Addicted for Now (Addicted #2)(123)

I turn around and he walks right into my chest. He takes a step back and glares. “What? You can dish it out, but you can’t take it?”

“I’m not taking your goddamn money,” I sneer. “Stop bringing it up.”

“Children,” Connor says, breaking our feud. “As entertaining as this is, doesn’t Lily have a Stats exam in a half hour?”

I glance down at my watch and curse. We’re supposed to be escorting her to her class, since she refused to accept the bodyguard her father wanted to hire for her. It was a generous offer that Poppy and Daisy accepted. Rose was too f*cking stubborn, and Lily didn’t want to be “shadowed by a big beefy guy,” which I took to mean she doesn’t want to be tempted by someone that isn’t me.

We jog back to the house quickly, but Lily isn’t in the kitchen where I left her. She’s become sedentary since the leak, moving at a snail’s pace. So I can’t imagine she wandered too far. I’m about to check the living room when I hear the pipes groan through the walls.

“Do you hear that?” I ask, turning to Connor and Ryke for clarification.

“Sounds like someone’s taking a Jacuzzi bath,” Connor tells me. That doesn’t make any sense. Lily took a shower this morning. Why would she need to bathe again?

Holy f*ck.

My first thought: She’s masturbating. My second: She slit her wrists. The second thought propels me into hyper-drive. I am running up the f*cking staircase before I can think anything else. I must look scared out of my mind because Ryke and Connor are right behind me. Maybe they fear it too.

I’d like to believe Lily couldn’t reach a low like that, but I’d be fooling myself. I’ve been there. I know she has too. It’s what happens when you hit a bottom that you can’t crawl out from.

I push through the door, envisioning her cold lifeless body. She jumps, and I don’t have time to breathe in relief. Because if she’s not dead, it means she’s masturbating.

I can’t believe this is how my world works.

Bubbles cover her naked body but don’t hide her cheeks that burn bright red. Connor and Ryke stumble in behind me and then Connor swivels right back around. “Sorry.”

Ryke blocks the door so Connor can’t leave.

“Get out!” Lily yells at them.

I haven’t moved closer, but she is bathing in guilt. You don’t just shower and then fifteen minutes later hop into a bubble bath.

“No, stay,” I tell them.

I’ve chastised her about porn.

I’ve pleaded with her to be honest with me.

Obviously, I need to find different f*cking methods to make her stop doing this shit. I don’t want to embarrass her, but how else is she going to stop?

Ryke spreads his arms in the doorway, sufficiently blocking Connor’s exit.

“Really?” Connor raises his brows.

Ryke shrugs, and Connor shields his eyes with his hand as he backs into the counter.

I keep my gaze on Lily.

She avoids me and the two guys. “Make them leave,” she says, looking anywhere but here. “I have to get changed. What time is it?” She acts like nothing’s wrong. Like she’s innocent in all of this.

“Why are you taking a bubble bath?” I ask, sitting on the porcelain ledge.

She shrinks back and begins descending, her chin disappearing beneath the suds. “I dropped my ring into the trash. And then after I fished it out, I smelled like our leftover sausage, which is not a pleasant stench. So I decided to take a bath, but I dozed off. Baths do that, you know. They’re like nap-whisperers or summoners or whatever.”

“Is the shower broken?”

She shakes her head. “You know that pink soap ball—I saw it on the counter just before I hopped in the shower. And curiosity just kind of overtook me. I was hoping it’d turn this thing pink.” She holds up her left hand, flashing the diamond. “But alas, soap chemicals are inferior to shiny rock.” Her eyes flicker nervously to Ryke who stares at her, unflinching. “This is awkward.”

“Not for me,” Ryke replies.

She points to Connor, who still covers his eyes. “You’re making Connor uncomfortable,” she tells me. “You have done the impossible.”

“I’m not uncomfortable, Lily,” Connor says. “I’m just not looking forward to the two hour lecture from your sister about female privacy.” But he must know what I’m trying to do because he stays here, and when he lowers his hand, he nods to me like I’m doing something right.

Lily pales a little, realizing Connor is not going anywhere. “Don’t you think you can give me more privacy if you went in the other room?”

“Believe me, you don’t want to know what I think right now.”

Her eyes flit around the room again. She knows she’s been caught, but she won’t admit it. Normally, I’d yell, maybe say a few encouraging words, and then dial Allison’s number so she could give Lily a proper lecture. But yelling does nothing, and Allison isn’t her therapist anymore.

I know what I have to do.

“You have an exam to get to,” I remind her. “So why don’t you finish what you started and then we’ll head on out.”

She blinks a couple times. “What-what are you talking about?”