Addicted After All (24 page)

Ryke lets out a weak laugh, his eyes reddening. “I love your daughter like the sun, and I could say and do a thousand things, and you’d never accept me.”

“You haven’t even done one thing,” Greg says with the raise of his brows. “I’m asking for
one
. This is easy. You’ll hear me out after everyone goes to bed, okay?”

Daisy starts, “Dad, don’t—”

“Dais, it’s fine,” Ryke says, squashing an argument easily. I wouldn’t want to cause a rift between Lily and her father, and I know Ryke feels the same. He nods to Greg again. “I’ll hear you out.”

My dad has one-fourth of his drink left. He’s fixated on it—or maybe I am. He’s almost going to finish it off, and I can’t keep speculating. On impulse, I step forward and steal the glass from him.

He cocks his head at me like
really, son?

I sniff the liquid, just smelling lime, but I see carbonation bubbles. Gin and tonic?

And then Jonathan Hale, with his graying sideburns, narrows his deadly eyes and gives me a single dark look:
drink it, son. If you don’t fucking trust me.

I go cold, put the rim of the glass to my lips—

“Lo!” Ryke yells, his hand clamping on my shoulder, about to tear the glass from me.

It’s too late. The liquid slides down, and my taste buds catch all the ingredients. Ryke rips the drink from my hands.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” he yells at our dad. Not at me. Thinking he just broke his sobriety and mine too.

“It’s just carbonated water and lime,” I tell Ryke the truth, a pang of guilt hitting me. My dad wouldn’t sneak around. If he was drinking again, he’d flaunt it. I shouldn’t have questioned him in the first place.

Ryke isn’t convinced. He takes a swig of the drink, and after he tastes the water, his muscles start to relax.

Our dad sighs at Ryke, “I understand why you don’t trust me, son, but you should at least trust your brother. He wouldn’t lie to you.”

“My track record isn’t good,” I say under my breath and then rub my neck.

The silence stretches in the room—like I reminded everyone how many times I’ve fucked up. It’s not like I can showcase my triumphs. They’re hidden behind every mistake.

A redheaded girl abruptly climbs the stairs into the yacht’s living room, adding to the strain. She pinches the stem of a wine glass, her glossy hair draped across her shoulder in curls, wearing a silk green dress that’s practically lingerie.

I tug at the collar of my shirt, my stomach tossing.

She’s twenty-six.

And my father’s date.

Seeing her sours my body, especially as she struts over to my dad and presses her lips against his. I turn my head the same time that Ryke does.

I spent my entire life watching women of all ages parade in and out of my house. Never once did he invite them for an extra night. He attended every party stag. No matter if I was five or fifteen or twenty. He was single in public. At night, he did what he wanted.

I never asked why he refused to marry again or to even date. But now that he’s chosen to do it with a girl practically Ryke’s age—it only makes me sick.

I try to breathe, and my ribs ache. I need air.

Without a word, I just head through the sliding glass doors, the moon illuminating the deck. I bypass the hot tub on the way to the railing.

I just…

I look up at the sky, full of stars, a glowing moon. And I inhale the sticky air, pain shooting through my lungs as they expand. I wince and rest my forearms on the railing, bent over like a force bears on my shoulders. Gravity is tugging me towards the ocean. Bringing me down.

I hear the glass door open and shut, but I don’t turn to see which sorry person has decided to spend extra time with me.

“Do you remember the Cayman Islands trip?” Lily asks, staring at the water in reverence.

My heart pounds, an added beat, happy it’s her. Here. With me. “When we were seven?” I think hard, trying to wash away the blurry haze of our childhood.

She nods. “Our dads had a business trip for the week, and they brought us on this yacht.”

It starts coming back. We were carted around to most of their meetings instead of being kept in daycare. Just us two and a ton of older cigar-smoking men. “We built a fort in the bow with couch cushions,” I recall. I smile at the image of her thin build and big eyes. She was quiet and shy and when the stewards came around to ask us if we’d like any drinks, she’d whisper her order in my ear.

I also can’t remember a night where we didn’t sleep in the same bed. Innocent sleepovers. At first they all were, and somewhere along the way, we changed. I fell in love with her.

