Thrive (3 page)

“Please, Lil,” I add. “I’m getting bogged down here. I need
your help. You can do the inventory another day.” That does the trick.

She walks back to the desk and picks up a thick manuscript.

It’s terrifying how the both of us can ride highs and lows
so quickly. She slumps down on the chair and opens a comic, her lips slightly
downturned. But I’d take a Lily at a low over no Lily at all.

That’s the truth.

{ 4 }

0 years : 01 month

September

LOREN HALE

We opened Superheroes & Scones last week.

Three hours before we unlocked the doors, we had to rope off
the sidewalk to contain the lines and lines of people outside. The crowds
haven’t died down since. The shittiest thing: We barely sell any comics. People
buy a cup of coffee and sit their asses in a booth, waiting to spot Lily or me.

We’re the products on display.

Lily spent the last two weeks holed up at the Princeton
house, hiding from the reenergized media. I invited her to lunch, and she threw
out some excuse about studying. But I know she’s binge-watching a TV show.

Right now, I ignore Ryke and Connor, the latter of which
accepts our drinks from a waitress. She wears a multicolored Sombrero.
Apparently it was some kid’s twelfth birthday, so they sang in Spanish to him
and shook maracas. The boy looked pretty happy.

I focus on my cellphone and text Lil.

I’m checking Netflix
when I get home.
I press send, not clarifying. She’ll understand where I’m
going with this.

She replies quickly.
Do
it. I’m studying :P
– Lily

Did you just stick
your tongue out at me?

:P
– Lily

While adorable, the emoticon is her way of being evasive. I
wish she was here. It’s easier to know where her head’s at when I can actually
see her.

“Are you joining us for lunch, Lo?” Connor asks me as the
waitress leaves us with more chips and a bowl of guacamole.

I pocket my phone and attempt to clear the frustration from
my features. It’s like a permanent appendage, this pissed off
I fucking hate you
look. I can’t get rid
of it.

I don’t know how.

My gaze drifts to that young kid in the center of the
Mexican restaurant, at a table for ten, probably all family surrounding him.

While he opens a present, his mom collects the tissue paper
and folds it neatly.

His dad snaps photos.

I hate everything about that kid. I hate that he’s smiling.
I hate that more than one person hugs him. And I hate that I hate him. Why does
other people’s happiness have to feel like someone punching me in the gut?

“Lo,” Ryke snaps.

I face my half-brother and Connor. They can barely withstand
each other sometimes, so I’m surprised they’ve chosen seats side-by-side. “I’m
here, aren’t I?” I say sharply.

I lean back against my wooden chair, trying to loosen my
taut muscles. We sit in the back, away from lingering eyes and the glass
windows.

No cameras. No paparazzi.

It’s more freeing than I can explain.

“Physically, you’re here,” Connor replies. “But I prefer
one-hundred percent attention from people.”

Ryke lets out an unamused laugh. “You never change, do you?
Still a narcissist.”

I eat a chip and say, “I was going to call him an attention
whore.”

“I’m that too,” Connor agrees with a burgeoning grin. “So I
love myself. Not many people can say the same thing—which is a shame.”

I wait for him to look at me.

But he stares off at the salsa bar, sipping his water.

I pop another chip in my mouth and try to relax. I don’t
question Connor’s black button-down or his expensive watch or his wavy brown,
perfectly styled, hair. The guy is put together, unlike my brother who seems to
have rolled out of bed, disheveled dark brown hair, unshaven jaw and a
University of Pennsylvania track T-shirt.

I think I fit somewhere in between.

At least I hope so.

“How’s Lily?” Connor asks me.

“How’s Rose?” I deflect and reach for my drink. A water.

“Busy. High-strung. You know she took over the wedding
planning from Samantha?”

“Yeah.”
I know.
“Lily
and her mom aren’t on speaking terms yet.” I don’t know if they’ll ever patch
things up. It’s so complicated that I’m not sure if opening lines of
communication is the right move. Lily was destroyed after her mom told her that
she was a disappointment.

Samantha’s whole life is about protecting her family’s
reputation, and her own daughter fucked with it.
 

Lily thinks our marriage will repair the shattered bond that
she has with her mom—but I’m not holding my breath. I don’t want to watch
Lily’s face crumble when she realizes that her mom still harbors deep-seated
resentment.

