Текст книги "Hothouse Flower"

Автор книги: Becca Ritchie

Соавторы: Krista Ritchie
сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

< 8 >

RYKE MEADOWS

“Watch me,” I tell Daisy as I stand by her bedroom door. I jiggle the handle. “Locked.”

She yawns, sitting on her bed, her legs tucked to her chest. Her eyes are deceivingly at ease, but her tense shoulders say otherwise.

I do the same fucking thing every night. I head over to the window next and pull back her green curtains, attempting to lift the window. She watches my biceps contract, my muscles carving into defined lines, to ensure that I’m actually trying. “Locked,” I say.

I pass the foot of the bed and raise my eyebrows at her in jest, and I catch her small smile before I disappear into the bathroom. I check behind the shower curtain, just because I’d feel like a fucking ass if I lied to her by not doing it. And the percentage of someone breaking into her room again and hiding in the bathtub is higher than I can stomach. If I didn’t check and that happened—I’d never fucking forgive myself.

Clear.

I fill a glass with water from the tap and then return to her room. Daisy holds onto her knees so tightly that her fingertips redden. Her spine is erect as her gaze transfixes on that window.

“Dais,” I say, coming around to her side of the bed. “I just fucking checked there.” I grab her pill bottle off the nightstand. I rest a knee on the mattress so I’m near her, and I block her view of the window. “Hey.” My heart starts to hammer.

“Yeah…” She blinks a few times and then gives me the weakest fucking smile I’ve ever seen.

Aggravated, I throw the bottle at her face, and she catches it before it hits her. “Can you check again?” she asks.

“Sure.” I hand her the water, and I go back to the window. Her eyes widen and her chest rises as I show her it’s locked. The moment I try to lift the window, she flinches back in fear.

I don’t know what’s going on in her fucking head right now, but I know she has multiple reasons to be afraid. It tears my heart watching her recoil like that.

“You’re okay,” I tell her. “See, it’s fucking locked.”

She puts her hand over her mouth, and she nods, holding back tears. “Sorry. I’m jumpy when I haven’t slept in a while.”

“I know. You don’t have to fucking apologize to me.” I go back to her bathroom door and lock it from her bedroom. I installed a deadbolt on this door a week after she moved in, to give her peace of mind.

Her hands shake as she tries to uncap the pill bottle. I slide into bed next to her, wearing drawstring pants, shirtless. She’s in a pair of cotton yellow shorts and a tank top that says: Shut the Fucupcakes. I dissed her fucking love of cupcakes three days ago, and I was waiting for her to bring out that shirt. I’m not surprised she chose the last night we have together to wear it. Tomorrow afternoon, she leaves for Paris. Six days later, I’ll be gone to California.

Maybe it’s a good thing we’ll be separated. Connor and my brother think it’s fucking weird that we both haven’t dated in four months, and I guess we’ll finally have the opportunity to change that.

I steal the bottle from her hands and open it with ease. I put two in her palm.

She hesitates. “You know, I didn’t have night terrors or any other symptoms before I started taking these.”

I run my hand through my hair. “Daisy, you’ve talked to your fucking doctor about this.” For fuck’s sake, I was there when she talked to three different sleep disorder physicians about her condition. She’s taken EEGs. She’s been through multiple sleep studies. They all advise her to take the fucking pills. Because without Ambien, she won’t sleep at all. She suffers from insomnia, post-traumatic stress, and the only thing that can really help her is therapy, which she goes to routinely.

“It’s not really sleeping though, is it?” she says, eyeing the pills in her palm. “I mean, it puts me in a half-sleep.”

Parasomnia, the moments between wakefulness and sleep—yeah, I’ve learned all about it. She hasn’t had anything better than that in over six months. “It’s better than no fucking sleep.”

She nods, takes a deep breath, and throws the pills back in her mouth. She chugs half the water before setting it back on her nightstand. I watch her slip beneath the covers and set her head on the pillow, staring straight up at the ceiling. Her eyes begin to glass.

