Hothouse Flower (2 page)

I wouldn’t know.

And frankly, I didn’t fucking care.

What difference would it have made anyway?

NINE YEARS LATER

< 1 >

RYKE MEADOWS

I run. Not away from anything. I have a fucking
destination: the end of a long suburban street lined with four colonial houses
and acres of dewy grass. It’s as secluded as it can be. Six in the morning. The
sky is barely light enough to see my feet pound the asphalt.

I fucking love early mornings.

I love watching the sun rise more than watching it set.

I keep running. My breathing steadies in a trained pattern.
Thanks to a collegiate track scholarship, and thanks to climbing rocks—a sport that
I sincerely fucking crave—I don’t have to
think
about inhaling and exhaling. I just
do.
I just focus on the end of the street, and I go after it. I don’t fucking slow
down. I don’t stop. I see what I have to do, and I fucking make it happen.

I hear my brother’s shoes hit the cement behind me, his legs
pumping as quickly as mine. He tries to keep up with my pace. He’s not running
towards shit. My brother—he’s always running away. I listen to the heaviness of
his soles, and I want to fucking grab his wrist and pull him ahead of me. I
want him to be unburdened and light, to feel that runner’s high.

But he’s weighed down by too much to reach anything good. I
don’t slow to let him catch me. I want him to push himself as far as he can go.
I know he can get here.

He just has to fucking try.

One minute later, we reach the end of the street that we
were shooting for, next to an oak tree. Lo breathes heavily, not in exhaustion,
more like anger. His nose flares, and his cheekbones cut brutally sharp. I
remember meeting him for the very first time.

It was about three years ago.

And he looked at me with those same pissed off amber-colored
eyes, and that same,
I fucking hate the
world
expression. He was twenty-one back then. Our relationship balances
somewhere between rocky and stable, but it was never meant to be perfect.

“You can’t go easy on me just once?” Lo asks, pushing the
longer strands of his light brown hair off his forehead. The sides are trimmed
short.

“If I slowed down, we would have been
walking
.”

Lo rolls his eyes and scowls. He’s been in a bad place for a
few months, and this run was supposed to release some of the tension. But it’s
not helping.

I see the tightness in his chest, the way he can still
barely fucking breathe.

He squats and rubs his eyes.

“What do you need?” I ask him seriously.

“A fucking glass of whiskey. One ice cube. Think you can do
that for me, big
bro?
”

I glare. I hate the way he calls me
bro
. It’s with fucking scorn. I can count on my hand the amount of
times he’s called me “brother” with affection or admiration. But he usually
acts like I don’t deserve the title yet.

Maybe I don’t.

I knew about Loren Hale for practically all my life, and I
didn’t even say
hi.
I think back
often to when I was fifteen, sixteen, seventeen and my father asked every
fucking week: “Do you want to meet your brother?”

I rejected the offer every single time.

When I was in college, I came to terms with the fact that I
would never know him. I thought I was at peace. I stopped hating Loren Hale for
just existing. I stopped listening to my mother condemn a kid that had no say
in being born. I slowly stopped talking to my father, losing contact because I
didn’t need him.

The trust fund, I use. I figure it’s payment for all the
lies I had to keep for that fucking asshole.

One day. That’s all it took to change my idealistic,
head-in-the-fucking-sand, life. Outside at a college Halloween party, a fight
started. I watched four guys on the track team—the one
I
was the captain of at Penn—go up against a lean-built guy. I
recognized him from all those photos my father showed me.

He wasn’t how I’d imagined. He wasn’t surrounded by frat
guys, crushing beers over their heads.

He was alone.

His girlfriend came into the fight later, to defend him, but
it was too late. She missed the part where my teammate accused him of drinking
expensive booze in a locked cabinet. She missed the part where Lo egged him on,
just so the guy would swing.

He hit my brother. I stood and watched Lo get decked in the
face.

It was in that fucking moment that I realized how wrong I
had been. I didn’t see a prick with a hundred friends and cash up to his chin.
Not a jock, not an athlete like me. I saw a guy
wanting
to be punched, asking to feel that pain. I saw someone so
fucking hurt and broken and sick.

Four against one.

All that time, I wanted to live the life he had. I hated
playing the bastard outcast when I was really the legitimate son. But if our
roles were reversed, if I had lived with my alcoholic father, I would have been
there.

That would have been me: tormented, drunk, weak and alone.

