Kiss the Sky (50 page)

“I
thought I told you I left him behind.”

Connor
shakes his head. “You must have mentioned that to someone else, darling.” He
takes my wine glass again and finishes it off with one long gulp.

“What
the hell was that?” Loren asks Connor. “Greg gives me a two hour speech about
sobriety after our scandal, and he doesn’t even acknowledge yours.”

“To
be fair,” Connor says, “you lied to Greg and Samantha about being addicts. That
news is a bit more jarring than a sex tape…” His voice drifts off on the last
words.

We
all turn to see what stole his attention.

There
he is.

Standing
by the staircase like nothing’s wrong.

Scott
Van fucking Wright.

The
room silences in an uncomfortable wave. My body is vibrating in rage, and I
realize I’m squeezing Sadie too tight when she lets out a small,
dissatisfactory hiss.

Scott
looks between all of us, and then his lips lift into that shit-eating grin.
“Did I miss something?”

Before
I can respond, Connor walks
casually
towards
Scott, my boyfriend’s face utterly blank and unreadable. I can’t predict
anything, and that unknown has all of us on edge, no one but him making a sound
or a move. I just hear Connor’s expensive shoes tap the hardwood until he stops
right in front of Scott.

And
then Connor holds out his hand, like he wants to shake the producer’s.
“Congratulations,” Connor says. “You outsmarted me. Not many people ever do.
And I admit…I never saw this coming.”

His
wooden voice frightens me.

Scott
stares at his hand and then back at his face. He shrugs like
what the hell?
and then he clasps
Connor’s palm.

What
is this? A truce—

And
then Connor decks Scott in the jaw with his free fist. Scott slams into the
wall forcefully. “That’s from me,” Connor says, anger lacing his voice.

Scott
gathers himself quickly and swings back.

Connor
dodges the attack and then kicks Scott,
hard
,
in the penis. Scott groans in horrific pain.
Fuck yes!
I am cheering on the inside. There are cannons shooting
out confetti in my brain. Halle-fucking-
luiah
.
 

“That’s
from Rose.”

Scott
is in a crouched position on the ground, his eyes watering. He grimaces and
slowly stands, clutching onto the wall for support.

Connor
doesn’t back away, not even a little scared of being hit back.
 

Scott
chokes on a cough, looking like he doesn’t want even the slightest
chance
of that happening again. “…I’d
love to see your face when you realize what you’ve signed.”

“You’re
seeing it now,” Connor tells him calmly, not giving Scott anymore satisfaction.
I love him for that. “I’m positive you have full rights to anything we ever
film, which gave you permission to sell the sex tape to a porn site without our
signed consent. I don’t have the contract in front of me, but I’m sure there’s
something misleading about the part where you weren’t allowed to film us in the
bedrooms.”

“I
read
that line correctly. I know it,”
I say. There was a stipulation about the bedrooms…wasn’t there?

Scott
hunches a little, still recovering from the blow to the balls. “It said that we
couldn’t
air
anything from the
bedrooms on
television
. We never did.
The contract said nothing about filming. And any of the footage from the
bedrooms and the bathroom can be used for movies and web content. Just not
network TV.”

OhmyGod
. I blew Connor in the bathroom.

Scott
laughs devilishly as he watches my face fill in horror. He has…so much footage
of us. I recollect every time we had sex. He has it all. Hours of us, fucking.

Lily
and Loren…

Scott
must read my stricken gaze that travels to my little sister. “Lily was almost
always in her room,” Scott says, “we weren’t able to install any cameras to
catch anything.” Right. They had to reinstall cameras because I made Connor and
Loren sweep the bathroom and the bedrooms when we first moved in.

I
glance at
Ryke
.

“I
didn’t fuck in the house,” he says.

I
turn to Daisy. Her face pales.

Connor
eases her worries. “It’s illegal to film minors in pornographic situations.” He
glares at Scott.

We’ve
caught him.

He’s
going to jail.

“We
didn’t,” Scott says. “All that footage was destroyed.”

Fuck you!
I unleash Sadie, about to ram my heel
up Scott’s ass. But
Ryke
stands behind me and holds
me back, two hands on my shoulders. It takes me a moment to realize that Connor
is staring at
Ryke
, giving him a command through his
eyes to restrain me.

“You’re
disgusting!” I shout at Scott with an extra high-pitch scream.

Scott
stays calm. I am the only one freaking out. How is that possible? He dropped a
grenade on
my
life. I want everyone
to be as fucking
pissed
as me.

But
I realize that when I’m angry, there’s almost no room for anyone else to be the
same. I am a hurricane. A typhoon, and I will
destroy
everyone in my wake.

Yes,
dramatic.

But
that’s just how I fucking feel.

Get
out of my way. Or I’ll drown you.

“The
text message from Julian?” Connor asks Scott.

“Planted.
Brett took Julian’s phone in the middle of the night and texted it to
Ryke
.”
That pudgy
asshole. I knew he wasn’t on our side.
 

“Lily
and Lo in the bathroom with the slurping audio?”

“Edited.
We did it in advance and uploaded it on the camera for you to find.”
That motherfucker...

“The
alcohol in
Lo’s
closet?”

“Planted.
Savannah and Ben put it there when Lily was taking a nap. They were supposed to
install a camera too, but they ran out of time.”

…
Savannah and Ben.
I hate them
all
. Where’s the loyalty?

Ryke
takes his hands off me and starts to near Scott.

Loren
doesn’t do a thing. He’s just whispering in Lily’s ear and she nods back.

“You’re
going to fucking hell for this!”
Ryke
says with
darkness swirling in his brown eyes.