She smiles at a memory. “You used to tell me that if I didn’t hold onto the railing, I’d fall right off the boat. Like an automatic spring would pop up underneath my feet and catapult me overboard.”

I nod a couple times. “I didn’t want you to get too close.” I was scared of my best friend drowning. I feared that possibility over my own death as a kid. And then a bigger memory triggers. “You realize we were husband and wife back then.”

She squints at me, trying to picture this.

I gape, teasingly. “You can’t remember our first wedding, love?” I touch my heart. “I’m wounded.” It was right before the Cayman Islands trip. We were just playing pretend, but after we went through the “ceremony” in our backyard, I called Lily my wife on the boat. My dad even fed into it, telling me to “go get my wife for dinner” when Lily was taking too long in the shower.

In our twenties, I never thought we’d be here again. With these feelings more intense than the first ones. With love more powerful. A bad day can overturn into a better one. And all we have to do is be with each other.

Unable to hide her own smile, she says, “We were husband and wife.”

“We were.” I wrap my arm around her waist, bringing her closer. And I kiss her nose.

She’s glowing.

And the pressure on my chest—I realize that it’s gone. Just like that.

I felt my son move tonight. It’s a thought that puts every irritation aside. For the longest time, I thought maybe he hadn’t really been alive. Maybe he was going to be swept from us.

I recognize now what’s important to me. Him. Her. All three of us. “Lil…” I stare down at her green eyes that glimmer in the moonlight. “I’m remarrying you.”

Her lips part. “What?” We haven’t brought marriage up since before I first relapsed, over a year ago.

I turn to her and cup her cheeks in my hands. “Someday we’re going to have another wedding, and it’s going to blow our seven-year-old one out of the fucking water.”

Her smile rises, but it’s filled with heartache, and one of her tears falls on my hand. “Lo,” she whispers, “it’s okay if it never happens, as long as we’re together…it’s enough.”

I screwed it up for us when I relapsed. She believed in something and then I crushed it. “Seven-year-old Lily loved being married to me,” I tell her with a weak smile. “I gave you a million piggyback rides.”

“You said that’s what married couples do,” she notes, her eyes right on mine.

My hands fall to her hips. “Someday I’m going to make it right again,” I say softly. “Promises from me don’t mean much.” I know this. “So I’m going to give you something better.” I shift her behind me, and then I easily lift her onto my back.

I can feel her smiling as she wraps her legs around my waist, her arms around my neck. I hold her securely beneath her knees and I walk towards the bow. “Fly away with me, Lily Calloway?”

She whispers, “Only if we make-believe that we never, ever have to grow up.”

“There’s a problem with that, love,” I say, carrying her on my back across the deck.

“What’s that?” she asks, and I picture her adorable crinkled brows.

I’m smiling more than I have all night. “Our make-believe always turns out real.”

From our pretend weddings, to our pretend relationship—in the end, it’s all become reality. And I would love to never, ever grow up with Lily Calloway. In one universe, we’ll be young forever.

{ 22 }

LILY CALLOWAY

I stare hard at Lo’s back. It’s bare and naked and teasing me. Normally I’d be compelled to jump on him. Koala-bear-style. Now April and back in Philly, my belly has grown much bigger since Daisy’s birthday, so large that it’s a hindrance for all future piggyback rides.

He concentrates on the wall, running a paint roller across the surface. He only removed his shirt when he realized he had on his Cobalt Diamonds tee, a gift from Connor. And like my sister, Connor takes complete offense if you don’t take good care of his gifts. He wouldn’t appreciate a splatter of blue paint across his company’s logo.

My space on the wall looks pathetic in comparison to his section. In defense, all I’m working with is a small paint brush, and it doesn’t help that I’ve been taking breaks. The rocking chair calls out to me. Not only is it the only piece of furniture in the room, it relaxes all of my achy muscles.

Sitting on the floorboards, I languidly move my brush against the wall, not caring much about being neat or perfect. My eyes have landed on a new beauty.

Lo’s butt.

It’s beautiful.

Better than his bare, muscular shoulders. Then again, his butt isn’t naked right now.

“You staring at my ass, Lil?”

I jump in surprise, paint catching my wrist.
Shit.