“What is it?” I ask.

“I’m scared to sleep,” she admits in a whisper. “I don’t want to have a nightmare.” Tears slide out of the creases of her eyes, too tired to hold them back. “But I’ll be scared all night if I stay awake. It sucks.”

I wish I could take away her problems. I’m not used to being unable to fix things, and it hurts, having to watch her go through this while I pretend that my presence is a fucking solution.

I lean over her so she’s staring right at me. “Daisy,” I say her name forcefully, wiping her tears with my thumb. “No one is getting in this fucking room.” I don’t normally do this every night, but she’s worse today. I reach over to the end table near me and open the drawer. I take out a .45-caliber handgun and show her the ammunition. “Okay?”

I watch her breathe out again, and she nods.

Then I ensure the safety is on and tuck the gun beneath my pillow.

She shuts her eyes, and I near her under the covers so she feels my body heat. I’ve been doing this long enough to know what calms her down and what triggers her fear. We’re a couple inches apart, and I already see a layer of sweat building on her forehead.

“Shhh,” I whisper. “You’re safe.” I rub her arm, and she scoots closer to me. We’re no longer a fucking inch or so apart. Her legs intertwine with mine like it’s the most natural position. She turns, her back against my chest, my arm around her waist, my cock pressing on her ass, but she probably doesn’t hone in on this last fact as much as me.

Do you want to know the kind of restraint it takes to be in this fucking position with this fucking girl almost every fucking night without doing one fucking thing?

More control than I even realized I had.

* * *

I figured tonight would be a rough one, but I just didn’t expect it to bypass a nightmare and hit on another fucking issue she has. Not sleepwalking. I haven’t caught her doing that yet.

Daisy kicks me awake, which is the normal part. She squirms, her long, smooth legs moving back and forth, up and down, hitting my shins.

I don’t try to stop her. She’ll just be unresponsive until she wakes up fully.

She grips her pillow, her face turned into it, and she moans.

She’s still asleep. This is a fucking side effect of her meds, and it’s happened maybe five times in the past four months. I wasn’t ever planning on telling her that she gets aroused in the middle of the night. She can’t remember it happening, even when her eyes snap open and she looks pretty lucid, like a sleepwalker. I thought telling her that I’ve heard her moan in arousal would embarrass her, so I kept quiet. But during a sleep study, she did it anyway, and so she knows.

Daisy didn’t look mortified when she found out. I forgot that she’s not Lily. She’s a lot less ashamed and a lot more brazen and probably five times as crazy. She just told me that if she does it again, I need to leave her bed immediately so she doesn’t accidentally rape me.

She read that it could happen with sleepsex, and I told her that she’s out of her fucking mind if she thinks she’s going to rape me, asleep or awake.

Daisy tosses and turns restlessly, and then she stays still when her back faces me, one of her knees bent towards her body. She shudders, and then she moans again, the noise high-pitched and full of unbridled pleasure.

I sit up on my elbow and pause to watch her for a second. I start to harden, especially as she clenches the sheet by her waist. Her tank top has bunched to her chest, the bottom of her breasts peeking out.

Fuck. I have to go to the bathroom.

I’m about to tug her shirt down and leave, but her voice freezes me. “I can’t,” she moans softly, and then her noises turn into a series of breathless cries. “Ahh…ahhh…ahh…”

Fucking Christ. I wish I was so deep inside of her right now.

Her back arches. “Ryke!”

At least she thinks I am.

Frustrated, I toss the comforter off my body. Fuck her shirt. I glance back. Her breasts, even small, are killing me. I climb off the bed, my erection trying to burst through my fucking pants. Her body is skinnier than it’s ever been. I want to fucking feed her first, and then I want to fuck her hard. Both of which seem improbable, and the latter can’t happen.

“I…can’t…” she moans. See, even in her fucking sleep, she knows it’s wrong. So there we go. “Ryke…Ryke…” She cries again, feminine, high-pitched, and I lose it for a second time. “Ryke, ahhh!” I have to enter the fucking bathroom before I come right here.

