Hothouse Flower (3 page)

I plop down on the bed and hang my legs off the edge, closer
to
Ryke
than before.

He glances at my computer on my pillow. “Have you talked to
Rose about Cleo?”

I frown. “How do you know Cleo was the one on Facebook?”

“I could see the fucking screen.”

I shake my head. “I’m afraid if I tell Rose, she’ll confront
Cleo and make this a bigger deal than it has to be.”

“It is a big fucking deal. This goes beyond a Facebook
comment, and you know it.”

My throat closes up for a second.

Ryke
glares, the silence sinking
to my stomach. He waits for me to unleash more off my chest, and when he sees
that I can’t produce words, he ends the conversation for me. “Just stay off
social media.”

Before he takes a step towards the bathroom, my doorknob
jiggles, trying to turn. “Daisy,” a prickly, feminine voice calls through the
wood.

It’s unmistakable.

It’s routine.

And it’s my mother.

The only question left: Where should I hide
Ryke
Meadows today?

< 3 >

DAISY CALLOWAY

My mom knocks loudly. “Why do you always have to
lock your door?”
Because I know you have
a key to my apartment and like to stop by unannounced.

Ryke
stiffens and glares at the
ceiling before he points to the bathroom.
I’ll
be in here,
he mouths.

What?
I mouth back
and gape in mock confusion.

He flips me off and then messes my hair with his hand. It’s
an innocent, playful gesture. But with my mother on one side of the door
saying, “You should be awake by now. Maybe this apartment wasn’t such a good
idea.” He catches himself and our bodies sort of…tense in unison.

My arm accidentally makes contact with his abs like his did
earlier with my boobs. But he’s not wearing a shirt like me. So his warm skin
heats my cheeks, and I feel his muscles constrict. I look up and he stares
down. One of us has to step back first, but we both stay rooted.

He ends up putting on the shirt that’s in his hand, but he
stands so close to me while he dresses. I watch his muscles stretch as he fits
his head through the collar and arms through the holes. When the cotton falls
to his waist, hiding his abs, he meets my gaze once more, as though testing to
see whether that helped eliminate any unburied tension.

Nope.

In fact, I only think it heightened the pull that says to
connect
with his body and elevated the
strain that says
don’t draw away
.

He fixes my hair that he just messed, combing the strands
with his fingers so it doesn’t look like I had sex or something.

“Daisy, are you in there?!” my mom shouts, worry lacing her
voice.

Go
, I mouth to
Ryke
.

He tucks a piece of hair behind my ear and then takes a
moment to unlock the bathroom door. He slips inside and gently closes it behind
him.

“Sorry!” I call to my mom. I rush to unlock my bedroom door.
“I told you, I just like my privacy.”

I hear her snort. “From who? You live alone.” She pauses.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come back to the family house in Villanova?
You’ll have more company.” She’s lonely without me. That’s what I’ve deduced
from her impromptu visits at any hour during the morning, day and night. I’m
her youngest child of four daughters, the last to fly the coop.

So far,
Ryke
and I have been
pretty lucky with her barging in like this. I’ve always been too afraid to
leave the door unlocked, so she’s never entered the bedroom before
Ryke
could escape. And I don’t have the heart to tell her
to stop coming around. It’d be like saying,
hey,
Mom, I’m eighteen—so I don’t care about you or your opinions anymore. Thanks.
That’s
shit, right? I already moved out pretty quickly as it is. And I love her enough
that I want her to be a part of my life. I just don’t want her to be
so…consuming.

When I finally open the door, she beelines inside, wearing a
navy blue dress and a strand of pearls around her neck. She’s a thin woman with
a bun perfectly rounded on the back of her head. She has the same brunette hair
as my sisters—and me, if my modeling agency allowed me to dye my hair back to
my natural color, that is.

Her eyes ping around my messy room. Tank tops, jean shorts
and shirts splay over my chair, my desk, some even on the end of my bed. I have
a habit of tossing things and forgetting about them. Even when
Ryke
is around, I don’t clean up much. His apartment looks
worse than mine, which would just give my mom another reason to hate him.

