Thrive (Addicted, #4)(30)

It scares me, but her wellbeing means more than sheltering our lie.

Daisy shakes her head. “I’m okay.”

“You were crying,” Lo says.

“What?” Ryke’s dark frown casts a shadow over the room.

“It was just prep school people being rude, not my close friends,” Daisy says vaguely. “The crying part was an accident…sorry.”

Ryke’s face contorts in confusion and agitation. He throws a handful of popcorn at her. I stretch across Lo to reach his brother’s chair and snatch the bag from his hands. He barely even notices that I’ve taken his snack.

“Are you seriously fucking apologizing for crying?” he growls.

“I guess so.”

Ryke shakes his head repeatedly while I munch on the popcorn and stare between them, my head whipping from side to side.

Lo digs his hand in the bag to eat some too.

“Don’t,” Ryke says.

“You didn’t cry about your friends,” Daisy states.

“I stormed in here cursing. You’re allowed to show some human emotion, Dais. I did.”

Daisy shifts again like she can’t get comfortable. She smashes a pillow on her lap, and I hold my breath, expecting her to distract Ryke right about now with our issues. She says, “Is it okay if we don’t talk about it?”

I exhale.

Ryke’s muscles constrict. He clearly doesn’t want to drop it. Daisy kicks off her boots, a little more fidgety than I’ve last seen her. She eyes the door. I imagine my fearless sister speeding down the dark roads on her motorcycle.

Death comes next.

“Daisy,” I say in warning.

“You’re not leaving,” Lo tells her.

I nod in agreement. “We all want you here.”

“I saw ice cream in the fridge,” Ryke says as he stands. “I can make you a bowl.”

“I have a photo shoot—”

“Run with me tomorrow morning.”

Okaaayy…that sounded more like a proposition for a date, but everything about Ryke is kind of sexual. The way he stands, the way he moves. I bet he thinks about sex just as often as me too.

“Sounds like a date,” Daisy says exactly what I was thinking. I can’t tell if she’s hoping it is. She’s sixteen. He’s twenty-three. She can have a crush on him, but it can’t progress further than that.

I rest my palms on Lo’s chest, his muscles hard as a rock, too rigid right now.

Ryke tenses. “It’s not, Calloway. I run with Lo all the time, and we’re just brothers.”

“So I’m like your sister then?” she asks.

Good question, I think, shoveling more popcorn in my mouth.

His face darkens. “No.”

“Then what am I?”

“My fucking friend.” His eyebrows rise. “Any more questions?”

She smiles weakly. “That’s it.”

“I’m going to get you a bowl of ice cream,” he says. “Okay?”

“Yeah.” She bites her lip and he rounds the corner. When he disappears, both Lo and I glance back at Daisy who has moved on to twisting the button in the pillow.

“Thanks,” Lo whispers to her, “for not ratting us out.”

“Even though you ratted me out,” she finishes. She’s too smart for us.

His eyes narrow. “That’s different.”

“I hope it is,” she whispers back.

“It is,” he says adamantly. “You’re doing the right thing.”

She nods, and then Ryke returns with a bowl of double fudge ice cream. He places it in her hands and then brushes the popcorn off the cushion before sitting next to her.

Lo kisses my cheek, tearing my gaze off them and onto him. I like this view better.

I smile. “Do you think Rose is swiping her V-card tonight?”

“Most definitely.”

We all stay quiet as we watch a few bands perform in Times Square. I rest my head on Lo’s shoulder, and thirty minutes must past before noises escalate…from outside.

“He was not flirting with me. Your definition is wrong.”

That is one-hundred percent Rose’s fierce voice.

“What the hell?” Lo says. He finds the remote on my lap and mutes the television.

On cue, the door breezes open.

Dressed in an expensive tux, Connor holds open the door while Rose stomps ahead in five-inch winter booties, a black cocktail dress, and white fur coat. “To flirt,” Connor recites, “to behave in a way that shows sexual attraction. You can take my definition or we can consult Merriam-Webster, though mine is more accurate.”

I whisper under my breath to Lo, “I think Rose is still a virgin.”

“Good call.”

“I’m so good at picking up signs,” Rose retorts, still in a verbal battle with Connor. “I know when someone is flirting with me, Richard.”

He shuts the door, hardly upset by whatever happened. He wears only amusement in his deep blue eyes the longer Rose huffs and puffs like a wolf ready to blow down a pig’s house. And then he speaks in fluent French, so effortlessly that the words sound like golden honey off his tongue.

She replies back in angry French.

It sounds violent.