It takes me a minute to unlock the deadbolt, and then I slip inside. I gently shut the door and tug down my drawstring pants to my thighs. Fuck. I find the lotion on the ground, along with hair spray (not fucking needed) and a tube of half-empty toothpaste (same). I didn’t even realize it was fucking messy in here, but I guess it is. We both rarely clean up.

I used to make fun of Connor for masturbating like crazy when Rose wouldn’t give up her virginity, and here I am, going through the same thing. The difference: there’s no endgame for me. I don’t have the girl at the finish. I’m not chasing after her. I’m just helping her, and when that’s done, we’re both supposed to move on.

I stand over the toilet and place one hand on the wall. I shut my eyes and stroke my hard cock that fucking begs to be inside a woman, but I’ve been saying no to that demand for months. Images start filling my head to increase my arousal, and the most prevalent is a girl with blonde hair, with that high-pitched cry and those long fucking legs.

I immediately stop rubbing.

I lick my lips and glare at the wall. Why the fuck do you have to picture her? Anyone else. Goddammit, anyone fucking else. I try thinking about a girl I’ve already fucked before, completely different from Daisy. She’s big breasted, big assed, and big hipped. I like curvy. I like athletic. I honestly like everything. I don’t think Daisy knows this either. I told her I had a type when she was fifteen—describing the complete opposite of her build, just so she wouldn’t get any ideas.

And look where I am now, fucking imagining her. Stop thinking. I’m trying. I want to come, so I start again, and I keep picturing that other girl, my cock pounding between her legs. Fuck…me. I speed up my strokes, welcoming the friction with heavy breaths.

My hand on the wall turns into a fist.

And then the image of those big tits and large ass morph as soon as my brain remembers those cries again. Ahhh…ahhh…ahhhhh…Ryke, Ryke! They turn into that delicate face, the one that bursts into a breathtaking smile, the one that can light up a city. Her lips part as she moans, and she smiles with each one.

Stop imagining her. I pause, my hand freezing in place. I can’t fucking do this. I grab a magazine from the tile floor, some of the pages crinkled from being wet with shower water. It’s a fashion magazine, and I have a hard time finding a girl without a ton of makeup on. I keep flipping, and then I land on a seven-page spread.

Of Daisy.

In black-laced lingerie.

Her small breasts look bigger, pushed up by the cups of her bra. She wears a thong that shows off her round ass, her shape slender. Her smoky-shadowed eyes only say come fuck me, which isn’t helping. “Fucking A.” Is the world against me tonight or what?

 I toss the magazine aside, and I shut my eyes again, exhaling loudly. Fuck this. It’s not like imagining her is a sin I can’t live with. It’s a line I’ve crossed before but not often, and it may force me a step closer to crossing another one.

I convince myself enough, and my hand resumes its natural course. Ahh..ahhhh…Ryke! A groan catches in my throat. Fuck me. I pulse my hips with the movement of my hand, picturing myself thrusting in between Daisy’s thighs, her back permanently arched, in a constant state of pleasure that she can’t contain.

It’s an image that I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to let go. I am so wound up, needing this release fucking hours prior to now. I hear her cries in my ears. I see her climax wash over her face. And her body is all mine, protected within my fucking hands, my long cock fitting entirely inside of her. All of it drives me to a new, intense place, giving me the biggest head rush of my life.

I come. If a simple fucking image is this good, it makes me wonder what the real fucking thing would be like. Can’t happen.

Yeah, I know.

< 9 >

DAISY CALLOWAY

It takes a full minute to orient myself. I touch my temple, a little confused about where I am. I reach out and feel my comforter. My bed. Okay, I must be waking up, but I’m already in a sitting position. My limbs hurt like I thrashed all night. I rub my scratchy eyes and pat the mattress beside me. The sheets are tangled and twisted, no Ryke on the bed. Or even in the room.

