Текст книги "Hothouse Flower"

Автор книги: Becca Ritchie

Соавторы: Krista Ritchie
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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

Be grateful. I’m trying. I really am. But this sadness just pours into me no matter how much I want to smile and say okay, thank you for the opportunity.

“Daisy,” Ryke says, coming to my side. He gives me a look like speak the fuck up.

“Mom,” I call.

She’s busy texting.

“Can we reschedule the go-sees? I’ll meet with designers some other time. I just want a couple weeks to myself in Paris.”

“You’ve already been booked. If you cancel, it’ll look badly on you, and then other designers will hear about it.” She pockets her phone in her clutch. “The month will go by before you know it, and then you’ll be back home to do more American spreads.” She kisses my cheeks. “Have a safe flight. Text me when you land.” She checks her watch. “I’m late for a brunch with Olivia Barnes.” She glares at Ryke as if he’s the cause of her tardiness.

She leaves.

I don’t stop her.

When the door shuts, my heart beats so fast, my lungs constricting, this pressure just mounting and mounting. I need to release it. I need to breathe. I look around my room, trying to find an escape.

“Daisy. Daisy, fucking stop for a second,” Ryke says.

I grab my motorcycle keys out of a jacket pocket. “I’m going to go for a quick ride.” Just as I pass him, he grips my wrist and pries the keys out of my palm. “Ryke—”

“You can’t drive when you’re like this. The last fucking time you did that, you almost highsided on the freeway.”

I remember. I was really, really close to flying over the handlebars of my bike. I applied too much throttle around a curve. I’ve never seen Ryke so scared before, but when we met in a parking lot, he looked like he wanted to simultaneously hug me for being alive and kill me for almost making a fatal mistake.

I blow out a deep breath from my lips. “I really need some air.”

“Run with me for half an hour,” he says. “You’ll feel better.”

“How so?”

He draws me closer, my feet touching the sides of his. “You’ll be able to fucking breathe.” He studies my face quickly. “Or you could just cry and let it out for once.”

My whole body hurts, and those words somehow pain me more. “What?”

“Let it out.”

I shake my head. “I can’t.”

“Why the fuck not? Stop trying to suppress your emotions, Dais. It’s okay to be upset right now. What your mom just did was shit.”

I shake my head again. Who am I to complain? I don’t want to be that immature, selfish girl. I don’t want to be what people probably think of me, the heiress of a billion-dollar fortune. Bitching over not going to Paris for fun anymore. How does that look?

“You have gone through hell since Lily’s sex addiction went public, and you’ve told fucking no one about it but me. Stop trying to be strong. Just fucking cry, Daisy. Scream. Yell. Be fucking angry.”

Everything crashes into me. Stresses that I don’t like to confront. I’m not even ready to bear all of it right now. “Can we run?” I ask. “I’ll race you down the street.”

His features turn grave, but he nods. “Yeah. Get your shoes on—”

My phone rings, cutting him off. I look at the Caller ID. “It’s Mikey. I guess…” I have to go. I meet Ryke’s gaze, and he just shakes his head.

“I don’t want to fucking leave you like this,” he says.

“I’ll be fine.”

“Are you going to be able to last the whole flight, sitting in your fucking seat, not able to get up and move around that much?”

It sounds more confining now than it did a couple hours ago, only because my mom suffocated me with this news. “I don’t have much of a choice.”

“We all have choices,” he says. “Some are just harder to make than others.”

“Don’t worry about me,” I tell him. “I want you to go to California and climb those mountains.” I pause. “And be safe.” He can die out there. With no rope, no backup safety, he’s relying only on his training, his hands and body. One wrong move and he can slip and fall. He doesn’t talk about the risk that much, and I don’t want to dissuade him from pursuing the three-mountain, free-solo climb in Yosemite. It’s been his lifelong goal, and I won’t keep him from that.

“You too,” he says, his voice low and strained.

This is the part where we should hug again, but so many unresolved issues linger, things that my mom dumped and deserted.

We don’t touch.

We don’t say another word.

We just leave each other with a maybe—a sort of acceptance to move on. I can already see myself on that plane, visualizing him with another girl. Everything about this trip to Paris sucks, but I won’t screw over a handful of designers just to come back to Philly.

I can’t.

< 10 >

RYKE MEADOWS

Daisy is gone. With the time difference, I haven’t even had the chance to talk to her. She’s too busy to fucking call at a decent hour, and so I have no idea if she’s sleeping or if she’s been awake for two days straight. I can’t stop thinking about the last look on her face—the one of pure devastation. Like someone physically ripped out an organ from her body. I’ve seen that expression before, and it only comes when she feels trapped.

