Hothouse Flower (32 page)

I exhale, my chest tight. “I love you, you know that,” I
tell him, patting his leg.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I don’t know, Lo,” I say. “I want to. I want to so
fucking
badly, but it’s not as easy as
wishing for that kind of peace. I hate him for things he did to me, for the
things he does to you.”

Lo shakes his head and sits up. He wipes his face with his
shirt and his eyes turn cold again. “Jesus Christ,” he laughs a bitter fucking
laugh. “You don’t get it. I deserved every word he said to me. You didn’t know
me in prep school,
Ryke
. I was a fucking shit. I was
terrible
.”

I glower. “Don’t ever fucking tell me that you
deserved
it. No one deserves to be beat
down every fucking day.”

He takes deep breaths, his muscles starting to relax. He
looks up at me and says, “He’s never touched me.”

He knows that’s not what this is about. I don’t want to do
this with him. We argue about this all the time. But I have to get it through
his thick fucking skull. I lean forward and grab his face between both my
hands. “
Stop
defending him. Not to
me, okay?”

There are some things we will never agree on. No matter how
hard he fucking tries to convince me. No matter how many times we end up on the
ground.

He pulls away and I pull back, tension breaking between us.
Silence thickens for a moment, and I think maybe he’s waiting for me to
apologize or maybe trying to work himself up to it.
 
But then he points to my face.

“That bruise right there, that’s for fucking my girlfriend’s
little sister by the way.”

My stomach churns.
What?

< 49 >

RYKE MEADOWS

Lo’s
face sharpens
again, but he flashes a half-smile. “Tabloids caught you making out just outside
of Devils Tower.” He grabs his phone out of his pocket and scrolls through it.
Then he chucks the cell at me. “The photograph is on every gossip site.” I
avoid the tabloids, so I’m not surprised that I missed it. Just that it exists
at all.

I stare at the picture with hard eyes.

Daisy is on my shoulders. We were putting a hammock up in
the trees, and she tightened the straps on the last trunk. But the picture
froze us in time: Her head dipped down, her lips against mine, my hand on her
neck, my fingers stained with purple and pink dye. Her hair still wet.

She’s smiling as she kisses me, which pulls her long, deep
reddened scar.

Her fucking scar—it’s all over the news. Her parents are
going to find out about her face from a fucking tabloid.
Dammit!
My jaw locks and I throw the phone back to Lo with more
aggression than I intended.

“Pissed you got caught?”

I don’t say word. I can’t speak without yelling.

“Please talk to me,” Lo snaps, “because I need to understand
what’s going on or I may just punch you again.”

I shake my head, my voice deep and low. “It just happened.”

“It just happened?” Lo shakes his head, as though I always
use that excuse. I’m sure I have before. “That’s a really shitty thing to tell
me.” The red dirt coats our bodies and has turned
Lo’s
hair a shade lighter. “You fuck Lily’s little sister, and you say,
oh it just fucking happened?
What’d you
fall on her? Did you add her to your tally of girls? Is it a one-night stand
kind of thing?”

“That’s not what I fucking meant.” I grimace at all of
those. I try to calm down about the photograph and about the truth reaching her
parents before we could tell them. What’d we think, we could live in a fantasy
forever? We should have told them about the riot before we left Paris.

“Then what did you mean?” he asks.

I meet his eyes. “It’s serious.”

“So serious that you shared it with everyone.”

“Because I knew you were going to jump down my fucking
throat!” Anger catapults me to my fucking feet. He stands with me, both of us
breathing heavily again.

Round fucking two.

“If you cared about her,” he says, pointing a finger at me,
“then you wouldn’t be sneaking around like you’re doing something wrong!”

“Fuck you!” I shout. “You’ve made this
impossible
, Lo!”

“She’s EIGHTEEN!” Lo yells. He takes two hostile steps
towards me, and even though my body screams to run
at
him with a fist flying, I have to take two steps back again.
“She’s like my little sister. It
wasn’t
supposed
to be possible! But you didn’t care. You still
banged
her.”

I’m so fucking screwed. The betrayal flashes in his eyes all
over again.

I force down this emotion that threatens to rise and
overtake me.

Lo glares. “Your cock finally got the best of you, didn’t
it?” He’s the worst devil on my fucking shoulder. And I love him. “She turned
eighteen and you could
finally
stick
it in—”

“No,” I growl. “It wasn’t fucking like that!”

“I should leave you alone in this desert,” Lo sneers. “I am
kicking myself right now, for every time I let you near her, for every time I
let you be alone with her—”

“You don’t know what you’re fucking talking about.” I think
about all the times she was alone and afraid and hurt, and I was the one who
was fucking there. No one else was around. He had his own shit to deal with, so
why the fuck do I get vilified and then praised whenever it’s convenient for
him?