He’s too messy for you,
Daisy,
she’d tell me. Add that to:
He
has no job. He’s living off his trust fund. All he does is climb mountains and
ride his motorcycle. He looks mad all the time. He’s related to that witch Sara
Hale. He doesn’t even talk to his father.
(My mom is Team Jonathan Hale in
the Hale feud, mostly because he’s my father’s
bff
.)
Ryke’s
related to Sara bitchy Hale.
(That’s
her main selling point.)
Oh and he’s too
old for you.

 
The “too old” bit
will come later because even though
Ryke
is seven
years older than me, it’s not an end-all for her. She’s actually tried to pair
me with a thirty-year-old before. He was loaded from holding the copyrights to
some popular song. A month after I turned eighteen, I almost went on a date
with him, per my mother’s arrangement. My father was the one who put his foot
down.

He
cares about age
difference.

“I called Hilda to come here last week to clean,” she says
with an upturned nose. “Did she not make it?”

“I turned her away,” I announce. “I’m trying to be more
independent.” And that means
not
hiring
a cleaning lady to fold my clothes. “Lily and Loren didn’t have Hilda stopping
by their apartment.” Now they both live in Princeton, New Jersey with Rose and
her husband. Not too far away to visit.

My mom scoffs. “They could clean up after themselves.”
True.
Her gaze drops to my stomach, and
she pinches my waist. “You’re not gaining weight before Fashion Week, are you?”
she criticizes.
 

Have I?

Before I look, she appraises me and says, “Never mind. You
should be okay.” She fixes my hair that must still be tangled, running her
fingers through it like it’s precious gold. “Are you sure you don’t want me in
Paris with you? I can keep you company while you’re getting your makeup done.”

“I just want to see what it’s like on my own,” I say, trying
not to hurt her feelings.

She gives me a weak smile, pretending to be happy for me. “I
love you,” she tells me, and then she kisses my cheek. “Let’s go shopping
tomorrow. Noon. I’ll have Nola pick you up.”

“Okay.”

And just when I think all is clear, as she travels back
towards the door, the shower turns on.

He knows she hasn’t left yet.

My mom frowns, and her neck elongates like a prairie dog.
She zeroes in on the bathroom door. “Did someone spend the night with you?”

I’m not embarrassed or mad. I almost want to laugh at the
situation. God, what kind of life do I live? “It’s Lily,” I lie. “Do you want
to talk to her?”

I know she’ll say no. Lily’s sex addiction is what put my
father’s soda company, Fizzle, in a state of distress. The negative press
affected our family in so many different ways, and most of them, my mom
disapproved of. I don’t hate Lily for it, not after seeing how guilty and
ashamed she was. But my mom can’t really see past the negative. She hasn’t
forgiven my sister yet.

“I won’t bother her,” she says. “Keep your phone on. And
don’t lock your door anymore.” She always tells me that before she leaves.
After she heads out of my bedroom, I listen for the shut of my apartment door.
When it comes, I enter the bathroom.

Steam coats the mirrors and fogs the air. I can’t see beyond
my daisy-floral shower curtain that sticks out from the tub. I hear the splash
of the water on the porcelain and spot his drawstring pants on my shaggy green
rug. He’s naked in there.
Well, no duh,
Daisy.

“My mom almost caught you,” I tell him.

“Good,” he says. “Then she can call me a ‘disrespectful
degenerate’ to my face.” Yeah, she said that the last time she was here.
Ryke
was hiding in the bathroom then too, and he heard
every insult.

“Hey, I stuck up for you then and before that, and before
that.”

“No offense,” he says, “but your mom really doesn’t fucking
care about your opinions on anything.”

I can’t really take offense to his words. I know it’s true.
Only two times have I ever confronted my mother with the truth. That I’d rather
be doing something—anything—other than modeling. And she told me that I was
being childish and ungrateful, so I shut up on the spot. If I bailed on a photo
shoot at the last minute, her face would morph with an expression like
that’s my daughter? That rude little snob?

Disappointing my mother is like stabbing her in the womb—the
very place I used to be. There’s a metaphor in there, I think.

Ryke
suddenly shuts off the shower
and yanks the yellow towel from a hook. I’ve been around too many half-dressed,
nearly-naked male models to be that alarmed. But it’s different when you know
the person. It’s different when you have a crush on a guy beyond just his body,
when you like
all
of him.

And I like all of
Ryke
Meadows.

The shower curtain whips to the side, and
Ryke
steps out with the towel tied low around his waist,
beads of water still dripping down his toned chest and abs. I’m about to leave,
to give him privacy, but he says, “Come here.”

