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 f**k 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…?”
I slide the phone across the mosaic-tiled table and set it right in front of him.
Since his chair is beside mine, he has to angle his body towards me. “You read my f**king texts?” He glowers.
“Why is she flirting with you?”
Ryke runs his hand anxiously through his thick brown hair. “It’s innocent, Lo.”
That’s not what I wanted to hear. “Does she know that?”
“Yes,” he forces.
“How? How does she f**king know that, Ryke? She’s sixteen, and you’re leading her on.”
Rose stops sipping her margarita. “Are we talking about my little sister, here?”
“We should stay out of this, Rose,” Connor tells her.
Rose snaps back at him in French, and they start arguing in the foreign language.
Ryke groans in distress and annoyance. “I’m not trying to lead her on.”
I snatch the phone back from him.
“Come on, Lo,” he complains.
I hold up a finger and scroll through the texts. Then I read: “I’d rather you just wore my shorts. What is that?”
“A joke.”
I glare, two seconds from chucking his phone at his face.
“A dirty joke,” he rephrases. “Okay, I know. It looks bad.” He lets out a deep breath, almost growling. “You have to cut me some f**king slack. None of this is intentional. It’s just how I am.”
I hate that excuse. He always uses it. He blames his personality for everything—like it’s a scapegoat. “I’ve never seen you talk to another girl like this.”
“That’s because other girls don’t talk to me like this. She’s f**king crazy and bold…” His mouth stays open like he’s about to say something else, but then his lips press closed. Rethinking that last statement.
“Finish it,” I snap. He’s going to say she’s hot. She’s sexy. Whatever. It’s written on his face.
He holds up his hands. “I’m done. I don’t know what else to f**king tell you.”
He absolutely sucks at relieving any sort of suspicion or anxiety that I have. “I’m trying to trust you,” I retort.
“Yeah? You’re not doing a good f**king job of it.”
My insides twist. You’re not doing a good f**king job of it—the words blare in the back of my head. It hurts that he’d even think that.
I lean closer to him, my heart pounding in my chest.
“You came into my life in a lie,” I say. “You weren’t honest about who you were, and when you came clean, I still let you take me to rehab. I still hang out with you, knowing that you could be lying about so much more. That is more blind trust than I’ve ever given anyone in my life. So don’t tell me that I’m not doing a good job.” My eyes burn. I’m giving everything I possibly can.
And it’s still never enough.
“You’re right,” he nods a few times and rubs his jaw. “I’m sorry. You have a right to be cautious of me. I just…” He shrugs, not able to find the words. He turns away and takes a swig of water.
Sometimes I just want to shake Ryke so hard until he tells me things straight. No half-lies. No tiptoeing around me.
I just want the cold truth. All of it. Finding out later—that stings ten times worse.
Why does he have such an easy time speaking freely to other people but when it comes to us he hesitates? It’s like our past is so dense that he refuses to crawl through it at times.
I’m stuck in it.
Like quicksand.
“Can you be honest with me?” I ask, remembering how no one told me that I was a bastard. Ryke had these answers for so long. And even when he finally met me, he kept them to himself for months. To protect me from myself, he basically said.
No one even gives me a chance.
They just assume I’m going to f**k up before I actually do.
I don’t want to be blindsided anymore. Not by the people close to me.
Ryke stares at me for a long moment before saying, “I’d never sleep with Daisy.” He’s said as much before.
Rose suddenly rises from the table, her purse on her arm. “I have to go back to work, but next time you talk about my little sister in the context of f**king, be smart enough and don’t do it in front of me.” She drills a glare into Ryke. “She’s reckless and impulsive, and despite those flaws, she’s still my sister. I love her more than I will ever love any of you at this table.” She pauses. “And you should know that I own a gun. I’m also a better shot than Connor.” With this, she spins on her heels and walks confidently to the exit.
Connor never takes his eyes off Rose.
I’m so glad I’m not dating her.
I focus back on Ryke. “Why does Daisy have your shirt and shorts?”
“We rode to a quarry and went swimming,” he explains. “My friend Sully was there. We ended up at her house…” he trails off, putting doubt in my head again.
“You mean her parent’s house?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Just to dry our clothes. It was closer than my apartment.”
“This sounds so sketchy—”
“I know, but it’s the f**king truth. I had to leave early, so I ended up just wearing an extra pair of shorts in Sully’s Jeep. I left my clothes in her dryer.” His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “I promise it wasn’t anything like you’re thinking.” He sets an elbow on the table, angled back towards me. “I know you shouldn’t trust me, but I need you to—I want you to. Please.”
This is a moment that will define the rest of my relationship with him. I can sense it. “I’m going to ask you this one time, and I want you to be completely one-hundred percent honest with me.”
Ryke nods. “Okay.”
“Are you attracted to Daisy?”
He stares directly into my narrowed eyes. And he says, “No.”
I try to breathe a sigh of relief, but this nagging devil on my shoulder says: Don’t believe him. Don’t trust him. Don’t love him.
All he’ll do is hurt you.
“Not one time? She’s a model—”
“She’s gorgeous,” Ryke admits, “but she’s sixteen, Lo. How many times do I have to say the same thing for you to f**king believe me?” I don’t know.
“And when she’s eighteen?” I ask. I’ve never seen Ryke with a girl longer than a few weeks. I can’t stomach the thought of my brother screwing over Daisy.
“No. Nothing’ll change,” he tells me. “I promise you that we’ll always be just friends.”