Addicted for Now (Addicted #2)(111)

My fingers click away and land on Tumblr—my bane. I’m about to search for Lily Calloway, but I hesitate above the keyboard. And on impulse I type in something bad.

Sex gifs.

The magic words open Pandora’s Box, and animated “moving” pictures cascade in an infinite scroll. Girls and guys are tangled lustfully, some positions sexier than others. And a few images are pure close-ups of naughty bits. I shouldn’t be thumbing through anything pornographic, but I begin to relax at the familiar routine.

I hover on a black and white picture with pretty shadows. The girl’s mouth forms a perfect “O” as a cock thrusts inside of her. I can’t believe it’s been two whole weeks since I’ve had sex. I try to remind myself that I lasted ninety days without Lo, no sex in sight. But that feels different than this.

After my addiction went public, Lo wavered on having sex with me. And he chose not to feed any compulsions that he thought would arise. He believes I’ll turn into a wild, sex-crazed monster. Those are actually my words, but when I said them, he never denied it. Sex has been a coping mechanism, the tool that I use to deal with tough situations. And for the first time, I have to confront a hard-hitting issue without a boost of my natural high.

It’s not like we haven’t done things. We just haven’t done it. He fingered me the other day, and last night, he let me give him a blow job. So that was nice.

I sigh. I am desperately envious of a two-dimensional girl’s orgasm, worthy of fireworks and sparklers and red velvet cake.

Suddenly, the lock to the front door clicks, and since Ryke’s apartment resembles a flat (the living room connected to the kitchen) I have a direct view of anyone who walks towards the couch. I quickly shutdown Tumblr and log onto Hollywoodharlots.net, a site that has been incredibly gossipy about my addiction. They even snapped a blurry photo of Daisy exiting Connor’s apartment and captioned the pic: Younger Sister of Lily Calloway: Future Sex Addict?

It makes my stomach churn.

“She wasn’t hitting on you,” Lo says as the door swings open.

“Are you sure?” Ryke asks. He shuts the door and pockets his keys. “She looked like she knew where she was going.”

“She was definitely lost.”

Both shirtless with only running shorts, sweat glistens their toned bodies. Morning runs relax Lo, and all week I have been searching for my anxiety-reducing activity. But those funny positions in yoga revert my mind to sex, and meditation causes me to fantasize. So I started looking at porn again, but I’ve been economical about my usage. I won’t get carried away this time.

Lo plops down on the couch beside me, his eyes flickering to my computer screen. “You read anything interesting?”

“Besides the fact that I’ve officially screwed up my sisters’ lives…”

“Rose and Daisy can handle it,” Lo reminds me. But the whole point of pretending to be in a fake relationship for three years, of keeping this giant secret, was to avoid all of this from happening. I never wanted to hurt anyone.

“I re-watched the SNL skit,” I admit. “I think I found it funnier the second time around.” On Saturday, a comedian impersonated me. She drank so many cans of Fizz that she acted drunk and stumbled into a brothel. A few humorous quips later and I sufficiently turned into a caricature.

“You have to admit, the comedian nailed your hair perfectly,” Ryke says with a grin.

“Yeah, but she gave me a terrible accent.” I don’t have a regional dialect, but she layered on a thick, obnoxious Philly drawl. I’ve also zeroed-in on the least offending thing about the entire skit.

“To her credit, she’s probably never heard you speak.”

“Whose side are you on?” I ask him, but I already know the answer. If anyone has been making it easier to make light of the situation, it’s Ryke and Lo.

“I think your first press release should be in that accent,” Lo tells me. “How funny would it be if everyone thinks you actually speak like that?”

I smile. It would be a good prank.

Lo leans over to grab my computer. “Let me see this for a second,” he says.

My guard rises and fear spikes. I grip the console as if I’m trying to protect a fairy kingdom from goblin invasion. “What? Why?”

He edges back a little bit, eyes narrowed with skepticism. “I want to see if my dad had a press conference yet.” It must be hard to stay silent towards his father throughout all of this, but it’s probably best that they’re not on speaking terms. Jonathan Hale has always been Lo’s trigger to drink.

“Uh…I can check.” I type quickly into the search engine. It’s not that I have anything incriminating on here, but I fear random pop-ups from a porn site that I visited yesterday. When the time is right, I plan on telling Lo that I’ve found a way to be a healthy porn-watcher. Definitely not now, though.

“No,” I tell Lo after a couple minutes. “He hasn’t even released a statement.” Same as my parents. I wonder if they’re both waiting to speak to their children first.

And right as I turn, the computer leaves my hands. Lo sets the device on the coffee table. My heart slows down when his lips touch mine, and then it speeds up again when his hands dip to my waist. I lose myself to the way his tongue slides into my mouth and the way he sucks on my bottom lip. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Ryke entering the living room and bending in front of my computer.