Panic sets in, my heart shooting to my throat. My head whips towards the window, and I imagine a man crawling through with a bat or a camera or a combination of the two. My curtains stay still, not blowing, which means the window is firmly closed.

You’re okay, Daisy. Stop freaking out. I repeat the mantra over and over as I stiffly turn towards the bathroom.

The door is ajar. The door is ajar. No. It’s just Ryke. It’s okay.

I glance at the other wall. The bedroom door…it’s cracked open too. It’s just Ryke. You’re okay.

But what if it’s not him? What if someone broke in and did something to Ryke? What if they hurt him and are setting a trap for me? It’s a wild, crazed thought, but in the back of my head, I believe it’s so true. I quietly sit on my knees, holding my breath as this cold adrenaline floods me. I lift Ryke’s pillow and find the black handgun underneath.

With trembling fingers, I pick up the gun and point the barrel at the door. A clattering sound reverberates from my living room. I jump, a noise breaching my lips. Shut up, Daisy. What if they hear you?

And then the door slowly swings open.

Ryke stops short at the sight of me, his eyes filling with concern. “Daisy?”

What am I doing? The gun slides out of my unsteady hands and lands safely on my comforter. I can’t breathe. Of course it’s just Ryke. He’s at my side the moment I blink. He rests a knee on the mattress and cups my face between two large hands. “Daisy, look at me.”

I can’t breathe. I gasp, trying to capture air for my distressed lungs. “Where…what…” I try to glance at the window. Why am I scaring myself? No one’s there. It’s all in my head.

“Shhh.” He rubs my back. “Fucking breathe, Daisy.” He towers over me, staring down as he studies my paranoid, anxious state.

I inhale deeply, and my body accepts it this time. You’re okay. I can’t stop shaking. He suddenly lifts me up beneath my arms, and before I exhale, he’s on the bed, leaning against my headboard, and he’s placed me on his lap. He peels off his clean gray Penn shirt, and I frown, but I’m too hot and exhausted to make sense of it or protest. His hair is wet, and he wears black jeans.

And then he wipes my forehead with his shirt. I’m caked in a layer of sweat. My tank top suctions to my stomach and chest. “I’m sorry,” I whisper with a heavy breath. All the energy drains from me in a single instant. It’s like I used everything I had in that moment of panic.

“What did I fucking say about apologizing?”

I hold onto his forearm, and he keeps me upright with his body and his other hand. “I was about to shoot you.”

“No you weren’t.”

My eyes flicker up to his, and I only see that hardness in them. “You can’t know that.”

“The safety was fucking on,” he tells me.

Oh. Good. A knot starts to loosen in my stomach.

He combs my damp hair out of my face and runs his cotton shirt across my neck. “I didn’t think you’d wake up until later,” he confesses. “I shouldn’t have fucking left.” Usually he nudges me awake before he goes on a run with Lo or to the gym early, so I know he was expecting to return to my bedroom.

“It’s okay,” I say, eyeing his wet hair again. “Did you take a shower?”

“I ran out of clean clothes in your room, so I went upstairs to my apartment.” He shakes his head. “I took a shower up there. I thought I had time.” He pauses. “Are you sure you can handle being in Paris alone for an entire fucking month?”

“I don’t know…but I have to try. I don’t want to be afraid at night anymore.” I sit up a little straighter. “It’ll be different,” I tell him. “There’ll be less paparazzi in France, less cameras, and none of my old friends will be there.”

“I fucking hope you’re right.”

Me too.

After a couple minutes, finally catching my breath, Ryke slides me off his lap and gently leans me against the headboard. He climbs off the bed and snatches the handgun. I watch his fingers move quickly, checking the safety and ammunition in skilled routine. Then he bends down and opens the cupboard to his end table, revealing a safe. He types in a code, and the heavy metal door opens.

I really want him to leave the gun out, but I don’t want to sound that frightened, so I let him lock the handgun out of sight. I stand and search my room for clean clothes. Shower. Energy drink. Check flight departure. Call my sisters to say goodbye. Have Mikey take me to the airport. Then I’m gone.

