Addicted After All (Addicted #3)(58)

The hecklers have separated from our men, and they weakly stagger back, blood staining their shirts and a few shiners swelling their eyes.

Lo, Ryke, and Connor only appear minutely better, blood still splattering their clothes. All of them have taken hits. Connor is crouched over Lo, talking to him quietly while he nods like I’m okay.

I try to exhale a tight breath in my chest.

Ryke finally turns towards us, and he locks eyes with Daisy, who is all alone, a few feet ahead of me and Rose. Her chest rises and falls in a heavy, uneven rhythm, like she’s suffocating beneath a brutal wave.

Ryke assesses her as much as she assesses him.

She tugs at her tight shirt, and I remember her earlier thought about stripping and racing ahead and being held down by nothing at all.

Go, I want to tell her. She can sprint to the dock. The hecklers have disappeared down a side-street, out of sight. She’s safe.

But her feet stay on the ground, in place. “The full moon makes you crazy, you know,” she tells him softly.

“No more f*cking crazy than you.” He steps nearer to Daisy and then draws her to his chest. His hand disappears beneath her shirt, as though stretching it so she’s not as claustrophobic. The gesture is sweet. “And it’s not the full moon, Dais. It’s just people who want to shit on the ones I love. I can’t f*cking take it.”

My shoulders lift with that proclamation. Lo is still hurt and my stomach won’t untie until he’s in my arms and I’m in his.

So I head over to him as soon as he stands, wincing and favoring his ribs. I almost start shaking again at the flash of agony in his features. “Lo?” I whisper.

He stares down at me, his lip busted. Connor’s cheekbone is red and will probably bruise. But just by sight, Ryke has the worst of it: both cheeks and his lip beat up and bloodied.

“I’m fine,” Lo says.

“So fine that I can hug you?” I ask skeptically. He’s putting on a good front.

“Go ahead, Lil,” he nods.

I gently wrap my arms around him, keeping distance between our bodies.

His warm breath touches my temple as he whispers, “That’s not how we hug.”

“I’m not hurting you,” I tell him adamantly. “I know you’re in pai—”

And then he squeezes me to his chest, in a common embrace for us, one where our bodies meld together with no seeming beginning and end. It’s like we’re one. I feel his heart thud, thud, thud against my skin.

I’m not sure how long we stay like this, frozen in time, shielding the world from us. It’s a moment that eclipses the rest of the day and shortens my lifespan to a single solitary snapshot. My belly flutters, a literal movement that causes me to straighten like a board.

“Lo…” I whisper.

“Lil?” He scrutinizes my expression.

It happens again, only this time, stronger, like a foot… I touch my abdomen, my heart quickening.

“Is he…” Lo trails off.

I nod. “I think so.”

Lo places his hand on my belly, and after a few quiet seconds, the faint movement happens again. Lo’s eyes smile so much that I laugh into one.

And then he kisses me, so suddenly. His lips right on mine. My arms right around him. His around me. Where they’re meant to be.





{ 20 }

LOREN HALE



“Shut the door,” Ryke orders, flipping on the faucet. I close the yacht’s bathroom door behind me and sink on the tiled floor against the porcelain tub.

I wrap an arm around my ribs that shriek in pain, maybe fractured again. I try to ignore it. I’ve had this injury before, and all I can do is wait for it to heal. Since I’m an addict, they always advise to forgo medication. I won’t take anything to numb this.

“Fuck.” Ryke winces as he rinses his bloodied knuckles beneath the water.

Connor inspects his own bruised cheekbone in the mirror and says something to Ryke in French, who replies back.

“Stop,” I tell them, each large breath stabbing my lungs. “I have to know.” The girls are trying to calm down their parents, woken up after a text from an overly concerned Poppy. All I want to know is why the hell these guys have been following us and what they were saying about Lily.

Ryke and Connor share hesitance, and it’s like someone kicks me again in the ribs.

“I can take it,” I say with everything I have.

I can take it.

No one is going to bury me. I have to trust myself, more than ever. Because I picture a life where I never stand up on my own, where I’m stuck leaning on Ryke and Connor, and it hurts. I want to take those first steps by myself again. For one turn of fate, I’d like to be the kind of guy that braces them from falling.

It’s always felt impossible.

But it’s a goal that’s been keeping me moving.

“This won’t push me over,” I continue. “I won’t drink. I just need to know.”

Ryke turns back to the sink and washes his face.

Connor sits on the toilet lid and stares at the ground, haunted almost.

“Goddammit,” I sneer with burning eyes. “Someone say something.” It’s killing me.

“I’m trying…” Ryke presses a towel to his lip and then leans against the wall. His eyes are also on the ground.