Addicted to You (Addicted #1)(22)

But I’m not swallowing a happy pill right now.

I bottle my feelings that begin to brew and confuse. I slip into my room, ready for a shower. My phone beeps, and I open the text.

Don’t forget, we’re dress shopping tomorrow. Thanks for coming tonight. Love you. –Poppy

Dress shopping. Oh yeah. For the Christmas Charity Gala. Even months away, the girls want to find perfect outfits for the event. Including jewelry, heels, and clutches. The whole ordeal will take hours, but I’ll be there.

Thump, thump, thump.

Lo’s headboard. Into my wall. A ball tightens in my throat, and I scroll through my list of contacts, hesitating on the escort service. After the last gigolo turned a physical day into an emotional one, I’ve avoided any interaction with paid-to-screw men.

I toss my phone on my purple comforter.

Thump, thump.

Shower, I try to remind myself. Yes. I head to my bathroom.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Good God.

I turn the nozzle to hot, shed my clothes, step in and shut my eyes—trying to think about anything other than sex. And Loren Hale.





{6}



I sit on a Victorian chaise in the dressing room lobby, surrounded by too many mirrors and too many racks of dresses, some costing more than bridal gowns.

While my sisters try on long, draping beauties in deep wintery colors, I protect the dozens of shopping bags from the jewelers and shoe stores. After choosing a plum gown with lacy sleeves—my first choice—I no longer have to agonize over what to wear to the Charity Gala. I happily sit outside, stealing glances at a cute guy one chaise over. He twists a ring on his finger and checks his watch, waiting for his wife in a curtained dressing room to the left of Rose’s.

I am not a proponent of infidelity, adultery, cheating, you name it. I’ve never intentionally hooked up with a married man, and I don’t plan to now, but staring…that’s not against my rules.

Anyway, I can’t help it. His whole jaw is lined with scruff, the kind you want to run your hands on. His light green eyes stay in his vicinity. For the best, I suppose, but a huge part of me wants him to look over. To stand up and come—

“This is so ugly.”

I jump as Daisy emerges from her dressing room. She pads to the set of mirrors in the lobby and does a little spin. I cringe. Yeah, the big bow situated on her butt is not helping. Neither is the puke-green color.

“It’s hideous,” Rose agrees, pushing back her curtains and joining us.

“Oh, I like yours,” Daisy exclaims.

Rose takes the time to check out her velvet blue dress in the mirror. The fabric cinches at the bust and hugs her slender frame perfectly. “What do you think, Lily?” We’ve made up since the “pregnancy” debacle at the luncheon. Rose apologized during breakfast one morning at my apartment. She brought over everything-bagels, my favorite, and subsequently, I said I was sorry too. For not being around more. That’s how our relationship goes. I disappoint her. She forgives me, but never forgets, and we move on.

“It looks beautiful on you, but so did the last fifteen.”

Poppy’s voice trickles from her dressing room. “Put your arm in here. Stop being so difficult.” She sighs exhaustedly. After a couple seconds, she enters the lobby with a squirming little brunette girl.

“Aw, Maria, you look so cute,” Daisy says, touching Maria’s lacy pink dress with white tights. Poppy finally coaxes Maria against her hip, settling down.

“What do you say?” Poppy tells her daughter.

“Thank you, auntie.” She puts her thumb in her mouth, and Poppy immediately takes it out.

“You’re too old for that.”

She’s three and in the Calloway clan, potty training, walking, reading, spelling, writing must all be achieved before the average age, lest we turn into normal people.

Rose inches closer to me, away from Maria who makes her grimace. Her hatred of children is actually amusing. I smile as she suffers, and when she notices it, I suspect a wave of bitchiness headed my way.

“Who are you bringing?” she asks.

Oh. Not too bad. “Lo, of course.” My smile widens. “The better question is who you are going to bring.” Rose constantly fights for the right to go stag, since no guy can ever live up to her impossible standards. But our mother insists on dates, believing that if you arrive without a man, you look cheap and unwanted. Something that I disagree with—Rose even more vehemently than me. Fighting our mother exhausts me, and for Rose to back down, my mother must have brought the waterworks. Rose hates tears almost as much as she dislikes children.

“I’m working on it.”

She usually takes Sebastian, her go-to arm candy, but apparently he’s ditching her this year for his boyfriend. I listened to her rant about it all last week, and I think she’s out of fire to reignite the same conversation.

Daisy chimes in, “I’ll probably bring Josh.”

I frown. “Who’s Josh?”

She pulls her brown hair into a pony. “My boyfriend. Of six months,” she emphasizes, her voice still light.

“Sorry,” I apologize. “I just…” Am never home to see her. Or him. And I don’t listen well.

“It’s okay.”

I know it’s not.

She shrugs and disappears into her dressing room to take off the green monstrosity.