“I don’t know what I’m talking about?” He rubs his lips and
grimaces. “How long,
Ryke
? Tell me that, how fucking
long have you liked her more than just a friend, and let’s see if it’s all in
my head?”

“I don’t know.” I do though. I always have. I just can’t
stomach admitting it.

“I’m going to ask you again,” Lo says, his voice rattling
with anger. “How long—”

“Stop,” I say forcefully.

He takes one step closer. “No,
how long—
”

“FOR YEARS!” I scream, veins protruding in my arms, my face
reddening, unleashing this thing held captive inside of me. I step towards him.
“Is that what you want to hear?! Years, Lo.”

He clenches his teeth so hard. “You’re lying?” He didn’t
want to believe it. He wanted to be wrong.

“I’m not,” I say, hot tears burning my fucking eyes. “I have
been so fucking attracted to that girl. And I
never
planned on doing a fucking thing about it. I never was going
to try. And I tried…” I point at him. “I tried so fucking hard not thinking
about her like that. It was wrong. I knew it was fucking wrong. I suppressed
everything as much as I could.” But when she was fifteen, sixteen, seventeen—I
was drawn to her in immeasurable fucking ways. The guilt was always there. I
chose to ignore it.

“Then why not stay away from her?” Lo retorts. “Why not put
a hundred fucking feet between you and Daisy? You flirted with her every day,
Ryke
. You became her
friend.
”

“I convinced myself that nothing would ever happen, so I
thought it was okay to push further.”

“You’re a fucking idiot!” Lo yells at me.

I know.

“She was so hot that you couldn’t say no after she became
legal—”

“No,” I cut him off before he continues. “It wasn’t like
that.”

“Then what was it fucking like?!” Lo shouts.

And I explode. “I FUCKING LOVE HER!” I scream, my heart
thrashing in my ribs.

His mouth falls, his brows furrowing in confusion the longer
he scrutinizes my features. I feel like he’s clawing at my insides for answers.

Here they are. “I fell in fucking love with her. It hurt to
be away from Daisy. It hurt to watch her with other guys. Everything
fucking
hurt, and I didn’t want to live
with that pain anymore. I fucking couldn’t.” I inhale deeply. “I can’t tell you
when it became unbearable, but it did.” Somewhere between Daisy eating a
pomegranate in her kitchen and now.

He stares at me for a really long time, processing. “I know,
more than anyone, how painful it is watching someone you love be with other
people. But you can’t really love her—”

“I’ve known her for over two years,” I tell him. “I’ve spent
so much fucking time with her, Lo. We’ve been through a lot together, so yes, I
fell in love with her.”

Lo glances back at Daisy, and I follow his gaze. She’s
crying in Lily’s shoulder while she hugs her close. My heart tears open again,
and I have to restrain myself from walking over there and consoling her.

When I force my attention back to my brother, I realize he’s
been studying me watching her. He doesn’t say anything, but I will.

“You can leave me here,” I say, “but I’ll find a way back. I
can’t leave her, and I won’t leave you, no matter how hard you fucking push me
out.” He needs me. He knows he needs me. And I want to be a part of his life. I
don’t want to return to the lonely one I had built, with relationships as
surface level as you can get, with people who meant nothing, with friends who’d
sell me out.

“How much did it hurt?” he suddenly asks.

“Did what hurt?”

“Watching her with other guys.”

I choke at the flood of memories. “It felt like someone was
drowning me in fucking salt water and lighting me on fire.”

His lips almost rise in a fraction of a fucking smile.
“Same.” He takes a few deep breaths before he adds, “I need some time. But I’m
not going to hit you again. So revel in that.”

“Thanks,” I say.

He nods a couple times and then says, “I wish you fell in
love with another fucking girl.”

At times like this, so
do I.
“I’m sorry. I really fucking am. For lying.”

He shrugs. “You didn’t want to get hit.”

“No.” I shake my head. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

He nods again. “I’ll get over it. Just…give me fucking
time.” He heads towards the girls, and I stay rooted to this place, so
emotionally spent.

And then he pauses. Turns around and waits for me to join
him.

It’s a peace offering.

I see it in his face, the way a shred of guilt flickers in
his eyes, still accompanied by a swirling rage. It’s enough for me. I walk
forward and join him. He starts moving again when I’m by his side.

Just like that.

The past and the present were spread bare in the dirt.

Now maybe we can move forward.

< 50 >

DAISY CALLOWAY

October 31
^st
.

We were supposed to make it to Yosemite by the end of the
month, but a storm rolled in. The rain thrashes against the tin roof of a
hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant somewhere in Nevada. Our cell service has
sucked in the desert, so I haven’t had the chance to talk to my parents about
my relationship or the permanent damage done to my face.

I’ve been taking the days as they come. Kind of awkward.