My father was trying to tell me that Lo wasn’t the popular
kid I’d dreamed up. He was just as much of an outsider as I was. The
difference: I had the strength to defend myself. I wasn’t beaten down by our
father like Lo had been. I didn’t even contemplate the fucking horror of living
with Jonathan twenty-four-seven, hearing the
why are you such a pussy?
comment
every day. I had blinders on. I could only see what was wrong with
me
. I couldn’t fathom Loren getting a
shitty bargain too.

That night at the Halloween party, I left the false peace
I’d built for myself. It wasn’t a gut reaction. I stood there and watched Lo
get beat on before I made a decision to intervene. And once I fucking made it,
I never turned back.

“You want a glass of whiskey?” I give him a look. “Why don’t
I just push you in front of a fucking freight train? It’s about the same.”

He stands up and lets out an agitated laugh. “Do you even
know what this feels like?” He extends his arms, his eyes bloodshot. “I
feel
like I’m going out of my goddamn
mind,
Ryke
. Tell me what I should do? Huh? Nothing
takes this pain away, not running, not fucking the girl I love, not
anything.
”

I haven’t been where he is, not to this extent.

“You relapsed a few times,” I say. “But you can get back to
where you were.”

He shakes his head.

“So what?” I narrow my eyes. “You’re going to drink a beer?
You’re going to chug a bottle of whiskey? Then what? You’ll ruin your
relationship with Lily. You’ll feel like
shit
in the morning. You’ll wish you were fucking dead—”

“What do you think I’m wishing now?!” he shouts, his face
reddens in pain. And my lungs constrict. “I hate myself for breaking my
sobriety. I
hate
that I’m at this
place in my life again.”

“You were under a lot of scrutiny,” I back-peddle, realizing
he doesn’t need me to be a
hardass
, something I
revert to on instinct. I push people too much sometimes.

“You’re under the same scrutiny, and I didn’t see you
breaking your sobriety.”

“It’s different.” I haven’t had a drink in nine years. “The
media was saying some pretty awful shit, Lo. You coped the first way you knew
how. No one blames you. We just want to fucking help you.” We’re all public
spectacles, under constant gaze of cameras, because of the Calloway girls, the
daughters of a soda mogul.

By proximity to the
Calloways
,
we’ve been roped into the spotlight. It’s not fucking fun. I wear a baseball
cap just to try to disguise myself, but thankfully cameramen have better things
to do than film us this early in the morning.

But they’ll be out trying to get a picture of us at noon.

“You don’t believe them, do you?” Lo suddenly asks, his
voice still edged.

“Who?” I ask.

“The news, all those reporters…you don’t think our dad
actually did those things to me?”

I try to hold back a cringe. Someone told the press that
Jonathan physically abuses Lo. The rumors just kept escalating after that. I
don’t know if our dad could hit him…or molest him. I don’t want to believe it,
but there’s a fucking sliver of doubt that says
maybe. Maybe it could have happened.

“It’s not fucking true!” Lo shouts at me.

“Okay, okay.” I raise my hands to get him to calm down.

He’s been like this since the accusations, pissed and angry
and looking for a way to fix things. Booze was his solution unfortunately.

Our father filed a defamation lawsuit, but no matter the
outcome of the court case, it won’t change the way people look at both of them.
Vilifying our father, pitying Loren. There’s no going back.

“You just have to move fucking forward,” I tell him. “Don’t
worry about what people think.”

Loren inhales deeply and stares at the sky like he wants to
murder a flock of birds. “You say shit,
Ryke
, like
it’s the easiest thing in the world. Do you know how annoying that is?” He
looks back down at me, his features all sharp, like a blade.

“I’ll keep saying it then, just to irritate the fuck out of
you.”
What else are big brothers for?

He sighs heavily.

I rub the back of his head playfully and then guide him
towards his house. I drop my hand off his shoulder, and he stops in the middle
of the road, his brows scrunching.

“About your trip to California…” He trails off. “I know I
haven’t asked about it in months. I’ve been too self-absorbed—”

“Don’t worry about it.” I motion with my head to the white
colonial house. “Let’s go make some breakfast for the girls.”

“Wait,” he says, holding out his hand. “I have to say this.”

But I don’t want to hear it. I’ve made up my mind already.
I’m not going to California. Not when he’s in a bad place with his recovery.
I’m his sponsor. I have to be here.

“I need you to go,” he says. I open my mouth and he cuts me
off. “I can already hear your stupid fucking rebuttal. And I’m telling you to
go.
Climb your mountains. Do whatever
you need to do. You’ve had this planned for a long time, and I’m not going to
ruin it for you.”

“I can always reschedule. Those mountains aren’t fucking
moving, Lo.” I’ve wanted to free-solo climb three rock formations,
back-to-back, in Yosemite since I turned eighteen. I’ve been working up to the
challenge for years. I can wait a little longer.