He’s by the sink. And I watch as he opens his toothpaste and
squirts a line on his toothbrush and then a line on mine. He holds out my green
Oral B. I take it gratefully, and we both brush our teeth at the same time,
pretending not to look at each other through the mirror, even when we do.

It’s like we’re a couple.

But we’re not. And we never can be.

Some things are too complicated to ever come to pass. I know
this is one of those things.

< 4 >

RYKE MEADOWS

I’m so fucking sick of taking cold showers, which
is why I said
fuck that
yesterday. I
need to start going to my apartment where I have the freedom to jerk off.

Every morning is about the same. Wake up in Daisy’s bed. Try
to suppress a horrible fucking boner. Take a shower. Run with my brother. Take
another shower. Try my absolute fucking best to stroke my cock without thinking
of her long legs and that gorgeous fucking smile.

Usually I succeed. Sometimes I don’t.

I’m only fucking human.

I enter a gated street and slow my Ducati down as I pass
each fucking mammoth colonial house. Four sedans trail my ass. They’ve been
following me since I left my apartment in Philly. Two cross the double yellow
lines to ride beside me, their windows rolled down, cameras snapping and
flashing.

I should be used to this shit by now, but I’m not. I don’t
think I can ever be, not after I watched a fearless girl go from being
completely fucking fine to scared of the dark to traumatized. It’s not just the
cameras and invasive media. It’s everything that comes with it—her fucked up
old prep school friends being one of those.

I flip off an entire sedan. At least my helmet is tinted and
they can’t capture a picture of my face. I speed up and weave in front of them.
The four cars attempt to block me in, wedging me between their vehicles. I rev
the throttle, switch gears, and fucking take off.

I lose sight of them as I approach a gated house, hedges
concealing most of it. I punch in the code, and the iron grinds open.

Daisy probably had a harder fucking time getting to her
sisters’ place than me. I should have left with her. She lives two floors below
me in the same apartment complex. I could have distracted the paparazzi while
she rode off in another direction, but I didn’t. I left late because I was
researching about Ambien, cognitive fucking therapy, other sleeping
medication—anything to solve Daisy’s problem.

And I’m still at a loss of how to help her sleep without
medication.

I park my Ducati on its kickstand and look up at the white
house with black shutters, a wraparound porch, rocking chairs, a flag pole on a
newly mowed lawn. It’s cute—all of them living together. My brother, his
girlfriend, Rose and her husband. I’ve shared a house with them before, and
it’s not something I’d repeat. For however much I love my brother, I fucking
need space from him sometimes. He likes to test my tolerance. I have a ton, but
I worry that if I lived with him for a long time, he’d break me down and I’d
rip him apart.

I never want to hit Lo.

It’s a line that I fear crossing on a weekly basis.

I open the front door with my key. A yellow banner hangs low
and crooked over the archway that connects the living room to the kitchen. It
reads: BON VOYAGE, DAISY. The messy scrawl looks like Lily’s handwriting. I
have to duck underneath it to enter the kitchen.

My brother stands by the oven, cracking eggs into a large
bowl. Connor watches him, cupping a glass of water. Normally he’d have red
wine, but since Lo relapsed, he won’t drink alcohol in front of him.

“Hey, Betty Crocker,” I say, setting my helmet on the
breakfast table. “Where’s your apron?”

Lo flashes a dry smile. “Wherever your watch is.” His eyes
flicker back to the eggs. “You’re an hour late.”

“Yeah, I know,” I say. “Everyone left me nasty fucking text
messages.”

I highly doubt you
have the capability to read a clock, but you’re verging on forty-six minutes
late. And here, I was going to reward you with a treat.
– Connor

If you disappoint my
little sister, I will personally snip off your balls and feed them to Connor’s
cat.
– Rose

Can you be here on
time? Please??
– Lily

The girls are getting
pissed. And I’m not too happy with you either.
– Lo

“My text was the best, wasn’t it?” Connor asks as he smiles
into his sip of water.

I restrain the urge to roll my fucking eyes. “Your wife’s
was better.”

“Impossible.”

“She said she was going to feed my balls to Sadie.” I come
up beside Lo and inspect the bacon frying in a pan and a tray of biscuits.

“She’s overused that threat,” Connor tells us.