He looks over his shoulder, a smile in his eyes.

“You have a nice ass,” I tell him.

His grin descends to his lips, and then his gaze flits to the wide open door. Across from our nursery there’s another one.

Rose and Connor had all of their furniture imported from some boutique in Paris. They changed their mind about Hale Co. products at the last minute, and I think it has to do with Connor and Jonathan’s prolonged fight.

Rose offered to ship some items for us, but we want to support Hale Co., so all of our things should be arriving sometime this month.

I spot the baby pink walls and the twinkling chandelier dangling from the ceiling. A room fit for a princess. Even the walls have artistic floral designs, hand painted. Our nursery is bare except for the Hale Co. rocking chair and some muted blue paint.

I’ve never had a problem with my simple tastes, but I worry our kid might.

Maybe he should have a room fit for a prince.

Lo passes me to the door, shutting it quietly.

“Maybe we should hire someone to decorate?” I suggest. Rose has given me three business cards from various interior designers. She’s not-so-subtle with her hints.

“Our nursery will look beautiful, Lil.” He comes closer, placing his hands on my shoulders. “I mean, it may not have a chandelier.” His lips lift.

I smile too.

“But it’s going to be perfect,” he adds. “And if Rose has a boy, you can bet she’ll be jealous of all this.” He motions to the half-painted blue walls. My sister is still pretending that fate is working in her favor and that she’ll have a girl.

No one knows though. She won’t check.

“She has to have a backup plan if she has a boy,” I say. “Like some sort of on-call decorators. Rose is always prepared.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t think she does.” He pauses. “Can you imagine Rose holding a baby?”

“No,” I say honestly. It’s such a weird image. She even holds dolls at a distance, like they’ll grow life-like and start crying and spitting up on her. Rose is anti-babies, so the thought of her toting around a beautiful tiny one with her features…it’s just strange. “She must be really scared,” I realize. Rose keeps a lot inside, so it’s not like she struts around with her fears on her chest. They crop up in the actions she takes, the paths she walks.

“She’ll do fine,” Lo says with more assurance. “She may be an ice queen, but she drops her whole schedule if you need her, Lil, even when you don’t ask her to. That’s love, you know?”

Selflessness. Something that Lo and I are trying to grow into. “You just complimented my sister,” I point out.

His fingers slide up my neck, tangling in my short hair. “I know, it feels
so
wrong.” He strokes the washed strands, not greasy.

Yesterday, my hair reached my armpits. I wasn’t a fan. So I grabbed a pair of kitchen scissors and whacked it back to its usual length, resting against my shoulders. Magazines have already gone crazy over my new “botched” haircut. I don’t know what they’re talking about. I think it looks better.

I stare up at Lo while he towers above me. My eyes flit to his lips.
Kiss me.
The place between my legs pulses for a hardness that he possesses. His hand massages my head in a sensual way. A breathy noise escapes my mouth, and I ache to stand up and press my pelvis against him. But I know my belly will hit his body before my lower half does.

I don’t want to have sex in our kid’s nursery, but I do want to have sex with Loren Hale.

I realize I’m gripping his legs, forcing him right here, beside me. He tugs my hair a little, and another sound breaches. I slowly stand, my heart speeding up a hill. I watch his eyes trail my body with a heady gaze. His arousal only heats all the needy places inside me.

We had sex about two hours ago, before we began painting.

“I’m insatiable,” I say the words that I’ve always known.

“You’re perfect,” he breathes, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. “And after we finish this wall, I’ll finish inside you.”

Oh my God. I clench my thighs together. “You know I only have fourteen more weeks left…” My shoulders curve forward in regret for bringing up my due date like the sex-pocalypse. But it does feel like that. With the birth, I can’t do it for six weeks.

“Are you nervous about abstaining?” he asks me seriously.

“A little,” I admit. I’ve just been so monstrous about sex lately. I can’t imagine not having it for twenty-four hours. Six weeks seems like forever. “But Poppy said I’m not going to want sex, so I’ve been less scared.” She said that passing a baby through my vagina will make me not-so-horny, but I do worry that I’ll be an exception to this. “I’m sure I’ll be so stressed out about Maximoff that I won’t care about sex.” I frown. That seems false though.