“I will feel like
shit
if you don’t go,” he says. “And I’ll drink. I can promise you that.”

I glare.

“I don’t need you,” he says with malice. “I don’t fucking
need
you
to hold my hand. I need you
to be goddamn selfish like me for once in your life so I don’t feel like utter
shit compared to you, alright?”

I internally cringe. I was selfish for so many fucking
years. I didn’t give a fuck about him. I don’t want to be that guy again.

But I hear him begging me. I hear
please fucking go. I’m losing my mind.

“Okay,” I say on instinct. “I’ll go.”

His shoulders instantly relax, and he lets out another deep
breath. He nods to himself. I wonder how long he’s been carrying that weight on
his chest.

I can’t explain why I love him so much. Maybe because he’s
the only person who understands what it’s like to be manipulated by Jonathan
for his gain. Or maybe because I know deep down there’s a soul that needs love
more than anyone else, and I can’t help but reciprocate to the fullest degree.

I put my arm around his shoulder again and say, “Maybe one
day you’ll be able to outrun me.”

He lets out a dry, bitter laugh. “Maybe if I break both your
legs.”

I grin. “Would you even be fucking fast enough to do that?”

“Give me a lacrosse stick and we’ll see.”

“Not fucking happening, little brother.”

I don’t say it with scorn.

I never do. And I never will.

< 2 >

DAISY CALLOWAY

I have this theory.

Friends aren’t forever. They’re not even
for a while
. They come into your life
and they leave when something or someone changes. Nothing grounds them to you.
Not blood or loyalty. They’re just…fleeting.

I’m usually not this cynical, but I popped up Facebook this
morning, my laptop resting on my bent legs. I should have deleted my account a
couple years ago, around the same time my family was thrust into the public
eye—when my older sister’s sex addiction went public.

But alas, I had a different theory about friends back then.

Butterflies, rainbows, hearts holding hands—it was literally
a PBS special in my brain whenever I thought about my friendships.

And now Cleo Marks posted this on her wall:
During Daisy Calloway’s sweet sixteen party,
she couldn’t shut up about sex. It’s all she cared about. You know she’s a
closeted sex addict like her sister. All the Calloway girls are skanks.

Those are the beautiful words of my former best friend. And
it doesn’t even matter that she brought up an incident from two and a half
years ago. Resurfacing it is enough to elicit
457
comments, mostly all in agreement.

Four months have passed since I graduated prep school and
I’m still being haunted by my former friends. Like the Ghosts of Hell’s Past.

A hand reaches out and smacks my computer closed. “Stop
wasting your fucking emotions on them.”

A tall six-foot-three guy is in my bed. Beside me. In only a
pair of drawstring pants. And I’m sitting against the headboard, wearing white
cotton shorts and a cropped red and blue top that says:
Wild America.

On the outside, we probably look like a couple, gently
rising from the morning sunlight that peeks through my curtains.

On the inside, there’s no touching. No kissing. Nothing
beyond friendship status.

Reality is a whole lot more complicated.

“When did you wake up?” I wonder, avoiding any discussions
that center on my old friends.

He doesn’t sit yet. He stays beneath my green comforter and
sheet, running his hands through his disheveled dark brown hair. Attractive
doesn’t even begin to describe his “I-don’t-give-a-shit-about-it” hair. It never
looks neater during the day, but he knows that.

“The better fucking question is when did you go to sleep?”
He stares at me with narrowed, accusatory eyes.

Never.
But he
knows this too. “Good news, I finished packing in the wee hours of the night.”

He rises and nears me a little. I tense at his closeness,
reminded that he’s a man, his body easily dwarfing mine. It’s not a bad tense.
More like the kind of tense that stops my breath for a second. That makes my
head float and my heart do a weird little dance. I like it.

The danger of it all.

 
“Bad news, I don’t
give a fuck about your packing,” he says roughly. “I just give a fuck about
you.” He reaches across my chest to grab a pill bottle off my nightstand. His
muscles constrict as he accidentally brushes against my boobs. Neither of us
announces the brief touch, but the tension has turned a corner, down onto Don’t
Go There Lane.

To relieve this new tension, I stand up on the bed and kick
a decorative pillow off. “You
do
care
about my packing. You thought I’d never get it done.”

“Because you’re fucking ADD and a lot of other things.” He
watches me from below, his eyes traveling up the length of my long bare legs.
“Sit down for a second, Calloway.” Instead of acting like he’s into me and all
that, he just reads the back of the pill bottle, his brows tightening in
concern.