I peek underneath a towel, a spinach quiche steaming. “I may
not own a fucking watch,” I say, “but I do know it’s nighttime and I’m pretty
sure none of us are nursing a fucking hangover. So what’s with the…” I tilt a
bowl towards me. “Grits?”

“Daisy wanted breakfast for dinner,” Lo explains. “So we’re
cooking.”

I look around the kitchen, the living room just as quiet.
“Yeah? Where are the fucking girls anyway?”

“Daisy’s in the garage. Rose and Lily are in the bathroom,”
Connor says casually.

“Why the fuck are they in the bathroom together?”

Lo shakes his head at me. “I tried to ask and Rose rebutted
with
female menstruation.
And then
she slammed the door in my face.”

Connor says, “I was smart enough not to question it.” He
leans against the cupboards, wearing black slacks and a white button-down. He
looks like how much he’s worth—over a billion fucking dollars from inheriting
his mother’s Fortune 500 Company.

“You too much of a princess to help Lo?” I ask, stealing a
slice of apple from a fruit tray.

“I offered to break the eggs, but Lo said I should beat them
into submission,” Connor tells me.

Now I do roll my eyes.

“Might as well put your best skill to use,” Lo says, passing
the bowl of eggs and whisk to Connor.

I go to the fridge and grab a jug of orange juice, and when
I turn back, I catch Lo whispering quietly to Connor. They shut up when they
see me watching.

“What?” I ask, unscrewing the cap to the juice. It’s not the
first time they’ve gossiped like fucking girls. We all selectively choose who
to share information with.

“We were talking,” Lo says, motioning from his chest to
Connor.

Connor innocently beats the eggs.

“You were talking?” I repeat, staring between them. “Well
fuck me then. I didn’t know either of you could talk.”

Lo ignores my sarcasm and cocks his head. “We just think
it’s weird.”

I glare. “You’re going to have to be a little more specific,
Lo. I can’t grasp what you’re saying with two words.”

“Sorry,” Lo says dryly. “I forgot you aren’t Connor.”

Connor smiles.

“Why compliment his intelligence?” I ask my brother. “Isn’t
it enough that everyone has to stare at his framed Mensa certificate in the
living room?” It’s also next to his wife’s. Both of them are annoyingly
intelligent.

Connor interjects, “I don’t need validation that I’m smarter
than all of you. I know it’s true.”

“Then why hang the certificate?” I ask.

He shrugs. “It matched the walls.”

I shake my head. “It’s a fucking miracle that I haven’t
punched you yet, Cobalt.”

“Back to the situation,” Lo says, eyes locked on me.

I grab a glass from the cabinet.
Fuck, he can’t know, can he?
My heart starts pounding.
How would he find out that I’m sleeping in
Daisy’s bed?
He wouldn’t. I’m being fucking paranoid. This is information
that I
never
want to share with him.
“What is it?” I pour orange juice and listen.

“We think it’s weird that you haven’t brought a girl around
in a long time.”

I frown.
That’s what
this is about?
“So?”

Lo shifts his weight, confusion blanketing him. “So…you used
to date someone new every week.”

“You know,” I tell my brother, “there are reasons why I
don’t fucking live with all of you anymore.” I hold up a finger. “
One
, I like my privacy, and that means not
showing off the
couple
of
women I date
every month.” I raise another finger. “
Two
,
you
all
like to blow shit out of
proportion. And
three
…” I lower my
first two fingers and hold up my middle one.

And then I turn my back to them and cap the orange juice
slowly.

I’m lying to my brother right now.

It feels like I’m walking over burning coals. I hate lying
to him, and I’ve done it before. Each time never gets easier. I can see the
thick fog I’ve created, the one that clouds my relationship with Lo. But I’m
not my father, hurting his sons to protect his own reputation.

I lie to protect Daisy.

To protect Lo.

I lie because it’s going to hurt less than the truth. And
when the truth does come out, I want to make sure that Lo is strong enough to
bear it. Right now, he’s not even fucking close.

So I can’t say,
Yeah,
man, I’ve stopped dating for four fucking months because I’ve been busy taking
care of your girlfriend’s little sister, spending nights at her place, even
sleeping in her bed just so she can stop being so fucking scared. And I don’t
miss those other girls, but I do miss being laid.

I’m not used to
jerking off every fucking day.

