Ricochet (16 page)

“She’s always been skinny,” Daisy answers for me with ease.

“You know, I’ve never been able to tell if guys are into the
whole size zero
skinny
look,” Cleo
says with a false politeness. She might as well have said “emaciated” instead
of skinny. She has to know her words are beyond rude.

Her pretty blue eyes flash to Ryke, who’s pretending to be
busy watching a basketball game on the hanging television. “Right, Ryke?”

His eyes stay glued to the screen as he confirms with a
simple “yep.”

Cleo holds onto the word like it’s bait. “Are you into size
zero girls?”

This is so fucking awkward! I shift uncomfortably in my
seat, and Daisy lets out a long exasperated sigh. “Cleo—”

“What?” Cleo says with a nonchalant shrug. “I just want a
male perspective on the situation. I only have younger sisters, okay? I’m
curious.”

Ryke turns a fraction, his gaze still hidden behind
wayfarers. “My brother loves her, so obviously some guys are into skinny girls.
Everyone has a different preference.”

Harper interjects with a little too much eagerness. “What’s
yours?”

I imagine he’s rolling his eyes right about now. Damn,
sunglasses, I’d actually like to see him break in front of a few girls. How is
he going to handle all twenty together?

He doesn’t miss a beat. “I like women. Big breasts, curvy
waists, an ass I can grab.” He keeps steady, unflinching. I am cringing inside
and slightly aghast that he even responded back. Daisy’s friends look around at
each other, realizing that they all have tiny hips, decent-sized boobs and no
butt.

Daisy scrutinizes Ryke for a while and then says, “How big
of boobs?”
Ohmygod.

“How about we change the subject?” I say.

“Big,” Ryke tells her.

“You like to grab those too?” Daisy tries. Her friends
literally gasp out loud.

Ryke’s lip twitches, but he holds back what I
think
is a smile. I’m glad he finds this
amusing. I do not. At all. This is like…no. If Lo were here, he’d have yelled
at his brother for flirting back with an almost-sixteen-year-old. That’s what
Ryke’s doing. Even if his intentions are to start an argument or make someone
uncomfortable, it looks like
flirting.
“Only
if I hear a woman moan when I do it.”

“Ryke!” I shout at him. I mouth,
enough.
 
My eyes widen to
emphasize the severity. I know he’s not intentionally trying to flirt back, but
he’s about to cross a line. And I suspect he knows it exists, and that he’s
crossed many in his life. Maybe he thinks traditional rules don’t apply to him.
Or maybe, he just doesn’t care.

Daisy opens her mouth to say something back, but he cuts her
off, “There’s your male perspective.” He turns back to the television, closing
off to the girls.

Cleo isn’t finished harassing me though. “About Loren Hale,
he’s in rehab, right? My parents heard from some family friends.” She nods to
the Katy Perry girl. “You remember Greta? Her parents found a dime of coke and
she got sent to rehab. It’s like they don’t understand that we’re young, and we
want to have some fun. They’ve done it before.”

“Yeah,” Katy says. “It’s so hypocritical.”

I hate that they’re comparing Lo to a teenager screwing
around. That’s how it starts, sure, but his problem has exceeded a small dose
of adolescent rebellion. It’s not a
shame
that he’s in rehab. It’s what my father said…
admirable.

“He chose to go,” I defend my boyfriend, heat gathering in
my eyes. “He wants to get help.” Which is a better place than where we were
before.

The lounge silences in this awkward layer, and Cleo presses
her lips together, avoiding my narrowed gaze. Thankfully, the snacks parade
over on a tray, rescuing me from the tense situation. The girls start chatting
again, and I look to Ryke. He gives me a supportive nod, which means more to me
than I’ll
ever
let on. I want to do
this right. I want to be strong and fight, and being on this boat is a big
step.

Last time I was here, I was a mess. This is my redo.

Daisy grabs her sub, and her long hair sticks to the tuna
that squeezes from the sides. She plops the sandwich back on the tray and uses
a napkin to wipe the strands. “I hate my hair,” she mutters under her breath.

“Ever heard of a ponytail?” Ryke says to her. His
antagonizing is not helping. After New Year’s I realized her “signature trait”
brings up insecurities.

“Yeah,” Daisy snaps back, “want me to put
your
hair in one?”