You know that theory I have about friends not being
forever...or even for a while?

Well, every theory has an exception.

Ryke
is mine.

As I watched each friend call me a sex-addict-in-training
and a media whore, stabbing me routinely in the heart,
Ryke
was the one who pulled out the blades. He even shielded me from them. He’s like
my wolf—dangerous, alluring and protective—but I can never get close enough or
else he’ll bite me.

He’s my last real friend. But I know that’s not entirely
true. He’s the only real one I’ve ever had.
 

“What other things am I?” I ask with a smile, standing by
his ankles at the foot of the bed.

“Hyperactive, fearless, crazy, and probably the happiest
unhappy girl I’ve ever met.”

I bounce a little, about to jostle the mattress, but he
side-swipes my calves quickly. I fall on my back, smiling big as I turn on my
side towards him. It fades the moment he tosses the pill bottle at my face. It
hits me square in the forehead and thuds to the comforter.

He’s also an asshole.

“You lowered your dosage,” he says.

“The doctor did it. He was worried how fast I was going
through Ambien.”

“Did you tell him that you can’t fucking sleep without it?”

“No,” I admit. “I was too busy explaining how I don’t want
to be addicted to anything like my sister or your brother. And he said it was a
good idea to start lowering the dosage.” I tuck a strand of my dyed blonde hair
behind my ear. It’s waist-length and has a habit of being everywhere all the
time. Like right now. I am pretty much swaddled in it.

I empathize greatly with Rapunzel. She had it rough.

Ryke
glares. “Not sleeping isn’t
the fucking solution, Daisy.”

“What’s a better one?” I ask seriously. I am tired, and I realize
today, like most days, will be fueled by energy drinks and endorphin boosts in
the form of diet pills. Yippee.

He lets out a deep breath. “I don’t know. Right now, I’m
really disturbed by the fact that I knew you didn’t sleep because you didn’t
scream or kick me. If you don’t wake me in the middle of the night, it means
you were up the whole fucking time.” He shakes his head as he continues to
think. “When you’re in Paris, are you sharing a room with another model?

“No,” I say. “No, I wouldn’t.” Because she’d hear me scream,
and I’d have to explain why I have these intense nightmares. And no one knows
but
Ryke
. Not my sisters: Lily and Rose. Not Rose’s
husband. Not Lily’s fiancé (who happens to be
Ryke’s
brother).

Just him. It’s a secret he’s kept for half a year. When I
graduated from prep school about four months ago, I moved out of my parent’s
house and into a Philly apartment. Things got a little worse, so he spends the
night.

At first he just crashed on the couch.

But I couldn’t sleep, and his proximity helped keep my
anxiety at bay.

Anxiety—such a weird word. I’ve never been anxious about
anything before. Not really. Not until the media surrounded my family.

For the first time in my life, I’m truly scared.

And it’s not even of sharks or alligators or heights and
daredevil stunts.

I am scared of people. Of things that people can do to me.
Of things they’ve done.

Ryke
knows my fears pretty well
because I never lie to him. Two years ago, when I was sixteen, he held out my
motorcycle helmet, about to teach me how to ride a Ducati. He said, “For us to
have any kind of friendship, you can’t pretend with me. I’ve been involved in
lies most of my fucking life, and it’s not something I’m particularly fond of.
So you can cut the
I don’t know what you’re
talking about, I’m little and naïve
bullshit. I don’t play that game. I
never will.”

It took me a full minute to process the gravity of his
words. But I understood them. In order to be his friend, I couldn’t save face.
I had to be me. It wasn’t a lot to ask. But back then, I’m not even sure I knew
who I was. “Okay,” I accepted. So far, I’ve kept my word. No lies. And in turn,
I’ve opened up more to
Ryke
than I have to anyone
else. Plus, he’s been the only one here long enough to listen.

“Are you worried about going to Paris alone?” he asks me.
“You haven’t slept by yourself in four months.”

“I can’t keep you forever, can I? Like a miniature
Ryke
Meadows carry-on or pocket-sized version?” I try hard
not to smile at this.

“I’m not a fucking teddy bear.”

I gasp. “Really? I thought you were.”

He chucks a pillow at my face.

I smile so hard.

He loves throwing things.

“If you’re scared, maybe you shouldn’t go to Fashion Week
without your mom.”

“No,” I say. “I need to do this on my own.” I’ve wanted this
for so long—before the shit storm blew in from the press and paparazzi. I
dreamed about sight-seeing, and my mother won’t let me do that if she’s
attached to my side. She’ll only steer me towards fashion designers, schmoozing
everyone for the chance to be the face of their clothing line.
 

