I love her.
The world seems empty whenever I watch her. It’s a peaceful existence. But I know a life with just the two of us, alone, is a future better as a fantasy. Friends. Family. They’re not easy to leave behind anymore.
Laughter beside her lane breaks my focus. Ryke lifts Daisy by the legs, hanging her upside down, and she can’t catch her breath, her laughs echoing through the bowling alley.
“Hey!” Julian shouts. Shit. He storms over to my older brother. “I’m sick of you always hanging around my girlfriend, man.”
Ryke only drops one palm, holding Daisy perfectly upside down with one hand, clutching her calf. She swings in the air, blood rushing to her head, but her smile is huge.
“Then maybe,” Ryke says, “you shouldn’t leave your girlfriend with another f**king guy.”
Julian is about to shove him, but Lily intervenes. Shit. I shoot to my feet, sprinting to the lane while she blocks Julian with two hands. He swats them away.
“Back off,” I sneer at Julian.
He takes a couple steps in a safe direction. “Daisy…” Julian says. “Play with me.” It sounds like an order.
Ryke grips Daisy by the waist and flips her right-side-up, her body meshes with his, sliding down his chest slowly before her feet touch the ground. She breathes heavily, her lips parted. Ryke has a way with women. There’s no denying that.
He fixes her shirt that rides up her stomach. “What do you want?”
She swallows hard like she’s never been asked that before. And then she shrugs.
Ryke looks around at all of us as we watch him. I don’t know what to make of anything anymore. I’d wish for people to be simple—just so I can understand everyone—but then they wouldn’t be real.
“I think it’d be better if I just went home,” Daisy says. “I’ll see you all tomorrow?”
“Daisy—” Ryke starts.
“No, it’s cool.”
“I’ll drive you home,” Julian says.
“No, I will.” Lily steps up from behind me.
And then Rose rises from her seat. “You guys can finish up.” She tosses her empty bottle of sanitizer in the trash on her way towards the door. Daisy skips to keep up with her older sister and Lily is right there with them in a quick second.
After the girls are gone, Julian says to Ryke, “You want to f**k her, that’s fine. Just stop getting in my way.”
Ryke charges forward, “You motherfucking…” And then Connor steps between them.
“We’re in public,” he announces.
“Let’s go outside then,” Julian says. “He wants a fight—”
“You’re not fighting my brother, Julius. Leave it alone.” I grab Ryke by the arm. “We’re going.” I drag him towards the exit.
“How can you put up with him?” he growls at me, turning his back on them with rigid joints.
“I can’t,” I say. “That’s why I’m heading out this door. I walk away from fights all the time. You should try it once in a while.” I push open the door and squint at the bright sun.
“Yeah?” he says, shielding his eyes with his hand.
“Yeah.”
Between Scott and Julian, I’ve reached my limit on dealing with people I don’t like.
That’s Connor’s game, not mine.
29
0 years : 08 months
April
LILY CALLOWAY
Lo and I curl on the couch, rereading Avengers: The Children’s Crusade together. Even though this is our fifth read-through, Lo flips the pages so slowly, allowing my mind to take mental detours.
Not the sexual kind.
The wedding infiltrates my brain, especially since Rose asked me what color bridesmaids dresses I preferred this morning. Like always, I told her to choose.
I can’t believe I’m just twenty-one, on the path to marriage when all I really wished was to walk down the aisle with my head on straight. Emotionally ready for something so serious.
My wishes have not come true.
Everyone fears I’ll become the runaway bride. No one says it, but I see it in their eyes. But it could just be my own fears, my own reflection staring back at me.
The front door blows open, and dressed in his usual button-down and slacks, Connor shuts it behind him. At the same time he sets his sights on the staircase, Rose’s heels clap down it. She latches onto his wrist, her eyes pulsing with hot fury.
I thought if Rose lost her virginity to Connor, their relationship would be less volatile, filled with even less verbal sparring and wit that tosses my brains. Wrong. They still fight in French, and she still looks at him like she could rip off his balls.
I crane my neck over the couch to watch them, too curious.
Connor pries her gingerly off his wrist. “I think I know where the bedroom is.”
“We’re not ha**ng s*x right now.” She doesn’t even attempt to lower her voice.
So the fight is about sex?
“All I meant was that I can lead myself upstairs. I said nothing about sex.”
Oh. Never mind.
Connor slides past Rose mid-stair and disappears out of my view. Shit.
Rose huffs and says, “We don’t have time to accommodate your ego.” She stomps upstairs behind him, out of earshot.
I sit up, untangling myself from Lo while he continues to read the comic. I check the internet on his phone, popping up Twitter, and Lo watches me out of the corner of his eye. When I search #LilyCalloway, brutal messages appear.
@NorthGuy77: Do you know how many diseases #LilyCalloway must have? I wouldn’t go near that twat.
@DaniellaESP: #LilyCalloway’s vagina has to be huge.
A lump rises to my throat. I have to switch to a different hashtag.
@RealityTV89: Lily and Lo are the absolute cutest AND sexiest couple on TV. If you’re not watching #PoPhilly, you suck.
It’s a bit disheartening that people don’t like me, by myself, but when they talk about me with Lo, they gush. But I’ll take the good with the bad. I’m not that choosy.
“Lil,” Lo says, closing his paperback comic. “Stop going on Twitter. It’s not healthy.”
“That’s the first time I checked it all day,” I defend before logging off. I pull up Celebrity Crush and my heart does an extra pump at the headline: RE-POLL: Who Should Lily Calloway Be With? Loren Hale or Ryke Meadows? by Wendy Collins.
Great.
Of course I remember the poll months ago where Lo lost to his brother. Wendy Collins most likely wants to see if opinions differ after the show aired. I swallow the lodged pebble in my throat and click into the article.
I scroll down to the poll and vote for Loren. The minute I click his name, the current results fill the screen.
Ryke Meadows: 12%
Loren Hale: 88%
“Ohmygod!” I flinch back, nearly jumping on the cushions, and hit Lo’s arm repeatedly. “You’re eighty-eight percent!”
Confused wrinkles crease his forehead. “Eighty-eight percent what?”
I frown, not sure how to phrase it. “Eighty-eight percent of a winner against your brother…”
He tosses his paperback comic onto the coffee table and leans into me to read the article. He laughs and meets my eyes. “I guess those rumors will start ending now.”
I didn’t even realize…but yeah, they will. If people are starting to believe that Lo and I are an actual, real couple, not for appearance or for publicity but because we’re in love, then they’ll forget about Ryke as a three-way option.