“
Ryke
,” Connor says, and I spin
around to meet a face that studies mine with too much fucking knowledge and
suspicion. “It’s just odd. You’re what I would call a serial dater, as is Daisy,
and since she graduated and moved into
your
apartment complex, no one has seen either of you with someone else.”

“What is this?” I say, looking between Connor and Lo.
“Watson and Holmes? I hate to break it to both of you, but there’s no fucking
mystery to be solved.”

“Cut the shit,” Lo says. “It’s weird, and you know—”

“I’m
not
with
her,” I interject. “I’m not fucking Daisy. I’m not touching her. I told you,
Lo, I wouldn’t.” We’ve been through this for over two years. And he still looks
at me like I’m one second from betraying him, like I’m going to choose a girl
over him, like I’m going to cross a big fucking line that will destroy the
relationships that matter to me.

I wouldn’t. I fucking won’t. Because at the end of the day,
if Daisy and I got together, if something happened and we broke up, I’d lose my
brother. She’s like his little sister. He grew up with the Calloway girls.
Daisy has known him her whole fucking life. I’ve known Lo for three years. For
fuck’s sake, I am the thing that can be tossed aside. Everything’s confusing.
Nothing makes complete sense. My dick says one thing. My head says another. I
have morals. I have
Lo’s
constant warnings. I have
five kinds of wrong and no kinds of right.

What the fuck am I supposed to do?

“Okay,” Lo says, watching me closely, seeing the anger pulse
in my eyes.

I’m so fucking screwed. If he ever finds out that I sleep in
Daisy’s bed, that I’m practically her fucking roommate, he’s going to kill me.
Really,
murder
could be a fucking
option in Loren
Hale’s
twisted mind, and I think I’d
let him do it.

“Look,” I tell Lo and Connor, “I date girls for a week,
sometimes a couple of fucking days if they don’t pan out. I’m not going to
bring one of them to Princeton so you guys can meet her. It’s never serious.
The strings that I tie down are the ones that mean something to me.” My eyes
flicker to each of them. “I haven’t found a girl that I want to tie myself to,
and I don’t know if I ever will.”

“You will,” Lo says certainly, nodding like he’s trying to
convince himself of it.

“It’s okay if I don’t.” I’m surrounded by people I care
about. That can be enough for me.

Lo’s
sharp gaze meets mine.
“You’re not going to be alone forever.”

He says it like a declaration. I think he wants the best for
me, but I also think that side battles with his selfish feelings. The ones that
say:
I need one-hundred percent of you or
else I’m going to drown.

“So what if I am?” I say. “Lo, I didn’t grow up with a Lily
Calloway. I didn’t have a best friend turned girlfriend.” Lily was literally
the girl next door, a family friend that he trusted with
everything.
Now they’re engaged. I’m not envious of their co-dependent
relationship that has thankfully grown a little healthier throughout the years.

I just recognize that he’s different from me, even if we are
alike in some ways.

“I’m fucking used to relying on myself,” I add.

Lo just shakes his head like I’m an idiot—to be satisfied
with something less. But maybe I don’t deserve something more. Maybe the point
of my fucking life is to help my brother get on his feet.

Connor passes Lo the bowl of whisked eggs, and my brother
hesitates to pour them in the pan. “Let’s wait for the girls to come out.”

“How’s Lily doing?” I ask him.

He sets the bowl on the counter. “Better than me.” He rubs
the back of his neck. “She tries to bring up my dad and alcohol, but honestly, it’s
just fucking hard sometimes.” His amber eyes meet mine. “His lawyers said they
can’t reach you for questioning. I told them that you don’t want to go on
record.”

“Thanks,” I say.

Lo shrugs. “Yeah, whatever.”

I run my hand through my hair, feeling Connor watching us
like a psychiatrist fucking would. There’s a lot there, okay? I don’t want to
see our dad, and Lo is complying with that for now.

“I’m going to go check on Daisy in the garage,” I tell them,
avoiding any plans they have to convince me to see Jonathan Hale. And plus, I
want to know what she’s fucking doing alone in there.

“Tell her the food is almost ready,” Lo says.

I nod, heading to the back door.

We each have our roles, and I know mine is to keep an eye on
this girl and that guy.

I just don’t ever want to be faced with the decision of
having to choose between them.

If that day comes, then fuck me.