“Well, you have my number,” he says. “Don’t be afraid to
fucking call me, okay?”

I nod, and he climbs off my bed and goes to my dresser,
searching through the bottom drawer for some of his clothes that he keeps here.
I trace his features quickly. He’s unshaven, so he looks a little older than
twenty-five, his actual age. And his brows do this thing where they furrow
hard, like he’s in a bad mood. But really, he’s just brooding.

It’s his normal expression, one that’s insanely attractive
in this possessive—
I will protect you
even if it fucking kills me
—quality that I didn’t think I would like until
I met him.

And it drew me in like this magnetic pull or a moth to a
flame. All those cheesy things people say about attraction.

But below the physical connection (which I’m sure isn’t too
hard for any girl to possess with a guy like
Ryke
Meadows) there’s something more strong and pure. A friendship built from three
years of non-fucking. Of talking and laughing and yes, maybe a little bit of
flirting.

And below that. There is only need.

I didn’t realize it was there—that
need
—until the nightmares of my dreams became the nightmares of my
life. And he’s the kind of guy who wants to slay all those monsters for me. Too
bad he can’t get to the ones in my head.

Even if he tries.

As he grabs a clean shirt and jeans, he straightens up and
meets my gaze. I shouldn’t stare anymore, but I end up eyeing his muscles, the
ones that are so supremely cut. Most people would be able to tell that he’s an
athlete by looking—and not some muscular bodybuilder type. He’s light enough
that he can ascend a mountain quickly, but strong enough that he can carry his
weight on a single finger.

A black tattoo with reds, oranges and yellows engulfs his
right shoulder, right chest and ribs. It’s an intricate design of a phoenix
bound at the ankles, the inked chain extending along his side. A gray anchor is
on his waist, a portion disappearing beneath his drawstring pants.

He looks
kinda
like someone you’d
dream about waking up next to but never really think you would.

Despite this darkness that often swirls in his eyes, there’s
a hardness along his jaw that’s dangerous, unapproachable, something that
instantly hypnotizes me.

I can’t look away.

Even though I should.

His eyes narrow with each ticking second. “Don’t look at me
like that, Daisy.”

“I’m not looking at you like anything.”

“I can tell when someone’s attracted to me,” he says without
missing a beat.

“How?” I want that power that he has. I want to know if he
finds me desirable. But maybe he never will.
 

His gaze falls to my shirt that reveals a little bit of my
stomach. He inhales deeply, and something switches in his eyes, a look that
says
you’re fucking beautiful. I want to
touch you.
He’s never stared at me like that before—and if he has, he’s
kept it from me.

I wish it didn’t affect me, but I can feel the back of my
neck grow hot. I try to keep my composure, not wanting to be another silly girl
that crumbles in his wake. He just barely licks his bottom lip as his gaze
rakes me over.

And then his eyes return to mine again, and they’re hard
once more. “That’s the look you were giving me, sweetheart.”

Oh.
He called me
sweetheart.
I linger on that for a second, not hearing anything else
really.

“Daisy?” He glares.

I smile. “You called me sweetheart.”

He rolls his eyes and repeats, “That’s the
look
you were giving me.”

“Oops,” I say with a noncommittal shrug. I was just
staring.
I wasn’t planning on jumping
his bones. I wasn’t even fantasizing about his cock inside of me. Chaste. My
thoughts were so chaste. Maybe not now, but they
were.

“Fucking understatement.”

I stand up on the bed again so I have the height advantage.
“I can freak out if you want me to.” I touch my chest theatrically. “Oh
Ryke
, I fucked up big time. Kill me
now.
” I hold out my hand towards him and bounce on the mattress
again. “Apothecary, the poison.”

His lips twitch into an almost-smile. And almost-smiles from
Ryke
are practically grins. I’ll take ‘
em
. “Cute,” he says. “Just remember—”

“We’re friends,” I finish. “Platonic, non-fucking friends. I
remember. And I agree, in case
you
forgot.”

“I didn’t forget.” He tilts his head towards my bathroom
door. “I’m going to take a fucking shower and then head out. I’ll see you
tonight at your sisters’ place. They’re still throwing that going away party
for you?”

“Yep.” In four days, I’ll be modeling at Paris Fashion Week.
One week will be for work. Three weeks in France will be for me. I nearly beam
at the thought. I’ve never been allowed to tour France, and as a model, I go to
all of these beautiful countries and cities, but I rarely ever see them. It’s
the first time my mom isn’t chaperoning me. I know Rose convinced her to give
me some space. For that, I hugged my older sister until she had to pry me off.