Addicted After All (Addicted #3)(62)

Ryke lets out a weak laugh, his eyes reddening. “I love your daughter like the sun, and I could say and do a thousand things, and you’d never accept me.”

“You haven’t even done one thing,” Greg says with the raise of his brows. “I’m asking for one. This is easy. You’ll hear me out after everyone goes to bed, okay?”

Daisy starts, “Dad, don’t—”

“Dais, it’s fine,” Ryke says, squashing an argument easily. I wouldn’t want to cause a rift between Lily and her father, and I know Ryke feels the same. He nods to Greg again. “I’ll hear you out.”

My dad has one-fourth of his drink left. He’s fixated on it—or maybe I am. He’s almost going to finish it off, and I can’t keep speculating. On impulse, I step forward and steal the glass from him.

He cocks his head at me like really, son?

I sniff the liquid, just smelling lime, but I see carbonation bubbles. Gin and tonic?

And then Jonathan Hale, with his graying sideburns, narrows his deadly eyes and gives me a single dark look: drink it, son. If you don’t f*cking trust me.

I go cold, put the rim of the glass to my lips—

“Lo!” Ryke yells, his hand clamping on my shoulder, about to tear the glass from me.

It’s too late. The liquid slides down, and my taste buds catch all the ingredients. Ryke rips the drink from my hands.

“Are you f*cking kidding me?!” he yells at our dad. Not at me. Thinking he just broke his sobriety and mine too.

“It’s just carbonated water and lime,” I tell Ryke the truth, a pang of guilt hitting me. My dad wouldn’t sneak around. If he was drinking again, he’d flaunt it. I shouldn’t have questioned him in the first place.

Ryke isn’t convinced. He takes a swig of the drink, and after he tastes the water, his muscles start to relax.

Our dad sighs at Ryke, “I understand why you don’t trust me, son, but you should at least trust your brother. He wouldn’t lie to you.”

“My track record isn’t good,” I say under my breath and then rub my neck.

The silence stretches in the room—like I reminded everyone how many times I’ve f*cked up. It’s not like I can showcase my triumphs. They’re hidden behind every mistake.

A redheaded girl abruptly climbs the stairs into the yacht’s living room, adding to the strain. She pinches the stem of a wine glass, her glossy hair draped across her shoulder in curls, wearing a silk green dress that’s practically lingerie.

I tug at the collar of my shirt, my stomach tossing.

She’s twenty-six.

And my father’s date.

Seeing her sours my body, especially as she struts over to my dad and presses her lips against his. I turn my head the same time that Ryke does.

I spent my entire life watching women of all ages parade in and out of my house. Never once did he invite them for an extra night. He attended every party stag. No matter if I was five or fifteen or twenty. He was single in public. At night, he did what he wanted.

I never asked why he refused to marry again or to even date. But now that he’s chosen to do it with a girl practically Ryke’s age—it only makes me sick.

I try to breathe, and my ribs ache. I need air.

Without a word, I just head through the sliding glass doors, the moon illuminating the deck. I bypass the hot tub on the way to the railing.

I just…

I look up at the sky, full of stars, a glowing moon. And I inhale the sticky air, pain shooting through my lungs as they expand. I wince and rest my forearms on the railing, bent over like a force bears on my shoulders. Gravity is tugging me towards the ocean. Bringing me down.

I hear the glass door open and shut, but I don’t turn to see which sorry person has decided to spend extra time with me.

“Do you remember the Cayman Islands trip?” Lily asks, staring at the water in reverence.

My heart pounds, an added beat, happy it’s her. Here. With me. “When we were seven?” I think hard, trying to wash away the blurry haze of our childhood.

She nods. “Our dads had a business trip for the week, and they brought us on this yacht.”

It starts coming back. We were carted around to most of their meetings instead of being kept in daycare. Just us two and a ton of older cigar-smoking men. “We built a fort in the bow with couch cushions,” I recall. I smile at the image of her thin build and big eyes. She was quiet and shy and when the stewards came around to ask us if we’d like any drinks, she’d whisper her order in my ear.

I also can’t remember a night where we didn’t sleep in the same bed. Innocent sleepovers. At first they all were, and somewhere along the way, we changed. I fell in love with her.

She smiles at a memory. “You used to tell me that if I didn’t hold onto the railing, I’d fall right off the boat. Like an automatic spring would pop up underneath my feet and catapult me overboard.”

I nod a couple times. “I didn’t want you to get too close.” I was scared of my best friend drowning. I feared that possibility over my own death as a kid. And then a bigger memory triggers. “You realize we were husband and wife back then.”

She squints at me, trying to picture this.

I gape, teasingly. “You can’t remember our first wedding, love?” I touch my heart. “I’m wounded.” It was right before the Cayman Islands trip. We were just playing pretend, but after we went through the “ceremony” in our backyard, I called Lily my wife on the boat. My dad even fed into it, telling me to “go get my wife for dinner” when Lily was taking too long in the shower.