I can do this.

* * *

I hate that my panties were wet. The only time I’ve ever orgasmed has been in my sleep. My sleep. And I remember nada. Not one little itty bitty moment. It’s cruel.

At least the shower rejuvenated me. I feel like a new person, or at least, the kind of person I like to be. Fearless, ready for any new adventure. I draw open the blinds, sunlight streaming in, no longer dark and dreary in my room. After double-fisting two energy drinks, I’m wired enough to do anything and everything.

Ryke hands me another lime-flavored Lightning Bolt! after I asked for it. “Last one,” he tells me. “Let’s see if you can fucking beat me, Calloway.” He sits at the edge of my bed beside me. These energy drinks are made by Fizzle, my dad’s billion-dollar soda company, so it’s my booster of choice.

“One,” I say. “Two…” The lip of his can nears his mouth, as does mine. “Three.” We both chug at the same time. The carbonated liquid slides down my throat, and from the corner of my eye, I watch Ryke’s Adam’s apple bob twice before he waves his empty can in victory.

Three seconds later, I finish my own.

“You’re too fucking slow for me,” he says.

“Is that a Ryke Meadows test?” I ask. “You only like the ones who can swallow quickly?” I break into a grin, and his brows rise.

“What do you know about swallowing?”

I shrug. “I know I don’t mind it.”

His muscles flex, and he drops his gaze from mine. He crushes his can in his hand and then tosses it into a faraway trash bin by my dresser. It lands perfectly. I sense the switch in his lighthearted demeanor, serious all of a sudden.

I crossed a line, maybe. Good job, Daisy. I try to recover by adding, “We don’t have to talk about swallowing.” Shut up. I bolt from the bed, preoccupying myself with cleaning. I start picking up sweaters and jeans and jackets from chairs and the floor, stuffing them back in drawers.

Ryke stays seated on the edge of my bed, his forearms on his knees, his hands clasped together as he hunches a little. His eyes fix on the ground in thought. “Can we talk?”

This isn’t good. Can we talk never leads to righteous places. Before he speaks, I blurt out, “You don’t have to do the whole awkward goodbye thing. We’ll see each other again.” I’ll only be in Paris for a month. I’m not losing him as a friend. Right?

“I think we should both start dating again,” he suddenly says.

I move a little faster, collecting a pile of clothes and trying to shove them into a drawer at the same time. I think we should both start dating again. What did I expect to happen? This wasn’t going to end with us holding hands. He’s just here to help me get on my feet. Still, we haven’t expressed an interest in dating other people for four months. It’s been just us, criticizing our previous relationships, no matter how brief or how long.

“Stop fucking moving for a second,” he says roughly.

I slow down and concentrate on folding a sweater with block letters that reads: Forever Young. “If that’s what you want.” I shrug. “I can start dating again, I guess.”

He runs his hand through his hair. “You can be single. I’m not saying that you have to get a boyfriend. I just…” he trails off in thought, and his jaw locks tight.

“No, I get it,” I say with a nod. “We both used to date a lot, and you’ve stopped because of me. It’s not fair to you.” All because I’ve been an emotional train wreck at night. Now that he has a month apart from me—no longer sleeping in my bed—it makes sense that he’d want to have sex. He finally has the chance to do it.

“I’m going to be fucking honest with you,” he says. I lean against the dresser and meet his dark gaze. “I’m not used to abstaining from sex for this long, and I think it’s in both of our best interests if we start opening ourselves up to other people again.”

His words shouldn’t hurt me that much, but they feel like sharp knives sliding into my belly. “So I should find a number seven then?” I ask him. “Maybe he’ll last longer than five minutes.” I try to put on a smile, but it disappears pretty quickly.

I can’t tell what Ryke is thinking. His features are hard as a rock. Brooding like normal. He stands up and takes a couple steps towards me.

