Hothouse Flower (Addicted #4)(116)

When our lips break away, he just stares at me, his eyes grazing over my face, spending an extra moment on my hair and the crown of flowers. I can tell he’s engraining this image in his head. In case he falls.

“Don’t miss me too much, Calloway,” he says. And then he starts to drift back towards the rock, his hand leaving mine.

This is it.

I watch Ryke Meadows climb.





< 53 >

RYKE MEADOWS



Connor may hate Confucius but there’s something he said that I never challenge. “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”

El Capitan looms before me. All those fears loom behind.

It’s just me and the ascent.

Years of hard work and labor coming full circle to this one day. And I’m f*cking ready.

I take a deep breath, blink one last time.

And I ascend towards the summit.





< 54 >

RYKE MEADOWS



“Man, I wish I could’ve been there,” Sully says, my cell pressed to my ear while I walk into the private airport with my brother, Lily, Connor, Rose, and of course Daisy. “The pictures online are insane. Those photographers caught some awesome shots of you on the Northwest Face of Half Dome.”

“I haven’t seen them yet,” I admit.

“Not like you need to. You lived it, man,” Sully says.

I lived it. I didn’t beat any f*cking records. I just set my own, and I completed a challenge that seemed impossible in my teens. I can’t adequately express what this feels like. When I dropped on the ground, I was so f*cking exhausted but so f*cking overwhelmed with joy.

I did it. I free-solo climbed the Yosemite Triple Crown. 19 hours. A goal for me. Not for anyone else.

“How’s Venezuela?” I ask him.

“Hot and humid,” he says. “But the routes on Mount Roraima are incredible, and the whole place feels spiritual—hard to explain in words. You’d love it here though. I’d ask you to come join me, but…you know.” I hear him smiling on the other end.

“Sorry, Sul. Can’t read your f*cking mind.” But I have a feeling he’s talking about Daisy. I hold her hand as we walk through the quiet airport, heading to our gate where our private plane is supposed to be waiting to fly us to Philly.

“You’re probably sore as hell.”

I am. My muscles f*cking scream even as I keep stride with Lily and Lo’s leisurely pace. “That’s not what you were about to f*cking say.”

“Please, please invite me to the wedding.” I picture his smile reaching the ends of his scraggily red hair.

I roll my eyes. “Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

“I just want you to know that I called it. I’m like a relationship whisperer.” He laughs at his own joke, which makes me f*cking smile. “Anyway, that picture of you two outside of Devils Tower is seriously becoming iconic. It’s everywhere. Even in a Venezuelan newspaper.”

“Yeah, someone else told me the picture is pretty popular.” A friend from college texted me the photo, which landed on the cover of Time magazine. It’s famous because they’re pairing it with the Paris riot, even though it was taken a while after that. But after the press learned that’s how she got hurt, Daisy’s scar has become a symbol of what happened that night. People like to hold onto the good in the wake of the bad. And in the photo, she’s on my shoulders, kissing me, smiling, my fingers stained with colors. It looks like a fairytale, something setup. But it was completely candid—captured by a hiker’s cellphone who recognized us.

I care less about being an international icon and more that the coverage may help Daisy accept this new, jarring change in her features. She has barely looked in any mirrors since the hospital, and I think confronting the permanent reality of what’s happened may be hard on her. She’s been avoiding those feelings like she usually does.

“Is she around?” Sul asks. “Let me talk to the girl. She probably misses me.”

“She’s right here.” I pass the phone to Daisy. “Sully wants to talk your f*cking ear off.”

She brightens, taking my cell.

“Fucking cut him off if he starts any story with when we were twelve.” He loves to talk about how I streaked at night during summer camp and did a backflip into the lake off a rock. I don’t find the story as entertaining because I snuck in a flask of cheap vodka that year. I was wasted. And a f*cking idiot.

But I’d still do all of that stuff now, minus the booze.

Daisy puts the phone to her ear. “Hey, Sully.” She smiles wider. “I did massage his ass, thanks for asking.”

I snatch the phone back from her, and Sully is cracking up laughing on the other end. “Please have children,” he tells me, not able to stop cackling. “I have to see if they’d be as fun as her or as moody as you.”

“Fuck off,” I tell him lightly.

“Hugs and kisses from Venezuela. See you in a few months? Keep in touch.”

“Yeah,” I say. We hang up at the same time, and I watch Lo carry Lily on his back. It’s early this morning, so I’m not surprised, but she has been more tired recently. She presses her head on his shoulder, sleeping.

“What happened when you were twelve?” Daisy asks, lacing her fingers with mine.