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 g*y. 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 pu**y 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 f**k? 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 f**k 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 f**king 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 f**king 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.