I eye the ridges in his abs and the complex tattoo on his shoulder. I shouldn’t suggest it—I shouldn’t say it, but it leaves my lips before I can take back the words, “You could be my number seven.”

“Daisy…” He shoots me a look.

My stomach twists. “You’re really okay with me fucking another guy?” I imagine him with someone else, and it makes me physically ill. I don’t want him to date another girl, and I know it’s wrong of me to feel that way, but how do I change these emotions? How do I let them go? Maybe he’s right. Maybe we do have to date other people to get over this.

“It doesn’t matter what I fucking feel,” he says. “I’m seven years older than you.”

“You just turned twenty-five a week and a half ago.” He has literally only been seven years older for four months. But once my birthday arrives in February, he’s going to be all, I’m six years older than you with the same I’m a fucking man and you’re a little girl tone that he likes to put on when he’s making a point.

“I’m still seven fucking years older than you right now.”

“Really? I should file a complaint to the woman who made me seven years younger than you. What a horrible, horrible thing.”

He almost smiles.

“You know,” I tell him, more serious, “I started modeling when I was fourteen, and right when I entered the industry, no one ever treated me like I was a teenager. I was doing things that people in their twenties would do.”

I feel like I’ve already been to college, partying, drinking too much, experimenting, and I’m only eighteen. It’s one reason why I don’t want to go to a university. I had my fill when I was fifteen, sixteen and seventeen. And I can’t picture myself sitting behind a desk all day either.

“I hear you,” he says. “I do, but disregard our ages completely—you’re still my brother’s girlfriend’s little sister. And there’s no changing that.”

I set the sweater on top of the dresser. When I look up, he’s beside me. “So what happens when we’re both back in Philly a month from now?” I ask. “Do we just pick up where we left off or are we going our separate ways from here on out?”

He rests an elbow on the dresser. “I don’t want to lead you on, Dais. We can’t fucking happen. I’m just here to help you until you can sleep better.”

Maybe I should stop torturing myself then and just try to move on too. “I can find someone in Paris, and if not, I’ll just fly solo. I’ve done that a lot. Maybe I’ll make a lasting friend from New York,” I say. “I can move out there when I come back, and I’ll start over—”

“You would move out to New York?” He frowns.

“I don’t know…maybe,” I say softly.

He abruptly reaches out and draws me to his chest. He’s hugging me. Willingly. But this feels more like a goodbye than anything else. A pain ripples through my body.

And then that cracked door to my bedroom—it whips open.

I turn my head with Ryke, and we both see my mother standing at the threshold of the doorway with her phone in hand. Her eyes grow to saucers, horrified at the sight of my embrace with a guy she finds unworthy of my time and affection.

Ryke and I slowly break apart, but he doesn’t look guilty, only angry at her appearance.

“What is this?” my mom asks sharply.

“Ryke came over to say goodbye,” I tell her, trying to shrug off the tension that builds with her presence. “I’m all packed, so Mikey should be here in a bit.” I didn’t think she’d stop by. I hugged my mom and dad yesterday at their house.

My mom scrutinizes Ryke’s bare chest. “Why is your shirt off?” she snaps.

“Because I took it off,” he says with narrowed eyes. He finds his T-shirt on my comforter and he pulls it over his head. But he makes no attempt to leave me alone with my mom, too worried about me to do so.

My mom walks over to my bed in her high heels. She fingers the pearls at her neck as she inspects the sheets, twisted like two people possibly fucked beneath them.

“I’m a bad sleeper,” I tell her truthfully, but it sounds like such a lie. “I’ve been tossing and turning at night.”

She ignores me, and her eyes set right on Ryke again. “If I ever find out that you’re with my daughter, I will personally look into your past history, and if you’ve had sex with her when she was underage, you’ll be in court so fast. Do you know what statutory rape is?”

Ryke has an irritated expression like no, I’m a fucking idiot.

“Mom,” I interject. “He didn’t do anything.”