I just have to trust that she’s fine.

And I try to ignore the fact that I gave her permission to fuck other guys. I hated that, and even knowing that she may be hooking up with someone right now—it boils my blood. But I can’t stomach screwing girls here while she waits for me either. Because she’ll be waiting forever, and it’s not fucking fair to her.

My brother lies on a weight bench, and I spot him. The gym is almost empty this early in the morning, the weight room desolate besides my brother, Connor and me. We always meet at 6 a.m. to avoid the paparazzi.

 “How’s Lily?” I ask, my eyes flickering over to Connor as he does leg presses while watching Bloomberg on the flat screen television overhead.

“Fine,” Lo says, lifting the heavy bar off his chest with a grunt. I grab it from him and set it in the holder. He sits up, wiping his forehead with a towel. “How’s not babysitting?”

“I wasn’t babysitting Daisy.” Since her going away party, I’ve been on the same rocky fucking road with my brother whenever her name is mentioned. It’s not different. It’s the fucking same shit over and over again. I’m used to it by now.

Lo stares at the towel in his hands. “I still don’t understand how you’re friends with her. Like…what do you talk about?”

He’s fishing. “We’re not fucking each other.”

Lo glares. “I didn’t say you were, but now I’m thinking it.”

I roll my eyes. Maybe I’m overanalyzing everything. I don’t fucking know anymore. “We talk about normal things. Motorcycles, sports…” sleep, medication, siblings, parents. “…food.”

“She looked really thin at her going away party,” Connor says, off his machine and heading towards us. He grabs his water out of his gym bag. “Rose fought with Samantha about it over the phone for an hour.”

I pop one of my knuckles. “Her mom is putting too much fucking pressure on her to maintain that weight.”

“Maybe she’ll gain some while she’s in Paris,” Lo says, more optimistic than he usually is. I think he’s just happy she’s not around me.

I nod to Connor. “Hey princess, you want to compete at chin-ups?” Lo fucking hates doing them, so he can watch and count.

“I don’t know,” Connor says with a casual tone. “Will you cry when I beat you? If so, then yes.”

“Just get your ass to the pull-up bar.”

Lo stretches his arms. “Hey, don’t talk about his ass like that.”

“You’re making my first love jealous,” Connor banters, heading to the bar with me.

I’ve become used to their flirty fucking banter. They’re best friends. They’ve lived together for almost two years. They have a much better relationship with each other than I do with either of them individually. Am I fucking jealous? Maybe a little.

“You two are so fucking cute,” I say, grasping the bar underhand. I cross my ankles, and Connor does the same on the bar next to me.

“Ready?” Lo says, standing back to judge. “Go.”

I pull myself up, my collarbones in line with the bar, and then I lower my body back to the starting position. One. I breathe out. Two. My muscles burn, but I’m nowhere near fatigued or strained. Three.

I keep counting in my head, Connor easily staying at the same pace as me. He’s in really good fucking shape. I didn’t even realize it when I first met him since he’s always in preppy clothes or suits and button-downs. But he’s kept his body healthy and at a physical peak like me.

Lo’s mind must be wandering because he says, “I’m thinking about going to rehab again.”

Ten. I falter a little, my muscles constricting in tight bands. I frown as I pull my body back up. “You don’t have to decide this now,” I say in a single breath.

Connor is more concentrated on the fucking challenge, so I think he’s lapped me by two chin-ups.

“It helped me before,” Lo admits. “I stayed sober for a long time, and Lily’s in a good place. She’ll be okay without me.”

But it’s different now. Back then, he wasn’t famous. No one knew his name. Lily’s sex addiction hadn’t been publicized. He was just a rich kid from Philly.

“Do you think it’s the right move?” Lo asks.

Fifteen. I usually can do twenty-two, but a nervous sweat drips down my forehead, and my arms go slack at sixteen chin-ups. I drop my feet to the ground. “I don’t know,” I say, undoing the Velcro on my gloves. I slip them off my hands.

Connor does his final chin-up, barely breaking a sweat. “Twenty-three,” he exclaims, a smile behind the words. He knows he beat me. I smack his chest, hoping he’d flinch from the playful attack, but he flexes instead, and I hit muscle.

“Fuck you,” I tell him easily.

He grins. “You love me.”

“You say that to everyone,” I tell him. “And I highly fucking doubt the entire world loves you, Cobalt.”

