I’m crying.
I only realize it when the sound of a sob breaches my lips. Wet tears slide down, and I bring my knees up, resting my forearms on them. I hang my head. Stop crying.
“Keep going,” I say in a choked whisper.
I’m surprised that Connor hears me. He takes over and speaks clinically, “how many cocks can fit inside her giant cunt. You better have a leash on your bitch; we plan on riding her tonight.”
The pain rips through my chest.
Ryke is beside me on the ground while Connor keeps talking. I sit idle between rage and grief, my emotions at war. I want to shut it all out, but then I want to feel the coldest, harshest parts of it. Maybe then it won’t hurt me anymore.
After five minutes, my hands balled into fists, my shoulders shaking and my cheeks slick with tears, I whisper, “Stop.”
I reached my limit. I understand why Ryke snapped a fuse back in the street. It’s just too much.
I want to protect Lily from this type of ridicule, but I can’t. And I think that’s the hardest thing to grapple with—that people would come face-to-face with us and say this shit outright.
And there is nothing we can do but sit here and bear it.
Get thicker skin. Don’t be so sensitive, Loren. I am in love with Lily. To be unfeeling from someone hurting her—no rage, no grief—I’d have to be a f**king robot.
No armor can block out this pain. No booze this time. And I remember—almost one whole year ago, I heard defaming words about me and my father. I slid to the floor. I reached into a cupboard for a bottle of Glenfiddich. I broke my sobriety for the first time. And I never got off the ground that night. Not on my own.
Being in the media, I’ve learned to live with this hurt, stand up, and move on.
It’s what I’ll do now. It’s what I’ll do tomorrow and the next day. For however long this fight goes on.
Just stand up.
And I rise slowly to my feet. Heavy and shackled with weight.
I still move.
21
LOREN HALE
“So let me get this f**king straight,” my father says in an edged voice, “the four of you attacked three guys who’ve been harassing you all day. In the middle of the goddamn street?”
We couldn’t avoid our parents for long. As soon as we left the bathroom, Greg and Jonathan called us into the yacht’s living room. I stand between Ryke and Connor while Sam is on the end, the only one of us not beat to shit.
“Technically, they punched Ryke first,” I offer.
“But it doesn’t take away from the fact that you all responded the way you did,” Greg says, facing us with my dad. All the girls, including Lily’s mom, are situated on the couches behind us. Watching. Like we’re testifying in an informal hearing or something. Like we’re little kids about to be grounded.
“I’m not a boy,” Ryke says, somehow not cursing.
“Did hitting someone make you feel like a big man?” our dad taunts. I focus on the crystal glass in Jonathan’s hand: clear liquid with ice cubes.
Not vodka, I want to believe. I wish I trusted him, but a lot surrounding my father has pissed me off this trip, most notably the “date” he brought. I’m surprised she’s not even in the living room right now. She’s been glued to his hip since we left port.
“Fuck off,” Ryke says, not in the mood for an interrogation. I don’t think any of us are.
Greg interjects, “Settle down. We’re just trying to understand what happened.” His gaze traverses along all of us, inspecting our wounds, and my expression only says I want out of here, now. My emotions still grip my muscles like a vice. Every malicious word that Connor and Ryke translated blinks back into my head. Don’t think about it. I’m trying.
God. I’m trying.
Greg’s gaze stops on Sam. “Why aren’t you all torn up?”
“I stayed out of it, sir,” he says. “The fight really shouldn’t have started in the first place. If we’d all just ignored them like I had suggested, I don’t think they would have attacked Ryke.”
I grit my teeth, and I turn my body, about to step towards him. Connor blocks my path, but I can’t shut up about this. “Hey, Sammy,” I say with ice in my eyes, “why don’t you go be a hero on another boat.” I lash out at him, even though I’m angry at the situation. “No one cares about your self-righteous bullshit.” The guilt doesn’t even tear a big enough hole inside of me. Maybe I’m already split open.
“Loren,” Poppy defends her husband, about to spring up from the loveseat. Samantha Calloway grips her shoulder and forces her back down.
“No.” I’m not done. I point at Sam. “He left us, and now he’s acting like he’s the goddamn peacekeeper, like he knows best.” No one knows. Not me. Not anyone. I meet Sam’s narrowed eyes that blaze with hatred towards me. It’s a look I’ve received almost every day of my life from people that I’ve barely met. “You don’t know what’s best, Captain America. You don’t even know what’s right. So stop pretending like you do.”
Connor Cobalt, of all people, said yes to a fight by refusing to restrain Ryke. He wanted these guys to be punched in the face. That has to count for something.
“I left you to help Poppy,” Sam retorts. “Otherwise, I would’ve been there.”
“Poppy has a bodyguard,” Greg replies, fear in his voice, like she was in trouble. She wasn’t. “She should’ve been taken care of.” He turns to Dave, a bodyguard with dark shades on. He sits at the breakfast table with Mikey and Garth.
“She was fine,” Dave confirms.
Sam shakes his head repeatedly. “I’m not seriously being reprimanded for looking after her.”
“You look after the family,” Greg says.
“My family is Poppy and Maria.”
Greg quiets, silently upset. Truthfully, I’ve only ever heard him yell at Sam and Ryke, but this time he enacts his usual I’m disappointed in you look and stays still.
Jonathan takes over. “Your family is everyone in this f**king room,” he retorts. “We’re all bound together one way or another, and there will be a time where you need him.” He points at Ryke. “Or him.” He motions to me. “Just as they needed you tonight. So you want to be a selfish little f**k and paddle out on your own little lifeboat and leave everyone else to drown, so be it. You go do that, Samuel. Because when the rest of us are carrying lifejackets, we won’t throw you one.”
It’s harsh. But nothing about our lifestyle is smooth or easy or uncomplicated. It’s always been us versus everyone else. And it’s hardest when we turn on each other. We all know it. I’m even to blame for causing rifts, but it’s better to stay together than be apart.
“I’m trying,” Sam says slowly, “to grapple with this concept. I’m not used to these kids—”
“I’m not a kid,” I say heatedly.
“I remember you as one,” Sam says. “And if you were grown up, you wouldn’t have given those guys a reaction or a reason to start a worthless fight. You’re about to have a baby—”
“Shut the f**k up,” Ryke suddenly interjects, protecting me from Sam’s words.
I can take it.
I can take it, I believe.
Connor finally speaks. His voice is temperate in a room of combustible personalities. “I understand where you’re coming from, Sam, but before you cast judgment on Loren, you don’t even know what the fight was about. Unless you can suddenly speak Spanish?”