I am about to ask if he loves Rose, but the expression that washes over his face—it says it all. Connor is smiling, his gaze far off as he’s picturing that future already, glowing with something innately human.
Hopefully one day he’ll accept how much love has actually overcome him.
And then he looks back to me, and I nod at him. “If you’re serious—”
“I’ve never been more serious in my life,” he says. Connor rarely exaggerates, so I’m flooded, once again, with the power of his words.
“Yes,” I say. “Marry Rose.” I let out a short, stunned laugh and shake my head. I can’t believe this is real. “If you survive your wedding day, that is.” Rose not in control…how is that going to blow over? “She’s going to be pissed that she only has one month to fix everything.”
Lily calms a little and wipes her eyes with the blanket. “She’s so particular,” she says.
“That’s why I’m not going to tell Rose. It’ll be a surprise to her.” He adds, “And I know her well enough to plan a wedding that she’ll love.” He walks to the door, solidifying this as a night that I’ll remember for the rest of my life. And it had nothing to do with our addictions.
“And darling,” he says to me, his grin lifting his lips, “you’ll be a great best man.” He taps the wooden frame and shuts the door gently behind him.
Lily sniffs and says, “When did Connor Cobalt become the tooth fairy, granting wishes in the middle of the night?” We’ve known for a long time that Connor Cobalt possesses some form of magic.
I smile, tackling and pinning her on the bed. I plant kisses all over her face, and she laughs into more tears. I realize I’m crying again too.
We’re starting to feel in control of our own lives.
It comes with sentiments so strong that the only response is to laugh, cry, and finally, fall into a peaceful, quiet sleep.
35
0 years : 10 months
June
LILY CALLOWAY
“You passed all your classes?” Ryke asks for the third time on the couch, the disbelief a little insulting.
“Yeah, I mean, I was only taking three this semester, but I passed.” Granted, they were pass or fail online courses from Princeton, but still it’s Princeton so I deserve a tiny pat on the shoulder, back, arm, I’ll even take the ankle.
“I never even saw you crack open a textbook.” His lack of confidence in me is nothing special.
“You wouldn’t. I did most of my homework in my room.”
Lo snacks on sour gummies beside me. “And weren’t you busy climbing rocks?” he snaps at his brother. We’re barely into our movie marathon with Ryke and Daisy, and we’ve already had to pause The Fellowship of the Ring five times for unnecessary interjections that don’t pertain to hobbits or hot elves. When we learned that both of them hadn’t seen The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Lo and I wanted to correct that immediately. At this rate, we’ll finish all three movies by next summer.
“Not all the time,” Ryke refutes, shaking his bag of popcorn beneath Daisy’s chin. She’s squished beside me and him.
She absentmindedly scoops a handful, eating more now, especially since one of her giant modeling campaigns wrapped up.
“Let’s watch,” I say, pressing a button on the remote. When Frodo arrives at the elven kingdom, my mind wanders to celebrations. The nearest one for all of us is only in four days. We’ll be in France for Connor and Rose’s wedding. We’ve all kept the secret about the switch from her, and despite Connor’s proclamations that he has it under control, I’m a little worried she’s going to have a mental breakdown from the surprise.
Rose isn’t the type who fantasized and planned every detail of her wedding when she was a little girl. On the contrary, Rose never thought she’d tie the knot. But she’s also a touch OCD, and having someone else control the biggest day of her life might upset her.
That is, if Connor doesn’t nail the details to perfection.
The wedding also marks the end of the reality show. No more cameras. No more communal showers. No more Philadelphia townhouse.
Daisy picks the fuzz on a blanket, hardly watching the film. Returning to our Princeton house will be the hardest on her because it means that she has to go back home, to live with our mom and dad. These six months have been like one long, extended summer camp, and probably the first time that she’s felt included in our group.
Before the reality show, she tagged along and asked to join us. For the past six months, it’s been unspoken that she’d belong in any event we planned. I don’t want to go back to the way things were. I want Daisy to be with us, but at the same time, she’s only seventeen.
She has prep school.
I scroll through Twitter on Lo’s phone, too curious. He glances over my arm, and he must realize it’s not Tumblr because his gaze returns to the TV.
His feed is loaded with tweets from comic book artists and fans of TV shows like Game of Thrones. My eyes sting from staring so hard, about to shut the app. But I pause as I graze over a hashtag.
#CoballowayPornTape
What? My brows crinkle, and the first tweet near the top is from a credible news station.
@GBANews: Connor Cobalt & Rose Calloway have sold their p**n tapes to a very large distributor. Clips already streaming online.
My heart nosedives to the bottom of my stomach. This can’t be right. My breath catches in my throat. Rose would never share her own sex life on the internet if she can barely share miniscule details among her friends. I practically pummel Lo with my bony body, squishing into his space.
“Lil?” I hear the concern in his voice.
I hand him the phone, and at the same time, I switch the television to the other HD input, turning on cable.
“What’s going on?” Ryke asks, his arm stretched on the back of the couch.
I answer by flipping to the news. I reread the headline at the bottom, over and over, expecting them to say April Fool’s. But it’s not April. And this is far, far from a joke.
Sex Tape of Rose Calloway and Connor Cobalt Sold to Porn Site for $25 Million.
“Fucking hell,” Ryke mutters.
“This can’t be right,” I say aloud what’s been floating in my head. No, no, no. I never had videos of my sex life broadcasted to the entire world. This goes beyond what happened to me. This is—this is life-altering, earth-shattering bad.
I’m so sorry, Rose.
Lo shakes his head, in a fog. “It had to be Scott. They must have had cameras in the bedrooms.”
“What?” I squeak. “Our bedrooms too?”
“No, Lil,” Lo says quickly. “If they had a sex tape of us, it’d be on TV before Connor and Rose’s.” He’s right. I’d be more “newsworthy” since we’ve been in the media much longer.
Still, the fact hardly lessens the enormity of the situation. My sister…
The reporter starts speaking, grabbing hold of my dispersing thoughts. “If you’re returning with us, news just broke about the heir to a Fortune 500 company, Connor Cobalt and his girlfriend, Rose Calloway, selling a sex tape. Another Calloway girl in a scandal,” she says. “This time there’s legitimate proof.”
“Oh shit,” Ryke curses.
I follow his gaze over the couch, spotting my sister who marches down the staircase. Lo snatches the remote and powers off the television. It blinks to black.