Thrive (Addicted, #4)(50)

Connor stays calm. And this time, it really fucking irritates me. “She doesn’t need your protection,” he tells me. Rose sways in his arms, tipsy. “She knows who I am.”

“So you’re okay with that then?” I ask Rose. “He’s going to fuck you, and then he’s going to be out of here. Does that make you feel good, Rose? You’ve waited twenty-three goddamn years to lose it, and you’re going to give it to a guy who can’t even fucking admit that he loves you.”

He’s a coward. A guy that I thought was the best goddamn person in the world—is nothing but a fake.

Connor says, “I’m not going to admit something that I don’t feel.” I have a retort ready, but he beats me to it. “Would you like me to sit you down and fill your head with numbers and facts and relativities? You can’t stomach what I have to say because you won’t understand it, and I know that hurts you. But there’s nothing I can do to change the way things are. I am a product of a mother as brick-walled as me, and trust me when I say that you won’t ever see more than I give you. In order to be my friend, that has to be enough, Lo.”

I process each heavy word. I wish that he felt like I could handle all of him. I wish that I didn’t idolize him so much from the beginning. “And what about you, Rose?” I ask, turning to her. “Is that enough for you?”

Lily sidles next to Rose and holds her hand. The fact that Lily can even comfort someone after what’s happened to her tonight—it builds something pure inside of me.

Rose nods, her neck straightened and shoulders pulled back. But I catch her squeezing Lily’s hand. “I’m going to the bathroom. You guys can meet us at the car.” Lily braces Rose around the waist, and they weave between the scattering crowds.

I watch how Connor keeps his blue eyes locked on Rose. With more and more concern.

He is in love with her.

For once, in his life, Connor is blind.

When he meets my gaze, I say, “I just want you to know that I lost some respect for you tonight. And you’re not going to get it back so fucking easily.” I don’t want to play his games. I’m not an investor he needs to slip in his back pocket. I’m his friend. I just want him to be real with me.

“Sure,” he says softly. “I understand.”

His gaze drifts to the carpet in deep thought. A faraway look that I don’t often see from him. My stomach is in knots. I already want to forgive him, to say don’t worry about it. He has that power over people. It’s insane, and I realize how much I love the guy.

That’s the funny thing right:

He’ll probably never love me.





{ 21 }

0 years : 07 months

March





LILY CALLOWAY


“LILY! LOREN!”

The paparazzi swarm us like ants crawling out of a hill. Only now they’re willfully rushing between cars in the street, just to film us on the sidewalk as we try to push our way into a New York City building.

A camera lens accidentally knocks into my head. Ouch. I shut my eyes as the pain swells.

“Back up!” Lo yells at the paparazzi. He guides me forward and protects my head by tugging me closer to his chest.

Ryke physically restrains cameramen with the length of his strong arms, using them as barriers. He’s like my replacement Garth since I had to sadly put him on hiatus. The production team wouldn’t let Daisy and me keep our bodyguards, something about “getting in the way.”

I miss Garth’s brutal, intimidating stares that shrank any pedestrians who gave me stink eyes.

And I miss the way he smells like bagels in the morning. No matter if he’s a man of few words. He was brawn that I severely lacked.

I try to hold out my leopard-print canister of pepper spray for self-protection, but I practically have a T-Rex claw hand, not able to outstretch my arm very far.

“Who’s better in bed, Lily?!” a cameraman shouts. “Loren or Ryke?!”

Fire burns my belly. I wish I was a T-Rex. I’d eat him.

In a non-sexual way. Just to be clear.

My neck heats.

“Lily,” Lo says, his lips right beside my ear. “Breathe.”

I realize that I’m taking slow, shallow breaths. My forehead sweats, and my upper lip is probably perspiring. How sexy. “Lo,” I whisper over the shouting paparazzi and Ryke who hollers to move back! “Are we going to make it?”

I meant to the building. We’re here to support Daisy, who’s in a runway show for a popular designer. But my words seem to encompass more than this time and place. Princesses of Philly was the most viewed reality show on GBA ever. We didn’t have this amount of fame before. It’s a whole new level of crazy.

Lo answers by lifting me up in his arms, front piggy-back style which is intimate and safe. I wrap my arms around his neck, pressing my forehead to his shoulder. I block out the noise. It’s just Lo and me. Like old times.

He says, “We can make it.”

I believe him.

My legs tighten around his waist, and a bad part of me starts to ache…for something harder. Sex is on the brain today.

Just go into the building. Everything will be quiet.

It’s a wishful thought.

As soon as Ryke pushes through the doors ahead of us, Lo enters with a string of five or six cameramen trailing him. Only two belong to the reality show.