrow. “I didn’t say anything about fucking her.”
Ryke groans.
Daisy is a sore subject between them, clearly. Since Ryke and Loren have a new relationship—just meeting a year and a half ago—there’s tension involving the Calloway girls. Loren grew up with them. Ryke did not. Naturally, Lo would be protective of Daisy, but the problem I have is that he’s constantly consumed by Lily, always taking care of her, that he has no room to do so for another girl, not even one he sees as a little sister.
So while Lo believes he’s protecting Daisy from his half-brother, he’s really creating a barrier between Daisy and the only person here who’ll look out for her first rather than last.
And yet, I can’t say a word about it. I have to let these things play naturally. My interference won’t do any good. My words wouldn’t resonate with Lo the way I’d want them to. So I stay silent on the matter.
“I’ll fucking room with Scott,” Ryke says, speaking loudly so we can hear him from the hallway. “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.”
Ryke says nothing, but I can practically feel him fume from far away. Lo looks over his shoulder at me, asking with hard eyes whether he’s right or wrong.
“You can’t censor a girl who’s nearly seventeen, especially not a high fashion model,” I tell him, my words not harsh like his or rough like his brother’s. I’m one-hundred percent even-tempered, calm. At ease. It gets him off the defensive. “She’s heard and seen everything you have, if not more. I’ll call someone to look at the crawl space, but until it happens, Rose would want her sister somewhere clean.”
After a minute digesting my words, Lo sighs and lets go of the argument. “Ryke, you’ll room with Scott?”
“I said I would.”
“Fine. More eyes on that prick, the better, right?”
Ryke says something in affirmation, but I can’t quite hear. He thumps around too much. “Fucking A,” he curses, his voice much louder. He tries to pull his body out of the tiny space.
Lo grabs Ryke underneath his arm as he squeezes through the door.
When he’s on his feet, he holds up the trap with the dead rat, the tail mangled like it dragged the weight from its backend.
“Have we found you a new profession?” I ask, my lips rising.
“At least I can get my hands dirty, princess.” He waves the trap (and dangling rat) at my face.
I don’t even flinch.
Ryke rolls his eyes and goes to toss it into the garbage bag.
“Wait,” Lo calls. “Maybe we can do something with this thing.”
“No,” Ryke and I say together. I contain my grimace. Even though Ryke may be one of the smarter people living in the apartment, I don’t enjoy agreeing with him. It’s like siding with a guard dog instead of a human.
“You didn’t even let me finish,” Loren says angrily.
“You want to use it against Scott,” I reply.
“He’s the fucking producer,” Ryke reminds him. “You start a war with Scott and he could turn you into a psycho on the show. Just fucking relax.”
“He made Lily bawl!” Lo yells. “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.”
Footsteps sound on the staircase, and all of us go suspiciously quiet. When the body rounds the corner, Brett emerges, breathing heavily with the steadicam attached to his chest, and he only sprinted down one flight of stairs.
“Scott wants…you all in the living room…for the lap dance,” he pants.
Scott Van Wright is dictating everything. When. How. Where.
I fucking hate him.
Lo looks to me, waiting for me to nod in approval of his methods to fuck with Scott.
I may hate Scott, but I’m not to that point yet. I won’t do something malicious or cruel that’ll have him checking into a psychiatric hospital, mentally torn to shreds.
I fight my battles much differently than Loren Hale. And while it may not be as quick or effective—I have to trust that I have the power to keep my friends from falling tragically apart.