“The entire world doesn’t have to love me,” he says, picking up his water again. “Only the ones that matter.”

“That’s cute. Did you write that in your diary this morning?”

“No, I read it from yours,” he banters.

I flip him off, and then Connor turns his attention on my brother, never really forgetting what we were talking about. “When were you thinking of leaving for rehab?”

Lo shrugs. “Maybe this week since Ryke is going to California. It just seemed like a good time.”

A lump lodges in my fucking throat. It’s not a good time. I want to be around him while he’s in rehab. I don’t like knowing that he’ll be separated for that long from Lily, from me and Connor, from the ones that truly love him. Last time he went to rehab, I was there. I went to meetings with him. And I’m honestly not fucking sure he can handle the criticism of the media, focusing on his stint in rehab. I worry that’ll send him over the edge too.

Connor nods. “I personally think it’s a good idea.”

Lo’s shoulders lift at that, taking Connor’s opinion with high regard. And then his eyes meet mine. “What about you?”

He can’t go to rehab. “I want you to come with me,” I say.

He frowns with a glare. It’s his normal fucking look, so I don’t take offense to how hostile he appears. I don’t know why I ever thought this kid had friends in prep school. He’d more likely chew them up and spit them out. “What?” he says with edge.

“To California,” I tell him. “Fuck rehab, I’ll make sure you don’t drink. It’ll be a road trip out west. You and me.”

“The wind in your hair,” Connor adds, smiling as he sips his water.

“Shut the fuck up,” I say lightly.

Lo’s face sharpens as he thinks about this. He glances at Connor, then at me before he says, “If I go with you, I think Connor should come too.”

I glare because I can feel Connor gloating beside me. “Why?”

“Why?” Connor says like it’s the stupidest question ever. I feel like he’s about to say Because I’m me.

I have to stop him before I choke on his fucking arrogance. “Seriously,” I say to Lo. “He has a wife that’ll castrate you if you bring him back broken. What if he chips a nail?”

“Then I’ll get a manicure,” Connor quips. “There are solutions to everything. You just have to think to find them. Such hard work.”

“Are we fucking friends?” I ask Connor, glowering. Lo just watches in slight amusement, but really, I think he’s processing my proposal.

“I’m not sure what a ‘fucking’ friend is, so I can’t answer you.”

“Look at that, I know something that Connor Cobalt doesn’t.”

“When it comes to slang, made up words, and the best fire hydrants to piss on, yes, you do.”

“Fuck you.”

“You keep saying it, but you still haven’t done it.” His lips curve upward.

Lo cuts us off, “If you’re both going to be this annoying the whole trip, then I’m choosing rehab.”

“So you’re coming with me?” I ask, internally letting out a deep fucking breath. I feel like I helped him dodge a bullet, and I’m waiting for the gun to reload.

“Yeah, but like I said, only if Connor comes. No offense, Ryke, but I’m afraid we’re going to kill each other if we’re together for that long.” If we bring up our family issues, we just may.

Connor’s a big peacemaker in our circle of friends. He may like to irritate me on purpose, but when everyone starts fighting, he’s the one who calms people down. So I can understand Lo wanting him to come along.

“Fine with me,” I tell him.

My phone buzzes in my shorts. I think it’s Daisy. 1 p.m. in Paris. I check the message.

I’d like to see you before you go kill yourself on a goddamn mountain. – Jonathan

I glare and delete the message.

“Who was that?” Lo asks. “You look pissed.”

“My mom,” I lie. Although, she did text me five times last night. I never answer her, even though it’s the same plea: Come see me. I’m sorry. Ryke, please. I need to see you. I love you.

I’ll always love my mom because she’s my mother. But I can’t ever forgive her for what she’s done to me, to Lily, to the Calloway girls, my brother and inadvertently Connor.

She read my personal texts to Lo, where we talked about Lily’s sex addiction. And she sold the information to the media with the headline: Daughter of Fizzle Creator and CEO is Confirmed Sex Addict. Selling Lily out wasn’t just for money. It was to hurt Lo, and that way, she’d hurt Jonathan.

But she also fucking hurt me.

Now, all six of us are famous because of Sara Hale.

Thanks Mom.

< 11 >

RYKE MEADOWS

Emergency! SOS! – Lily

I eat one bite of my fucking sub at Lucky’s before Lily sends me an SOS. It seems too comical to be serious. I set the sub on the wrapper, tomatoes and lettuce falling from the bread. “Did you guys get a text from Lily?” I ask Connor and Lo across from me.

