“Every f**king minute, Calloway.”
I punch his arm, and he turns around and decks my bicep with the same force. “Jesus Christ,” I curse. And he double taps me again for those words. Shit.
“It hurts, doesn’t it?” he tells me.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” I wave him off. It’s better than a swear jar. Money isn’t a big enough penalty.
Lily is still entranced by Ryke and Daisy. After a couple seconds, I catch her attention, and her gaze falls on mine. I motion between us with my hand, and then I make a crude gesture with my mouth and my tongue. I watch her freeze, the banana mid-air while her face flushes in a deep shade of red.
Her eyes dance around the room, checking to see if anyone is watching us. They aren’t.
And then she points to her chest and mouths, me?
I nod. Yes, Lil. You. Two more seconds later, I close the space between us and I have her wrapped in my arms. These are the kind of embraces I live for.
33
LILY CALLOWAY
Still no photos of Jane Cobalt.
The headline on today’s Celebrity Crush article has Rose full of glee. Since Jane was born, she’s been on a mission to keep her daughter away from paparazzi. Yesterday, Rose stepped outside the gated neighborhood with Jane, taking her to the Calloway Couture boutique, and cameramen swarmed her.
I know this, not from firsthand account, but watching entertainment news. In the video, it looked like Rose was walking through a concert festival of photographers, just to reach the front doors of her store. I hadn’t seen her so protective and mad in a long time. If she wasn’t holding Jane to her chest—the baby shrouded by a blanket—she would’ve definitely nut-kicked a guy.
Her bodyguard held them back, and I could even detect Rose’s appreciation for Vic. She won’t utter the words, but our parents were right about the extra security. The bodyguards are a helpful force.
Rose paints my toenails on her bed while Daisy makes faces at Jane at the foot of the mattress. The baby sputters happy noises at her aunt.
“Does it annoy you,” I ask Rose and gesture to Jane, “that you can’t talk to her yet?”
She dips the brush into the purple lilac polish. “It’s aggravating at times. Life would be easier if they just came out of the womb with proper verbal skills. It’s one of the many reasons babies are intolerable…” She pauses and her eyes flit to her baby. “But Jane is different. She makes up for the blubbering in other ways.”
Daisy clasps one of Jane’s little hands. “Like what?”
Rose stays quiet for a moment and pensively watches her daughter, those big blue eyes and soft cheeks. “She just gets me.” Her glare turns on me first. “And I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s what I feel, so it can’t be wrong.” She might as well go ahead and flip her hair over her shoulder to cap it off. Rose twists the polish, sets it aside and scoots closer to the foot of the bed where her daughter lies.
She scoops Jane in her arms, still a little stiff, but Jane snuggles into her mom’s chest anyway. Not offended by Rose’s cold nature.
Rose touches her daughter’s head, thinly combed brown hair. “Don’t tell Connor,” she says to both of us, “but I was nervous she would like him more than me.”
“I was too,” I tell her.
Her yellow-green eyes pierce me, and Daisy laughs lightly, pooling her platinum hair to the top of her head.
“What?” I ask. “I thought we were being honest.” This was sharing time, right?
“In all honesty, Jane likes us equally,” Rose explains. “She’s already perfect. Not choosing favorites.” Rose plants a small kiss on the top of Jane’s head and sets her back down on the light blue comforter. “You’re going to be amazing, aren’t you?” she asks her.
Jane smiles big and it reflects off Rose’s eyes, softening her icy exterior by a hundred degrees.
When Rose speaks to Jane, she uses her normal voice, so does Connor, no baby talk.
“I can’t wait until you’re old enough to choose your own clothes,” Rose tells Jane, “and your own hair styles, and your own words. And I get to see what kind of girl you grow up to be.”
It almost brings tears. Rose doesn’t want her daughter to be just like her. She wants her to be herself, a unique individual, to have an identity all her own.
My phone vibrates in my hand. I check the text.
You. Me. Bedroom. – Lo
My pulse begins to race as I text him back.
Now? I press send.
Unless you’d like to wait until later. – Lo
No way.
Now is good.
I take a practiced breath before I climb off the bed, my back aching from carrying so much weight. My stomach is so heavy that I feel like I’m going to explode at any moment. But I just think about those six weeks without sex, and I decide that I want to get as much Loren Hale time as I can.
“Where are you going?” Rose asks.
“Lo wants me.”
“In bed,” Daisy finishes with a goofy smile.
I roast another shade of red, but I don’t deny it. “We’re making up for the six weeks of abstinence.” I pause and ask, “How is it going for you?” Partly, I wonder if it’s really hard, but her struggle will be different than mine, I recognize. Jane was born on June 10th, and it’s already July 13th, so if Rose really wanted to, she could have sex now. Four weeks in. But the doctors recommended six, and Rose usually follows the rules.
“Connor thinks he can have his way with me the exact day I’m physically able to have sex again, and it’s infuriating. Maybe I don’t want to have sex on that day. Maybe he isn’t going to win this time.”
Daisy and I exchange smiles at how worked up Rose is becoming over her husband.
Daisy adds, “Maybe you don’t want to be tied up too.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “Maybe you’d rather be spanked.”
Rose gives me a look.
“I was being serious, not mean like Lo,” I defend myself. I feel badly about throwing Lo under the bus, but I’ll make up for it in the bedroom. I internally nod at this plan.
Daisy raises her fist in the air. “Girl power.”
Rose exhales a breath and then her eyes suddenly light up, as if a devilish idea has sprouted in her brain. “What if I don’t have sex during your six weeks of abstinence too? It’ll be a solidarity pact.” Rose loves those, but I can tell this is mostly about beating her husband in one of their mind games.
“That’s an extra month for you,” I remind her. It sounds crazy and tough, but my sister isn’t a sex addict. She was a virgin until she was twenty-three, proudly.
Rose pulls back her shoulders in confidence. “I’m married to the man. I can have sex with him every day for the rest of my life. An extra month won’t kill us.”
I try not to contemplate Connor’s sexual needs. I’m not sure if he’ll be upset by waiting or if he’ll consider this an even bigger challenge and try to win Rose over.
“I’ll join too,” Daisy says with a smile.
My mouth falls. Whaa…
Rose claps her hands. “Perfect. I’ll call Poppy and we can all abstain in honor of Lily abstaining.”
I whip my head around, wide-eyed. “You all don’t have to do this.” I point to Daisy, who twists her thumb ring in a fidgety manner. “You seriously shouldn’t be doing this.” Ryke is going to kill me.