So I’m counting down to our June wedding with nothing but
dread.

Connor opens his mouth, and I cut him off. “Have you removed
the wicked witch’s chastity belt yet?” I ask, redirecting the conversation to
his relationship. “Or is it still welded together?”

“Rose is still a virgin,” he says like it doesn’t bother him
at all. He’s almost been with her for an entire
year
and they’ve barely done anything, at least from what Lily and
Connor have shared with me. Rose—she wouldn’t tell me the barest detail of her
relationship, even though she’d like mine advertised. Just to ensure I’m not
screwing up her sister’s recovery.

I’m not.

I grab a chip from the basket, waiting for the hot sauce to
eat my chicken tacos. “Watch out for her nails. I wouldn’t want her to mess up
your pretty face.”

“I’m not afraid of Rose, but thanks for the concern,
darling.” He winks.

I touch my heart. “Anytime, love.”

Ryke rolls his eyes and slouches further in his chair,
brooding. “How about save it when I’m not around?” he says.

“Homophobic?” I wonder, dunking a chip in salsa. I didn’t
really peg my half-brother to be like that.

“
No
,” Ryke snaps
like that’s the furthest from the truth. “Just irritated.”

I think he’s just jealous of the relationship I have with
Connor. It’s simple. We’re friends. But with Ryke—it just…it can’t be like
that. There’s too much shit between us for it to be anything other than
complicated.

Ryke takes out his phone and texts someone before setting
his cell on the table near mine. When the waitress returns, we place our
orders, and then three girls giggle loudly at the bar. They notice us in the
back and smack each other’s arms. I read their lips:
that’s them.

All wear themed sorority shirts like
Go Greek!
and
Tri and Beat Us
with running shorts. In their twenties—the kind of girls that go to the college
I was expelled from.

University of Pennsylvania.

Ryke openly checks the girls out, and they nearly shriek,
their eyes bulging.

“You’d think that you just gave them a ride in your Maserati,”
I say to my brother.

“I don’t own a Maserati.”
It was a figure of speech.
He stands up and tosses his napkin on
the chair. “Give me five minutes.”

Connor pockets his phone. “That long?”

“Fuck off,” Ryke says easily before leaving to approach the
girls.

I think the redhead on the end is going to faint.

They practically bounce on their bar stools, and Ryke slides
in, using whatever game he has to pick them up. The short blonde with dark red
lipstick speaks to Ryke, but she points right at Connor.

“Looks like one of them is into you,” I tell Connor.

He waves to them in the most noncommittal way I’ve ever
seen. Friendly, not like a brush off, but half-removed like he’s silently
disinterested.

“Cobalt,” Ryke shouts. “They want to know your IQ.”

“Higher than yours.”

Ryke rolls his eyes and turns his back on us, still talking
to them.

“What a pickup line,” I say. “Damn, I missed the chance to
use it on you.” When I first met him, I was sure he was asexual. Lily suspected
that he was gay. Now, I honestly don’t even know what he is.

To me—he’s just Connor.

Maybe that’s the point.

“I wouldn’t have turned you down.” Connor leans back in his
chair, checking his gold and black plated watch.

“Why is that?”

“You’re good looking,” he banters. “Not as good looking as
me, but no one really is. So I wouldn’t count that against you.”

Before I was sober, I’d sit at a bar with Connor and people
would fawn over him. Six-foot-four with those obnoxiously confident blue eyes.

Connor Cobalt is catnip for pussy and cock.

He knows it and he almost just doesn’t care.
 

Turns out Connor
does
have
a type, and she happens to be strutting through the restaurant right now. I let
out an audible groan when I hear her five-inch heels and see her piercing
yellow-green eyes. But Rose has zoned in on one person.

She raises her Chanel sunglasses to the top of her head, and
then occupies Ryke’s seat next to Connor. He greets her with a few words in
French, and she replies back in the same language. His arm slides around the
back of her chair, his body leaned towards her in possession.

If the girls at the bar didn’t realize he was legitimately
taken, they do now.

“Hey, Rose,” I say unenthusiastically. “I thought you
couldn’t make it to lunch.”

“I have ten minutes,” she says, flagging down the waitress.
“I thought I’d stop by just to piss you off. It’s number three on my list of
daily activities.”

