Whatever It Takes (Bad Reputation Duet #1)(22)

I just nod to Loren, not sure what other options there are. I tell him my mom’s number, and after he types it in his phone, he stands. “I’ll be quick. Are you hungry?”

I shake my head, holding the coffee mug again.

“Can you get her a muffin from the front?”

I look up and realize Loren has motioned to the employee underneath the Iron Man poster. I quickly wipe my wet cheeks, wondering how much this random person saw me break down. I’m never really that emotional in front of people.





*



“Hey.” The gruff voice pulls my attention upwards. Ryke Meadows has entered the Superheroes & Scones breakroom with Maximoff Hale, his infant nephew that swats at his arm with a wide toothless smile.

“Hi…” I stiffen even more, watching him grab a couple comic books from a rack and then take a seat right in front of me, on the fuzzy white carpet.

Ryke rests his forearm on his bent knee—his whole demeanor confident and cool. He takes a quick glance at the closed bathroom door, the baby that tries to clutch a comic, and then me. Only as soon as we lock eyes, he doesn’t look away.

I’m so nervous I may puke.

“You should eat.” He nods to the muffin that’s frozen in my anxious hand.

I swallow again and loosen my finger joints to pick at the muffin top and eat a small piece. The blueberry is overly sweet, but it’s better than coffee.

It’s quiet for a second, only the baby making noise. I’m not sure what to say, and maybe he’s lost for words too. The tension here is different than it is with Loren and me.

We’re both half-siblings to the same person. It’s a common link, but trying to understand how we should be with each other—I think it’s just complicated. With Lo, I can simply say, you’re my half-brother. With Ryke, there’s not really an easy definition.

Because Ryke isn’t my brother. We just share one.

His brows harden in questioning. “What made you want to find him?”

“I learned the truth,” I explain, glancing at my hands and the muffin more than a few times. “And I wanted to know him—not because he’s famous or anything…” I pale. What if Ryke thinks I’m here to capitalize off his half-brother’s fame and fortune?

Ryke scratches his unshaven jaw and nods to me again. “You know I’m his half-brother, right? We have the same fucking dad, so you and I aren’t related.”

“Yeah I know about you—or of you…or you know, whatever the correct terminology is…” I clear my throat and stare intently at the muffin, grateful that I didn’t blurt out how I made a gif of Ryke tossing Daisy Calloway over his shoulder, using footage from the short-lived reality TV show.

He runs a hand through his thick, disheveled dark-brown hair. I really want to know what his palms look like. Which sounds so weird and creepy.

He rock climbs though, and Tumblr speculates whether his hands are really callused or cracked—which also sounds weird and creepy, but everyone’s curiosities run rampant online. And it’s hard not to be sucked into this all-consuming vortex that includes the Calloway sisters and their men.

“Your name’s Willow?”

I nod in reply, but he says nothing more. He’s trying to draw my gaze back to him. I sense it, and it takes me a couple long moments to stare into his brown eyes, hazel flecks around his pupils.

A piece of muffin goes down my throat densely, no matter how much I swallow.

He says, “I knew about my brother for a long fucking time—he didn’t know about me, and it took me years to actually try to meet him. I could have, at any point in my life, but I just…I didn’t.”

I frown. “I didn’t know that.”

He almost smiles. “It’s not on the fucking internet.”

Right…this isn’t public information.

His brows rise at me. “You being here at your age, wanting to turn your life upside down just to get to know your brother, it’s fucking…” He shakes his head and lets out a breath. “I did it almost four, five years ago? I was in my twenties, and you here, now—it’s just brave.”

I wipe my eyes quickly beneath my glasses. “You don’t think it’s dumb?”

His brows furrow. “Fuck no. Meeting my brother was the best decision I’ve ever made.”

I let this digest, and not long after, I breathe easier and peel the paper off the muffin, able to eat more.

His constant F-bombs remind me of a video compilation I’ve watched. Someone spliced together a lot of his “fucks”—and the video lasted around three minutes. It has over 16 million views and always makes me laugh when I watch it. Ryke seems badass in every frame.

Silence stretches, and Ryke tickles his nephew’s foot. The baby has hold of the comic book and giggles.

“Loren knew about me, you know,” I say softly. Ryke looks up at me, and I add, “All these years, he knew about me, and I didn’t know about him.” I’m not in the exact same situation that Ryke had been in. I was the one in the dark. Loren was the one with the knowledge.

Ryke glances at the bathroom door, then back to me. “I’m not sure how much I’m supposed to fucking tell you—but I don’t want you thinking badly of my—our brother. I don’t know what you’ve been through in your life, but he’s been through a fucking lot. And what I do know…” He checks over his shoulder again and then to me. “…when Lo met his birth mom for the first time, he wanted a relationship with you and your sister. But Emily basically told him that she didn’t want you two to know that you have a brother, and out of respect for her, Lo left you alone.”