Cleo shakes her head. “He doesn’t have enough hair for
that.” She bites into a strawberry.

“You could always make really tiny ones all over his head,”
Harper chimes in.
 

Ryke keeps his gaze trained on Daisy. “You shouldn’t bitch
about something that you can change.”

Daisy’s lips form a tight pout. She pulls the hair band off
her wrist and gathers her long locks into three sections, braiding them easily.
“Happy?” she snaps back.

“Only if you are,” he says. “It’s not my hair.” He returns
to his basketball game where he rightfully should stay. He’s making me
paranoid. I do not want my sister to grow attached to him or think that he’s
giving her attention for the wrong reasons.

Cleo crosses her ankles, sitting on an ottoman that faces
us. Her baby blue bikini washes out her fair skin. “Aren’t you going swimming?”
she asks me. “Where’s your bathing suit?”

“I’m going to put it on later.” Though I am not looking
forward to swimming with Daisy’s friends. Cleo’s stares have given me a third
degree burn. She does not like me. Her hatred could stem from anywhere—like the
fact that I’m the only one who brought a guy on the trip, or that I’m four
years older—so I try not to waste my time questioning it.

“What about you?” Katy asks, scooting closer to Ryke on the
couch. “You swimming with us?” Her long lashes flit over the curvature of his
body, the angles of his muscles that cut so supremely. Of course he rock
climbs. His muscles scream, “I scale mountains!” Not just “I run a shit ton!” I
should have known. Silly me.

“I’m going to finish watching this game first.” His voice
tightens, and he sits more rigid than before.

I want to laugh, but I can’t because out of the corner of my
eye on another ottoman, I see Harper pulling out a travel-sized vodka bottle,
dumping the contents into her
virgin
daiquiri.

“What are you doing?” My brows pinch. Is she serious? I’m
sitting right here. Am I not that threatening? My mother specifically said
no
alcohol. They all heard her warning
before she sent them off in the limo.

“Your boyfriend may be an alcoholic, but I’m not,” Harper
tells me with a dry smile.

“Harper, that’s so fucking rude,” Cleo says in this
pretentious tone that makes it seem like…well, not that fucking rude.

I can’t take anymore. “I’m going to go put on my bathing
suit.” I shoot up from my seat, and Ryke, surprisingly, follows suit.

Daisy mouths an apology as we go inside. I shrug my
shoulders to try to tell her that it’s okay, but my nerves still vibrate in not
only frustration but severe anxiety. Ryke shuts the sliding glass door behind
us.

“Afraid of being alone with them?” I ask.

“I’m more afraid of
you
being alone by yourself,” he tells me.

Oh. He has
zero
faith
in me. “I’ll be okay. We should get our bathing suits on.”

“Sure.”

We head to our bedrooms, and I manage to keep a safe
distance from all the male servers. If Lo is hounded about being in rehab for
alcoholism, how would people react to rehab for sex addiction? I can’t even
imagine. Maybe it’s a good thing that in-treatment facilities turned out to be
a bust for me anyway. I wouldn’t want to shame my family with the news—that
their daughter or sister is some freak.

I close the door to my bedroom, one of the larger ones with
a fancy gold bedspread, a fur throw, and a granite-topped dresser. A Victorian
cream chaise rests against the right wall, gold-stitched pillows decorated on
the buttoned cushions.

I slip on my simple black bikini and comb my fingers through
my short hair before taking a quick peek in the mirror. If I inhale a deep
breath, my ribs stick out. I feel low, and to combat this sinking emotion, I’d
normally jump on my bed and find porn to watch. Masturbate until everything
washes into bliss.

Things need to change, I remind myself. So I back away from
the bed and stop fiddling with my fingers.

A knock sounds on my door. “You naked?” Ryke asks.

“No.”

He walks in. “You okay?”

I swallow the lump in my throat. I wish Lo was here. He’d
make me feel better. Maybe not even with sex. He’d just smile, kiss me, tell me
I’m beautiful and say, “Fuck them.” Because at the end of the day, we were the
only thing that mattered to each other. All I needed was him.

“I hate people,” I blurt out. Lo and I used to shun the
entire world because we were scared of the ridicule. Of how people would
perceive us. We created this bubble around ourselves, filling it with lies and
misery, until it eventually popped.

