Addicted After All (Addicted #3)(13)

“Ha ha,” I say dryly.

Ryke looks like he could f*ck her against the cupboards, an expression I don’t like catching from him. And then Daisy struggles to hop on the high counter with one good hand, the other in a cast.

Without hesitation, Ryke easily lifts her up. She swings her legs and holds out her smart phone. Instead of a photo, she begins recording us. Even narrating, “It’s Saturday, February 7th. Lily Calloway is about to find out the sex of her baby. Will it be a boy or a girl? Predictions?” Her phone whips to Ryke.

“Girl,” he deadpans.

“One smile,” Daisy says.

His lips barely rise.

“Pathetic,” I tell him. “You can’t even smile for my future kid.”

“Yeah, Uncle Ryke,” Daisy jokes.

Ryke gives her a hard look. “Don’t say that again.” And then he actually smiles, not a full-blown one with teeth, but it’s good enough. This video recording actually lessens the tension in my muscles.

Lily even perks up with more excitement, her worries fluttering somewhere else. Thanks, Daisy.

“What’s your prediction, Connor and Rose?” She points the camera-phone at the couple by the coffee pot.

Rose stiffens, “Girl.”

“Boy,” Connor says, setting his mug on the counter.

Rose rotates to face him. “You have to disagree with me?”

“I don’t have to.” He pauses to grin. “Though I like to.”

Rose is suddenly quiet, and his hand slips beneath her hair and he kisses her forehead.

Then Daisy whips her phone lens at us. “Lily and Lo, predictions?”

Lily’s green eyes flicker up to mine, and they tumble with so many fears and hesitations that I wish we were alone. In this solitary moment. So I could hold her. Shut out the rest of the world.

Just us.

No more noise.

“A girl,” Lily breathes. It’s not what she wants. It’s what I want, but it’s going to hurt either way.

“Boy,” I whisper.

Her chest collapses, and she shakes her head at me like it won’t be a boy. It may be. Half of me will be happy for Lily. The other half will be scared shitless again. The parts of me that I love the most are the parts that belong to her.

“Hurry up,” Rose says, her voice abnormally high-pitched. I cringe. She’s nothing short of petrified because she’s going next. And no matter how much Rose aggravates me on a daily basis, I’m not a fan of watching her like this

Connor whispers quickly in her ear, and I notice how she rubs her hands anxiously. He clutches one so she stops making her skin raw.

“You open it,” Lily whispers to me, rerouting my attention. She pushes the envelope in my hands.

My stomach tightens, but somehow, I force my joints to work. I tear the seal and unfold the white paper. My pulse races like I’m about to jump off a building and make a speech in front of a packed stadium. I can barely read the typed letters at first. They blur together, and it takes a few extended seconds to piece them apart.

She studies my expression for a long moment and says, “It’s a boy.”

I am flooded with temperatures below zero, and I pass the paper to her, so she can verify what she already knows is real.

Her eyes travel eagerly over the words and then she delicately folds the paper.

“You can smile, Lil.” Please smile.

A tear rolls down her cheek.

No. I lean forward and cup her face in my hands. “Lily. I’m happy.” Somewhere. In all the good places that belong to her. There, I know I am.

Her lips are chapped as she licks them, and she glances back at the paper to reaffirm that we’re really having a boy.

I wipe her tears that fall. “Say something,” I breathe. Smile, Lil.

“I’m…really, really happy.” Her voice trembles. And then she laughs into a smile, one that’s half-pained. For me. On the precipice of two polar opposite emotions.

“It’s better this way, with a boy,” I whisper, her glassy eyes flitting between me and the paper. “You have to believe that I believe it.” All I want is to sense her joy and rid the tar that’s seeped from me to her. I ruin most things I touch, and she’s the best thing I have left.

She nods repeatedly, trying to accept this as truth, and then I kiss her, desperation drowning my veins, my bones, my very fractured soul. A noise ripples through her throat. She clutches to me the way that I do to her—our bodies promising things that our words can’t.

I inhale sharply into a deeper embrace, my tongue tangling with hers. Her chest merges with mine, my hands disappearing in her short hair beneath her hat.

There are moments with Lily where I feel like we’re one person. Where we share every sensation that bites our skin.

No one is in the kitchen but us.

And yet, they are. I become aware of this fact the moment Rose shouts something loud in French.

Lily and I abruptly part.

Rose is pointing at us while she yells, and Connor is quick to shout back, the seriousness of the conversation illuminated the moment Connor grips her wrists, clutching her so she stops flailing around.

Lily and I rise quickly to our feet. “What’s going on?” Lily asks the only person who would know besides the couple fighting.

Ryke has a hand on Daisy’s thigh while he watches Rose, his brows hardened. “She’s saying that she can’t do it,” he translates. Daisy clicks off her phone and sets her camera aside.