Addicted After All(42)

I cringe. “She has some issues.”

Ryke glares at me.

I raise my hands. “I meant that in a nice way.” Though my sharp tone didn’t help.

“Did you have sex last night?” Connor asks again, reverting back to the original topic. Me. Lily. Her addiction. It’s an every-week conversation. It doesn’t aggravate me as much as it used to—not when they share too.

“Yeah,” I say. “We waited twenty-four hours after she was really bad.” She only came once and then she stopped herself, a level of control that I worried she’d never reach.

“You’re smiling,” Connor notes.

“Must have been good,” Ryke says, dropping his arm.

“It was.” But for a different reason than they might think. “Ready?” I ask Ryke, opening the door. He nods and as the February cold blows through, I pull my jacket hood over my head, snow lightly falling from the sky.

Ryke steps out of the doorway first, and a squishing noise freezes my bones. “Dickf*ckers,” Ryke curses.

“I thought we were banning that curse word from everyone’s vocabulary?” Connor asks as he pushes the door further open so he can see what happened.

“Shit,” I say and then laugh. Literally. My older brother just stepped into a pile of crap in a brown paper bag.

Connor laughs as Ryke shakes his foot, like that’ll get it off. “There are just too many responses to this.”

“Shut the f*ck up, Cobalt,” Ryke retorts.

“Please, this can’t be the first time you’ve been intimate with shit.” Connor rubs his lips to keep from smiling so much, but he can’t stop laughing. I hold onto the door frame, my side cramping while Ryke flashes his middle finger.

“Fuck off,” Ryke groans and lifts his foot up with disgust. “Fucking A. I’m going to kill them.” The sole of his shoe is most definitely covered in shit. And it must’ve been the teenagers down the street. They aren’t finished with their pranks.

Great.

My laughter fades as I remember what happened with the paintball guns and the note attached to the brick.

Ryke is about to scrape his shoe on the brick stairs, and Connor grabs his shoulder to stop him. “Just toss your shoe in a doggy bag.”

“Connor, I’m not—”

“Jokes aside, I’m serious,” he says. “Don’t smear it on the stairs.” He cautiously looks over his shoulder and then back to us. “Rose doesn’t need the stress before the trip.”

“I’ll clean the porch,” I offer, just praying that they really did use dog shit.

“I got it,” Ryke says, taking off his running shoe and disappearing inside for cleaning supplies.

I crane my neck and try to spot any sprinting teenager, but the long road is deserted this morning. Quiet and slick with a layer of snow and ice. I see my breath plume in the chilly air.

No one has brought up Hale Co.’s future since my dad was here. I try to mentally put it on the backburner so this trip won’t be brutal. I should do the same with the teenagers down the street, but doubt enters me.

“What if they don’t stop?” I ask Connor. What if it gets worse than this?

He’s silent, and I turn my head to catch his features. He’s staring through me, into me, seeing my fears because I spot them in his deep blue eyes, reflecting back at me.

“Then they don’t stop,” he says easily. Like it’s nothing.

It is something though. “We’re going to have children in this house soon.”

“They’re bored teenagers,” he reminds me. “The more attention we give them, the more likely they’ll return. We just have to be patient. I know it’s hard for you…but you have to ignore the impulse that says confront them.”

I nod, staring fixedly at the ground. He’s right.

It’s a waiting game.





{ 14 }

LILY CALLOWAY



The swell of the ocean sways the yacht unstably, and I clamp onto the dresser in our cabin, steadying myself. Puerto Vallarta, Mexico has been nice to me up until now. No sunburns on day one, no seasickness, and very little judgment from my parents.

Though I took a tiny peek at the tabloids.

They weren’t kind.

The last poll was a blow to my confidence. Is Lily Calloway fit to be a mother? The gossip site accompanied this headline with a picture of me bending down on the yacht deck. I dropped my sunglasses earlier, and a stealthy cameraman on a tugboat caught me at the worst angle. Ryke was behind me. Lo was in front of me.