“So now you’re generalizing the entire world for three catty
girls?” He picks up a sailboat decoration on the dresser, overturning it as he
talks. “Four girls, if you want to include your provoking sister.”

“I exaggerate a lot,” I tell him. “And if anyone’s
provoking
it’s you.”

Ryke lets out a long, dry laugh. “That’s funny considering
your boyfriend is ten times worse with his words. If anyone can poke at someone’s
soul, it’s him…and probably my father, but that’s another story, isn’t it?” His
lips form a pained smile.

“So you don’t hurt people with your words?” I question with
raised brows.

“You want to know the difference between Lo and me?” Ryke
asks, leaning his elbows on my dresser, nonchalant and assholish all in one
swoop.

“Sure.”

“You remember the Halloween party? Lo stole liquor from the
house, and he barely admitted that he took it. Before you came out there, he
spent about five minutes telling them all the ways in which they were complete
fucking morons. It wasn’t even close to being funny, especially not when he
told Matt that guys like him are worth nothing in life. That they’ll take shit
and eat it until they fucking die. It was cold and cruel.”

My chest hurts because I believe every word Ryke is telling
me. I’ve heard Lo tear down people in prep school until they cried, not because
it made him feel better but because they hurt him first and it was his greatest
weapon of defense.

“He walks away sometimes,” I say in a small voice. “He’s not
always like that.” I defend him because he’s not here to speak for himself. And
what I said is partly the truth too. Lo knows when to walk away. Like the first
time we were at The Blue Room. If someone’s harassing him back, he won’t stand
there and take it for long. He’s too used to verbal abuse, and I think he’d
rather not be weakened and drained by it. He’d rather just get out of the
fucking way.

“Okay,” Ryke says, “but in the context of the Halloween
party, he didn’t.”

“And what would you have done, Ryke? Not stolen the liquor?
Not started the fight? Congratulations.” Rehashing the past puts a bitter taste
in my mouth. We can’t change that event. Talking about it rubs my skin raw.

“I would have punched him,” Ryke says easily. “I would have
decked the little shit in the face. That’s the fucking difference.” He
straightens up, and my jaw slowly unhinges, not expecting that.

“You don’t seem like a fighter.”

“I don’t?” Ryke says, his eyes pulsing with something fierce.
“If someone is giving me shit, I’m not going to stand there and take it. Maybe
Lo was defenseless all his life, but I wasn’t.”

“And then what? It would have been four to one at that
party. You would have gotten your ass handed to you.”

“I never said it would be the right thing.” He shrugs. “It’s
just a different kind of wrong.”

His
wrong. And
Lo’s wrong. Neither are better or worse, I realize. Their dissimilar
upbringings make them react to situations in opposite ways. That’s what he’s
telling me.

It also makes me incredibly sad. Because he basically
admitted to being as damaged as his brother. I picture his fist flying into
Matt’s face before awful words are spewed, impulsive and brash.

Only it’s a different kind of damaged.

Just as he said.

* * *

I float on a yellow inner tube in the crystal blue
ocean. The girls, Daisy, and even Ryke rest on their own brightly-colored
tubes, each round floating device tied together by a rope so we don’t drift
from the boat or each other. I catch Harper swigging from
another
mini-bottle of liquor she smuggled on the boat.

Dear God, please don’t
let one of my little sister’s friends drown to the bottom of the ocean because
they’re so fucking intoxicated. Thanks.

The first five minutes were actually fun. I took a nap and
listened to music playing from the boat’s speakers, and my feet skimmed the
cool water.

However, five minutes later, and the girls become so damn
restless that their shouts and high-pitched voices scar my eardrums and wake me
up.

“Oh my God! Something touched me. Was that a shark?!” Katy
screams in fright. She latches onto Ryke’s tube, and he nearly topples into the
water. Her palm plants on his bare abs to catch herself, but clearly, her
grabby hands are no accident. She has been eying his chiseled muscles since he
strutted off the deck like he built it with his bare freakin’ hands. It’s
mildly infuriating…and also scarily accurate.

“Relax,” Daisy tells her. “It was probably just a fish.”

Ryke tries to disengage from her, but she clutches to his
bicep now, her panicked eyes darting from him to the water, two seconds away
from shrieking, “Save me!”