Addicted After All (Addicted #3)(56)

It has a nice ring to it. And it makes me feel less like a creep.

Daisy tries to hide a bigger smile. “You know the dare?” She’s going to give us details?! Rose and I listen closely, very intrigued. “I was giving Ryke a blow job for the very first time, and that’s when Connor walked in.” She tucks her hair behind her ear, and the crowds that follow us (yes, people are trailing us, along with our bodyguards) grow in octave, so Daisy has to raise her voice. “I heard the door open, and I jerked back the same exact moment…” she trails off.

“He ejaculated,” Rose finishes without balking.

I wince. “Do you have to use that term?”

“Yes,” Rose says with confidence. I wonder if I’m making Daisy feel more ashamed by being all ashamed myself. It’s a nasty cycle that I want to break.

“Lo has come on me before,” I state. Wow it kinda felt good.

Daisy smiles. “Really?”

“Yeah, my face too. But not that much anymore.” I frown deeply, thinking about our current stasis of being. I feel healthier, and I like that Lo has spaced out all these steps with sex over months and months. It’s better to go slow.

Fast is not the right speed for me.

Daisy looks a little lost in her head.

“What is it?” I ask.

She takes a deep breath. “Do you ever just want to run? Like strip all of your clothes and speed down a street, using all of your strength, no one stopping you but yourself?”

It sounds freeing, but I can’t say it’s a thought that’s ever crossed my mind. After two minutes of pathetically running, I’d face-plant or grow out of breath—baby or no baby.

“No,” Rose says definitively. “I don’t run. I walk quickly.” This has been her motto since she discovered high heels.

To Daisy, I say, “In theory it seems kind of nice.”

She springs on her feet like she’s ready to take off. “All theories should be tested, at least once.”

“RYKE, STOP!” Lo suddenly screams ahead of us.

My heart is in my throat. Ryke has charged some random guy wearing a surfer graphic tee and frayed shorts. Lo restrains his brother by the shoulders.

Ryke spits out nasty words…all in Spanish. We walk faster to reach the guys.

“Go!” Rose shouts at the bodyguards and motions them like she’s herding cattle. “They need your help.”

Mikey says, “We’re contracted to protect Daisy, Lily and Poppy, so we’re not leaving their sides.”

Rose glares and then mutters curses while she searches for her pepper spray in her handbag.

Poppy has fallen behind, fixated on a vendor’s booth selling porcelain sugar skulls, and Dave, her bodyguard, hovers over her. She seems highly unaware of what’s happening, and Sam is sprinting towards Poppy, leaving Connor, Loren, and Ryke alone.

“Traitor,” Rose calls at him. “Your gender needs you!”

“So does Poppy!” he shouts back.

Rose purses her lips, and I focus on the surfer tee heckler, who follows our guys for every step they take. He’s not alone. With his two buddies, they jeer in Spanish. I can tell by the way they pump out their chests, their muscles flexed and their arms gesticulating.

Three guys. Maybe these people aren’t random. Lo said that three guys have been pestering them all day, wherever they go. Maybe they found them again.

“Should we…?” Daisy hesitates to run to Ryke, but I hold her jelly arm in a firm grip.

“No, let’s stay out of it.” Though I want to be closer. So we keep our pace.

Ryke yells in Spanish so loud that my ears blister. There is pain in his voice, beneath the anger, and Lo struggles to detain him as he thrashes. “Connor,” Lo says, looking for help. Connor is listening intently to these three guys, not intervening.

We’re only five feet away. Surfer Tee yells at Ryke and Lo with just as much venom, and then laughs mockingly like he’s won a battle. Our lives are open to the public, like we live in a glass house, and people enjoy tapping on the walls, waiting and waiting for a reaction, for that little bit of entertainment. Forgetting that we aren’t performers or mannequins put on display.

Forgetting that we can feel all the same.

“CONNOR!” Lo screams for help again, Ryke tearing through his arms. He’s stronger than Lo. This has always been fact.

“Let him go,” Connor says in a stoic voice.

“What?” Lo breathes out the word. It pains me. I’m so close to him now. I reach out like I can touch him, but I feel a large hand on my shoulder. Garth.

He draws me to the side by a foot or two so I’m not smacked by flailing limbs. Daisy slips out of my grip, and Rose leaves her to strut further ahead towards the fight. Daisy stays upright on her own, swaying only a little.

“Connor, help me,” Lo pleads.

“I won’t,” Connor says like he wants Ryke to fight these people. “Just let him go, Lo.”

Then Surfer Tee creates a V-shape with his fingers and obscenely sticks his tongue through it. His eyes have shifted. And they land right on me. Chills race down my spine.

Lo glances over his shoulder, finding the source of the ridicule.

It was me.

All of it, I realize.

Maybe they’re saying my vagina is too big. I’m gross. I’ve slept with hundreds of faceless men. I’m diseased and disgusting. I am not fit to be a mom. I am and will always be a sex addict. Nothing more than that. I have heard it all and read it on social media. Though never have I witnessed it in Spanish.