Connor
shoves him back the moment he’s close. And then Connor turns to Scott. “I’m
going to let
Ryke
go if you don’t get out of this
house. And his fists are going to hurt a hell of a lot more than mine. So take
what’s on your back and
leave.
”

Scott
straightens up, not exactly exiting with his dignity. But he has millions of
dollars in his pockets from
multiple
sex
tapes. He can sell them for much more than the first one.

He’s
set for life.

He
won.

We
lost. How did we lose?

Oh
yes,
hubris.

I
am a Greek tragedy. Or a Shakespearian comedy—it’s going to end with a wedding
after all.

When
the door closes behind him, the room blankets in tension, only disrupted by
Sadie’s collar that jingles as she rubs her body against Connor’s calves.

“So…”
Loren looks from Connor to me and back. “…is there going to be a boxed set of
you two for sale?”

“Most
likely,” Connor says. And every dime will go to Scott and the porn site. Fuck
my life.

He
comes to my side and kisses my temple. There’s nothing we can do. We just have
to deal. With Connor here, I think I can.

I
clap my hands together to alleviate the leftover strain in the room. “Everyone,
go pack. We’re leaving, you heard Dad.”

I
picture my gated house with the black shutters, large kitchen, and most
importantly—private bathrooms.
Dear God
,
I’m already salivating over a nice hot shower alone with
no
threat of cameras.

I
glance at Connor, who collects my hair off my neck. Maybe he can join me too.

Daisy
shifts on her feet. “I guess I’m going back to Mom’s.”

My
stomach falls again. She’s seventeen. There’s nothing I can do about that, as
much as I want to. And then my eyes drift to
Ryke
,
the other one who will be left in Philly. It’s weird. We’ve been together in
the same house for so long that breaking our routine feels odd. Like a puzzle
piece out of place.

We’ve
become something of a family.

A
dysfunctional, fucked up family. It’s hard to let that go.

But
things are changing again. The reality show helped Calloway Couture, and in one
moment, this sex tape could topple all I’ve sacrificed.
 

I’ll
have to confront the public at some point, and it’ll have to be more than just
waving a glass of whiskey at the television.

I
could be hated and condemned like my sister.

I
hear the criticism already. And I don’t wilt by it. I’m just angry.

So
bring it on, motherfuckers. Try to hurt me. Because I won’t let you.

You’ve
won the right to see my body, but you’re not taking my pride.

It’s
too excessive to destroy anyway.

[ 49 ]

ROSE CALLOWAY

The townhouse is empty except for my heavy cedar table
in the living room. I set my small duffel bag on the kitchen counter as Connor
descends the stairs.

“All the rooms are checked,” he tells me. “Nothing’s left
behind.”

“Except my dignity.”

His eyes deepen in concern, the same look he’s given me the
entire time we’ve been packing. I’ve shut down any conversation revolving
around Scott and the sex tape. But now I’m no longer fueled by my liquid
courage, and I’ve had two hours to shake off the shock and process what’s
happened.

“I’m sorry,” I immediately say. He comes over and touches my
cheek. But I take a step back, and his hand falls.

“Rose—”

“Just let me get this out.” I take a deep breath. “It’s my
fault that we have a sex tape…soon to be sex
tapes
.” I grimace, but I don’t back down from his gaze. I don’t
cower. “It was my fault.
Mine.
And
I’m so, so sorry. Your penis is now all over the internet, and that’s on me.”

He smiles at the last line. I narrow my eyes as he nears me
again and cups my cheeks. “Rose, you don’t have to apologize to me,” he says
sincerely. “It was a mistake.”

I cringe again.

“I know,” he says. “You and me, we don’t have many of
those.” Connor combs my hair away from my eyes. “But they happen.”

I exhale and nod. I’ve been holding so much in—looking more
like a wooden board, like someone shoved a broom up my ass, on red alert,
waiting for the next attack. I’m trying to let this go, but it’s a little
difficult. My naked body is all over the internet, and my world has changed in
one millisecond and moment of time.

What’s done cannot be
undone.

“Can I try something?” he asks me.

I frown deeply, not understanding. Not until he clasps my
wrist and pulls me into his arms. And then he places his large hand on the back
of my head, guiding me to his chest so that my forehead nestles safely in the
crook of his shoulder.

Darkness is here.

The kind I don’t like to meet.

Emotions so cavernous stir within me, and a powerful surge
bubbles them to the surface, a force I can’t stop. The layers I wear to muffle
the pain start to peel off quickly. The tears come first. Silent. And then the
sobbing. Louder. The type that shakes my whole body. I have fucked up so badly,
and it’s not just me that’s paying the price. I
hate
that I dragged someone else down from my mistake.

Connor may lose his job over this. Cobalt Inc. may not take
kindly that their future CEO is a porn star. The loss of Calloway Couture will
hurt me, but knowing that I ruined someone else’s dream—that’s unforgivable.

I can’t stop crying. I hate tears. I hate what they mean,
but in the confines of Connor’s body it feels safe to show this part of myself.

He holds me tighter, and I clutch onto the fabric of his
shirt.

“Let it out,” Connor coos as he strokes the back of my head.

My privacy has been stripped, and I’ll
never
get it back. I feel so incredibly violated, but Connor has
somehow muted this pain that tries to pummel me. The way he holds me, with
reassurance, with commitment and confidence, makes me believe that I can
overcome anything. I think all my life he’s helped me find power inside of
myself so that I may barrel forward and never look back.
 

I don’t know how long he holds me while I cry, but when I
feel drained, when the tears have ended and I master the strength to lock away
the guilt, I withdraw from his warm chest.