Addicted After All(174)
I recoil. No way am I stepping between their fight.
Lo spins to Connor and says, “Tell Rose her retorts make me feel sorry for her and that she has horrible taste in company names.”
Connor sips his wine, staring between his best friend and his wife like this is his evening entertainment.
I just don’t want it to escalate. That’s always my number one priority.
“I have great taste,” Rose refutes. If she wasn’t holding Jane, I think she’d spring to her feet by now. “And if you hadn’t noticed, you asked me to be a partner in a subdivision of Hale Co. I can still reject you.”
“We’re not calling the clothing line Blossom Babies,” Lo retorts. “It sounds like we’re dressing Cabbage Patch Dolls.”
They’ve been fighting on the name for the past week, and I’m still alarmed that they’ve agreed to work together at all.
“I’m not calling it Hale Co. Baby Clothes. I’m the designer.”
“You don’t even like babies,” Lo says.
“Then why are you asking for my help, Loren?”
Because he needs Rose. And she actually wants to be a part of this project. For the past week, Rose has sketched infant and toddler clothes, overly excited at the prospect of having a clothing line in a department store again.
He stares at her blankly and then says, “We’ll keep brainstorming.”
Rose sits even straighter like she won a spelling bee. Even though I love Lo dearly and I’m on Team Loren Hale, I am also Team Calloway Sisters and so my smile still exists.
It takes a lot for Ryke and Lo to smile, but I check on Ryke just to see if he’s cheered up a bit.
Wishful thinking, I suppose.
On my left, Ryke stares off into space, his gaze haunted and lips downturned. It’s his birthday, and he’s plagued by too many thoughts. I lean close and whisper, “Ryke.”
It takes him a second to register my voice. When he does, he slowly turns his head.
“Do you want to open presents?” I ask. Usually he tells everyone to buy him climbing gear, but this year, it’s like he forgot it was his birthday. He never mentioned rock climbing or the equipment he needed.
Lo and Connor even had a cardboard cutout of Ryke from his Ziff promotional campaign. Our publicists blamed Ryke’s puke-fest on food poisoning, so the sports drink could live to see the light of day. We were going to play “pin the harness” on Ryke but with his downcast mood, it seemed like a bad idea. I think Lo shoved the cardboard cutout in a closet.
“Maybe later,” Ryke says morosely.
Lo’s jaw tics. “Okay, I can’t take it anymore.” He passes Connor the spatula.
Then Lo faces his brother. Ryke stiffens in his chair, his brows hardening in confusion as he watches Lo. Lo…the guy who used to run away from bullies, who shouted insults until his throat burned, who always fell down in the end—he stands upright with magnetic confidence that pulls us all in.
“You’re not dying today,” Lo tells his brother, pointing adamantly at the ground. “We’re all alive right now, Ryke. Maybe in a year, Dad won’t be around, but it doesn’t mean we’ll stop moving. Out of everyone, you taught me that. Don’t look back. Just go forward, run through quicksand. So pick up your feet, man. For one, it’s your birthday. For another, no one likes to see you this pissy. It’s depressing.”
While Ryke mulls over these words, Lo searches for me, maybe for affirmation or just because. His amber eyes find mine in seconds. And his lips begin to rise.
We’ve been obliterated and we’ve come together whole for the first time. Our lives are meteor showers on rewind. I don’t think we even knew what we’d be once we pieced ourselves back.
Maybe we do belong in space with all the stable, constant stars. We’re just the more destructive, more disastrous chaotic pieces, the comets that head towards earth.
After a long moment, Ryke slowly pushes to his feet. He’s an inch taller than his brother. More brooding. But Lo is more severe.
Stone vs. Ice.
Hardness vs. Sharpness.
For a second, I wonder if they’re about to fight. But then he reaches out and clasps Lo’s hand. Ryke leans in for a bro-hug-pat. And my shoulders lift like I’m soaring. They’ve been to hell and back for each other, and I think they’d both be willing to take a second travel if they had to.
Lo always poked fun at me for having three sisters, with all the extra, added drama. He thought being an only child was easier—better. But I can tell that he wouldn’t trade Ryke.