No, mostly awkward.

I glance at
Ryke
next to me, faint
bruises on his cheek and jaw. It looks much better than it did a few days ago.
We’ve all kept to ourselves since the fight, and this is really the first time
we’ve sat down as a group.

We’re all seated in a round booth, our clothes wet and hair
damp from being caught in the flash storm. And tension pulls from each couple.
Lily and Lo huddled on one end. Rose and Connor in the middle.
Ryke
and I—we’re across from his brother and my sister, in
direct line of
Lo’s
sharpened cheekbones and narrowed
eyes.

He hasn’t been malicious, so that’s nice. I can tell he’s
trying to accept my relationship with his brother—but that doesn’t mean he
won’t make comments.

Our six person dynamic has definitely changed.

Ryke’s
arm is around my waist, and
we’re so close that our legs meld together beneath the table.

“This is awkward,” Lo states the obvious after the waitress
takes our drink orders. His eyes flicker to
Ryke
and
then away every so often.

Rose squeezes her hair, water dripping off the brunette
strands. “Then maybe you shouldn’t have punched your brother, Loren.”

Lo twirls a knife in his hand and points at the cardboard
coffin hanging on the ceiling, part of the Halloween decorations. “Go back to
bed.”

She opens her mouth, and Connor covers her lips with his
hand. “It’s his birthday,” he reminds her. “Be nice.”

Her eyes flash cold. Connor drops his hand, and she stays
quiet. For seven seconds. “Get over it, Loren. They’re fucking. His dick is
going in her—” Connor is fast, his hand flying back over her mouth.

“Rose!” Lily says with wide eyes, her face red.

I
ping-pong
from wanting to laugh
to wanting to stay quiet. I end up focusing on the napkin in front of me,
trying and kind of failing to make a pumpkin shape.

Connor says to his wife, “I think we all understand the
human anatomy involved with sex.”

I smile. “I don’t know,” I quip. “I’m lost on that last
part.” I look up at
Ryke
. “Where does the guy’s dick
go?”

He stares down at me with raised brows and dark eyes. I
swear he smiles, or
almost
smiles.
I’ll take it.

Lo groans and motions to the waitress. “We need some tequila
shots.”

Ryke
goes rigid, his attention off
me and his arms suddenly on the table. “Lo, you can’t—”

“It’s my birthday—”

“I don’t give a fuck,”
Ryke
says
like his brother got struck by lightning, frying his brain when we weren’t
looking.

Lo cocks his head. “Let me finish.” The waitress comes back
with a tray of shots before anyone can say anything more. She also brings out a
plate of chicken tacos that Lo ordered in advance—his favorite. The tequila
shots sit beside the basket of chips like a bomb. I look to Lily and Rose,
wondering what we should do, but Lily is sunk in her seat, still red, and Rose
is glaring at her husband for some reason.

This is weird.

Now it’s weird
and
awkward.

The waitress leaves, and
Ryke
says, “Explain.”

Lo motions to Rose, Lily, Connor, and me. “These four can
still drink. Just because I’m sober doesn’t mean that I can’t handle the sight
of alcohol. I know I’ve screwed up recently, but I don’t want to be reminded of
it today. I want to prove to myself that I can be surrounded by
this
.” He gestures to the shots with his
knife. “Now drink—not you.” He points his knife at
Ryke
.
“But everyone else, take the shots. Celebrate my twenty-fourth year in this
world. I’m sure I’ve impacted so many people for the better.” He flashes a dry
smile.

Ryke
processes this for a second
before he nods. “Okay.”

“Love the speech,” I tell Lo, reaching out for the first
shot to cut the tension. It does a little bit, but Lily and Rose stay put.

Rose and Connor are having some sort of staring contest.

“Stop reading each other’s minds,” Lo says. “It’s creepy.”

I lick the side of my hand. “It is Halloween.”

Ryke
passes me the salt shaker,
and I cross my legs underneath my butt, sitting up a little higher at the
table. I put some salt on the wet part of my skin.

“Lil,” Lo says, about to drag the tray of shots towards her.

She shakes her head. “I don’t feel like drinking.”

He frowns. “Are you sure?” His voice is softer with her.
“Would you rather have a beer?”

“No, I think I’ll stick with water.”

She’s not much of a drinker, so I’m not surprised she’s
rejected the offer. During family events, she’ll go for the non-alcoholic
options while Rose will drink mimosas, white wine, and dirty martinis.

Connor breaks his gaze off his wife’s and collects two shots
for them. Then he says something in French that I can’t understand.

I wish
Ryke
could translate for
me, but we’re too close to everyone else. It’d be obvious that he understands
the language. He acts like he’s not eavesdropping, eating a chicken taco at the
same time as Lo. No wonder he’s been able to hide his fluency in French.

I can barely tell he’s listening at all.