Ryke doesn’t break my mother’s gaze. “You want to act like it’s a fucking age thing, that’s fine, Samantha. Go ahead and do that. I don’t give a fuck what you think of me.”

She inhales drastically, the bones in her neck protruding. “I’ve never been around someone so disrespectful in my life.” She purses her lips. “What did your mother teach you?”

“How to hate my father,” he says without missing a beat. “How to hate my half-brother. Those didn’t really come in handy, did they?”

My mom falters at that response.

“You think I’m the very fucking extension of my mom,” he continues, “but I haven’t spoken to Sara in over a year.” And still, he can’t shake the association. It’s genetically written all over him.

“What about your father?” she retorts. “Jonathan would love to talk to you, but you’ve ignored every phone call, every text—”

“He really told you that?”

She touches her pearls again. “He told my husband, and my husband told me.” I can see that happening. My dad is best friends with Jonathan after all.

“I’m not on speaking terms with my fucking father either. Let’s leave it at that.”

My mom lets out a vexed half-laugh. “He’s going through the hardest time in his life with these accusations against him. Do you know what your word would mean to the press?” Jonathan was accused of abusing Lo, and Ryke hasn’t brought it up to me at all. I’m not even sure if it’s true or not. Out of our group of six, I’m the last to receive any info, the little dot on the outside of the inner circle.

“You need to fucking stop,” Ryke says, truly getting pissed now. “Stay out of it.”

“All you have to do is tell the press that it’s a lie,” she says. “Jonathan’s name will be cleared—”

“You want me to protect that son of a bitch?” Ryke curses, his eyes blazing. “I’m done trying to wipe his reputation clean. He fucked it a long time ago, and it’s not my job to make sure he comes across as a fucking angel to the press.”

“What about Lo?” my mom asks. “He’s hurting from this lie just as much as Jonathan.” She lets out another hysteric laugh. “You’re just like your mother, willing to take down everyone in your wake just to hurt Jonathan. When are you going to stop?”

Ryke looks like he’s been slapped. It takes him a moment to collect himself. When he speaks, his voice is leveled and colder than usual. “I’m not actively trying to destroy my father. I’m trying to move on, and I want my brother to do the same. You want me to go defend Jonathan, but I fucking can’t. I won’t defend someone who may be guilty.”

“He’s not guilty.”

“I don’t fucking know that!” Ryke yells.

My mom scoffs. “You think that lowly of him? That he could do something that heinous to your own brother?”

“I’ve seen him grab Lo’s fucking neck with pure malice,” Ryke retorts. “He used to call me a pussy, and I won national track competitions, so can you even imagine what he called Lo, a kid who had nothing going for him?”

My mom’s lips tighten even more, like she sucked a lemon. Her cheeks have reddened. “He’s a better man than you realize. We’re not all perfect.” Before Ryke can say something more, she spins to me and says, “I came here to talk to you, not to have an argument with Sara’s son.”

Sara’s son. That’s what she thinks of him first and foremost. It’s so stupid.

“Is it important?” I ask.

She nods. “I’ve talked to your agency, and they’ve booked multiple go-sees for you after Fashion Week, as well as a couple campaigns and ads while you’re in Paris.”

My heart beats crazily, and her words jumble together. It takes me a minute to sort through them. “Wait, I’m working after Fashion Week? But I thought…”

Her phone buzzes. She glances at the screen. “It’s foolish to waste three extra weeks in France.” She types a message. “You need to capitalize on the time you have there.”

My free time.

I feel it slipping between my fingers. I feel the exhaustion pummeling me tenfold. I needed a break. I haven’t had one in months. I dreamed of that leisure time in a beautiful country. This was supposed to be it. Glorified independence with a cherry on top.

I feel like she stuck my ice cream sundae under hot water.

But maybe I didn’t deserve the sundae in the first place. I’m going to Paris, staying in a gorgeous hotel. Does it matter that I have to work? I’m being paid more a day than most people make in a year, and all I do is walk down a runway and pose.