Lo freezes, clutching his Fizz Life can. “No, what does she want?”

It’s unusual for Lily to text me before Lo. “I don’t know yet.” I text back: What’s wrong?

Connor scrolls through his phone, more agitation passing across his features than I think he’d want to show.

“Your shipment of handcuffs not come in, sweetheart?” I ask him before picking my sub back up in two hands.

“Hoping I’ll cuff you to my bed?” he banters, his face returning to that impassive, unreadable state. “I’d make good on your fantasies, but Rose would be pissed at the claw marks on the headboard.”

“Now I have claws?” I say with raised eyebrows.

He combats me by arching one. That fucker. “You’re lucky, I don’t usually let dogs sleep in my bed, but I’m willing to make an exception.”

I flip him off, and Lo’s leg bounces nervously beneath the table. He holds his hand up at me like what the fuck? “What’s going on with my girlfriend?”

Right on time, Lily calls me. I answer, and before I even ask, she explains. “Rose got a flat tire, and she refuses to call a tow truck.”

“I can fix it myself.” Rose’s icy voice bleeds through the speaker. She grunts a little, as though trying to lift the fucking spare tire.

“She’s in five-inch heels,” Lily notes. “I am impressed. I really am, but it’d be even more impressive if she knew what she was doing.”

“I can read,” Rose says. “I have the manual right here. I don’t need a man to show me how to fix a fucking tire.”

I scratch my jaw. Both Connor and Lo are glaring the hell out of me, hearing bits and pieces of both the girls’ voices without understanding what’s going on. I think Cobalt may snatch the fucking phone from my hand.

Off my gaze, he says, “Rose isn’t answering my texts.” That’s where his agitation stemmed from—he can sense when things aren’t right better than anyone.

“You want me to come out there?” I ask Lily. I’m going to anyway, but I figured that’s why she called. I motion to Lo to ask for the bill. Guess I’ll have to take my sub to-go. He flags down the waitress.

“Just in case Rose can’t fix it,” Lily says

“Doesn’t she have a husband for these situations?” Even though Connor wears suits and rides around in a limo, I’m fairly certain he’s smart enough to fix a fucking tire.

“She doesn’t want him to rub this in her face.”

I roll my eyes again.

“I can do this better than him,” Rose insists in the background. “I don’t need his help.”

Lily sighs. “I’m afraid she’s going to take an hour and then strangers are going to stop and try to help.”

“That’s why I handed you the pepper spray,” Rose tells her. She lets out an irritated scream. “Why is this so fucking heavy?”

“Maybe because it’s a fucking tire,” I deadpan.

Lily says, “You’re lucky she can’t hear you.” So I’m not on speaker then. She must turn to Rose because she adds, “And I’m not pepper spraying a nice person who tries to help us.”

“You would if they tried to rape you,” Rose retorts.

They’re so fucking dramatic. “No one is going to rape the two of you.”

Just like that, both Connor and Lo reach over the table to try and steal the phone from my hand. I hold it high above my head and lean further back.

“Bro,” Lo sneers, “I’m not messing around. Let me talk to her.”

“Is that Lo?” Lily says. “You have to come alone, Ryke. Lo will bicker with Rose and cause more problems. She’s already in a bad mood.” Anxiety pitches her voice, and I imagine her nervously biting her nails.

“I’ll come help you. Just text me the address,” I tell Lily before I hang up. Lo’s eyes flash murderously at me, and even Connor looks pissed. Rose has been putting a serious fucking wall up between them lately. But they have a strange relationship already, filled with mind games that I can’t keep up with.

“The girls have a flat tire,” I explain. “Lily said Rose didn’t want you there.” I nod to Connor. “And since you get on Rose’s last fucking nerve…” I nod to Lo. “She doesn’t want you there either.” I stand and open my wallet, throwing a hundred dollar bill down. “I’ll drive.”

There’s no way I wouldn’t bring Connor and Lo with me.

That’s his wife and his fiancée.

I’m just the manual fucking labor.

* * *

When we arrive, Rose is crouched down beside the back right tire, the treads unraveled and the rubber flat, like they popped it somehow. She inspects the tire from a distance, careful not to grease her hands. Not because she’s a fucking girl but because Rose is OCD. She freaks when a layer of dirt crusts beneath her nails.

She’s also treating her black dress like it’s a living creature she hopes to protect. That’s not entirely right. If she had to pick between nurturing a stranded cat or saving a purse from the rain, she’d choose the fucking purse. She rests her ass on her ankles, supported by heels, very aware not to touch the ground and ruin her clothes.