“Thought so,” I say. “Is
filing
your talons
number four?”

She shoots me a glare.

I shoot one back.

“Children,” Connor says, “can you fight while Rose isn’t
near knives and Loren isn’t near tables that he can flip? I find cafeteria
brawls wildly amusing, but not when I’m in the crossfire.”

“You’ve been saved,” Rose tells me like a villain in a bad
action flick. She’s half-serious which is the stupid thing.

“Thank you, Darth Vader.”

She flips me off, just as the waitress approaches and clears
her throat. Rose is caught with her middle finger in the air.

I laugh—this is rich.

Rose looks hardly embarrassed. She lowers her finger and
says, “I’d like a margarita, frozen, no salt.”

“Can I see your ID?”

Rose pops open her clutch wallet and flashes her ID to the
waitress.

“Thanks. I’ll get that right out to you. Anything else?” She
fixes her Sombrero.

“Yeah,” I say, “a blow torch to defrost my girlfriend’s
sister.” I smile dryly. “Thanks.”

“And I’d like a fly swatter so I can smack my sister’s
boyfriend.”

The waitress opens her mouth, partially, but no words
escape.

“A margarita is all,” Connor tells her with a warm smile.

She swallows. “I’ll have that ready in a sec…”

When she leaves, my phone buzzes on the table. I collect it
and open the text.

See you tomorrow.
–
Daisy

I go entirely rigid.

I flip the cell over and notice the dark green casing,
unlike my black one. I accidentally picked up Ryke’s phone.

Morality, ethics—I was taught to shit on them.

I don’t even hesitate. I just scroll through the messages
quickly, reaching the top of the conversation. My fingers rise to my lips in
anxiety, my rapid thoughts drowning out Connor and Rose’s French talk.

You left your shirt
with me, you know.
– Daisy

Keep it.
– Ryke

What the fuck? I breathe heavily, dark emotions pooling into
me from so many places. Some indistinguishable, others really clear. Daisy is
only sixteen.

It’s all I can think right now.

Back in Cancun, I made a promise—to trust Ryke, to lay off
him about their growing friendship. I’ve been seriously
trying.

My eyes flicker to my brother at the bar. He works the
brunette girl, her figure curvy and her hand on his arm as she laughs at
something he said.

She’s working him just as hard too.

And I imagine Ryke messing with Daisy’s head—just like that.
Like she’s another girl at a bar. Like he’s trying to fuck her one night or for
a week, maybe a month.

Nothing more.

I imagine the teasing.

The flirting.

I don’t know what he’s playing at with Lily’s little sister,
but it’s not right. He can sleep with
any
girl—why does he have to go after her?

Or is he just leading her on, with no real plan to do
anything more?

Does he get off on that?

I’ll ask him,
I
think. It’s the only thing that stops my leg from jostling.

I return to the texts.

I can just give the
shirt back to you when we go riding.
– Daisy

Whatever you want.
Just make sure to wear fucking boots this time and not flip-flops.
– Ryke

They were sandals. I
also just found your shorts. I’ll wear those the next time I see you too ;)
–
Daisy

Really?

Just wear the fucking
boots, Calloway.
– Ryke

You want me to ride
naked? I usually don’t do that until after second base.
– Daisy

I’d rather you wore my
shorts.
– Ryke

Does it turn you on
when girls wear your clothes?
– Daisy

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Dais.
– Ryke

See you tomorrow.
–
Daisy

That was the newest text.

“Are you okay, Lo?” Connor asks, off my volatile expression.
Heat practically radiates from my muscles.

Rose twirls her straw in her margarita. I didn’t even see
the waitress come by again.

“I’m great,” I say coldly.

Only a second or so later, Ryke returns to the table with a
napkin. He sits right next to me in the free seat. “Got her number and her
address.” He pockets the napkin with the scribbled info. Then he reaches over
and grabs his water that’s near Rose.

“Does that girl know you just want to fuck her?” I ask, my
voice coarse.

Tension spreads through the table, but remorse lies far
off—in another realm of existence. In some good guy’s body.

“Yeah,” Ryke says, drawing out the word as he studies my
expression. “I think she got the message when I said that I wasn’t into
anything serious.” He pauses. “Did I do something…?”