Hothouse Flower (7 page)

“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.

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.