I park the car behind her Escalade. The back road is quiet, no houses around, just one lane towards a hill, trees and grass. Lo climbs out first, heading towards Lily who unsurprisingly bites her nails and flips through an instruction manual, a canister of pepper spray in her back pocket.

The minute she sees him, her whole body lifts, and my brother—he wears a smile that’s rare in anyone else’s presence but hers. I’ve never really seen love until I saw them together, truly.

They kiss, and I go to help Rose just as Connor shuts his car door.

Lo has to say something. “This is the progress you made?” he asks Rose. “I thought you were supposed to be Wonder Woman.”

She huffs, her cheeks reddening with anger. “Not now, Loren.”

“How many geniuses does it take to change a tire?” Lo taunts with a smile. Lily punches him in the shoulder, and he mock winces. He rubs his arm. “That hurt, love.”

“Be nice.”

He kisses her temple. “I’m just happy you’re okay.”

This causes her to smile again. It’s cute. All of it. But it’s also annoying the hell out of me because I think of Daisy. Normally she’d be here too. Normally she’d be standing over my shoulder, peering at the car and helping me out.

Instead, I know I’m going to have to jack the Escalade by my fucking self and put in the spare. The couples are paired off, and I’m left alone this time.

Maybe a year ago, I would have been used to being the fifth wheel.

Not anymore.

Now it’s frustrating.

I don’t take Rose away from inspecting the underbelly of the car from afar. I let Connor do that.

He towers over her, six-foot-four, his hands in his pockets. “If you’re trying to prove a point that you’re better than me, you do realize that I wouldn’t have tried to change the tire myself,” he tells her. “I would have been smart enough to call a tow truck.”

She shoots him a withering glare. “Don’t make this about you, Richard.”

“You made it about me the moment you didn’t want me here.” He grabs her wrist and pulls her to her feet with strong force.

She straightens out her dress, fire still in her eyes. I bend down and start working on replacing the flat, but they’re close enough that I hear their whole conversation.

“What are you scared of?” Connor asks her with a frown.

“Je n’ai pas peur,” Rose replies in fluent French. I translate easily: I’m not scared.

I act like I can’t understand them. They think I’m just as clueless about the foreign language as Lily and Lo, but I’ve been fluent since I was a little kid. I just don’t feel like explaining why I know French to anyone. It’s easier to ignore it.

“Alors, dites-moi ce qui ne va pas,” he says. Then tell me what’s wrong.

Rose jerks her hand away from him and raises her chin. “I wanted to do it myself.”

“It’s more than that,” he says. “You and I both know this isn’t about a tire. You’ve been shutting me out for weeks.”

“If you’re so smart, shouldn’t you be able to figure out why?” She crosses her arms in challenge.

His eyes narrow. “Ne jouez pas ce jeu avec moi, chérie. Vous perdrez.” Don’t play this game with me, darling. You will lose.

I glance over my shoulder, and Rose looks a little nervous, inhaling a sharp breath. She is scared. But like Connor, I just have no fucking clue what it’s about.

“Hey,” I call to Rose. She looks at me and the tire like I’m not moving fast enough. I restrain the urge to flip her off. “Where were you and Lily going anyway?”

“Shopping,” Rose says, way too fast.

I know a fucking lie when I hear it. “Glad I fucking asked.” I shake my head and grab the spare tire.

Connor studies Rose’s features, realizing she’s not being honest either.

Rose says, “You knew what you were getting into when you married me.”

“A lifetime of challenges.” His lips rise. “Il n'y a rien de mieux.” There is nothing better.

She almost softens at his words. He strokes her glossy hair and then kisses her forehead. Before I attach the spare, I spot Lo and Lily by my Infinity.

He has her pinned against the car. They aren’t kissing, but he whispers in her ear with a smile that dimples his sharp cheeks. She’s a giant fucking red tomato, so whatever he’s telling her—it’s dirty. I’ve never seen sex embarrass someone as much as it does Lily—and I know it’s because she’s an addict, more ashamed. But she’s clearly turned on by my brother, giving him big bedroom eyes.

I shake my head.

I feel like the only normal one.

But that’s a load of crap. None of us are really normal. We’re all just strange pieces in the world. And the half that usually connects with me is thousands of miles away, in Paris.

I just hope she’s sleeping.

If I picture her in a peaceful fucking slumber, I stop worrying. It’s the only thing keeping me grounded, keeping me right fucking here. Without that image, I’d lose my shit.