Kiss the Sky (8 page)

“Hey,” Lo says, tugging her to his chest, now settled on his
lap. “You don’t have to tell that old hag anything.”

Ryke
shakes his head and mutters
under his breath, “Did he just fucking call her an old hag?”

“Yep,” Daisy says.

“Fucking fantastic.”
 

Lily doesn’t look well. Her shoulders curve forward like
she’s a shivering puppy caught in the rain. I stand next to Connor. “Okay,
Madame…” I can’t even say her name without rolling my eyes too. “…either you
leave early…” I give Scott a glower before he can refute. “Or stop badgering my
sister.”

But her lips fly open again. “Why would you get married if
you’re full of apprehension?” she asks Lily.

I am going to kill Scott! If he planted these questions at
all…I actually let out a little growl, and Connor puts a hand on my shoulder. I
want to pluck out Scott’s eyeballs with my nails. And then stomp on them with
the sharp point of my heel.

I spin towards him, my eyes growing hot. “Did you tell her
to ask these questions?”

Scott feigns confusion. “Now why would I do that?”
 

Lily stammers. “I-I’m not apprehensive.”
But she is.

After her sex addiction became public, Fizzle’s publicists
suggested the best options for damage control. At the top of the list—a
marriage. It would show that Lily’s in a committed relationship. That she’s not
as deviant as the world believes.

So our mother and father have cut Lily off financially until
she legally marries Loren. And our parents wanted them to wait a full year, so
it wouldn’t seem like a shotgun wedding. Not very many people know that this is
a scheme. But even so, the marriage will be real. In six more months, she’ll no
longer be a Calloway.

This is not a wedding out of love (even though they’d most
likely marry in five, six years regardless). Our parents decided this for them,
and so the wedding is just one based on money and appearance. Nothing more.

Lily
and
Loren
both have reservations and doubts. I’ve talked to Lily about it, and she’s told
me point-blank that she hates the idea of looking back at her wedding pictures
and just seeing something fake and cold. I want their marriage to start out on
good terms too, but I can’t see a way out of this.

And I do agree with my mother on some level. I do think this
will help Fizzle because it will repair Lily’s image in the media. Do I believe
it’s worth it? That’s only Lily’s call. I know she’s complying with the wedding
more out of guilt for hurting Fizzle, our father’s company, than regaining her
inheritance.

Madame Charmaine holds up her hands. “There are so many
emotions.” She presses her fingers to her forehead.

Connor’s composed, unreadable face is slowly breaking in
annoyance.

“It’s not me!” Lily shouts all of a sudden. She springs from
the couch. “I love Loren. Look.” She kisses Lo on the cheek and then the lips.

He recoils, the exact wrong thing to do to her right now.
But he’s trying to understand her mental state, which is gradually going
sideways. My sister is like a ball of twine that can unravel slowly or quickly,
depending on the person tugging at the other end.

Lily flinches back, not expecting Lo to stop kissing her.
She bumps into the table and knocks over a lit candle.
Oh my God.

“Oh, I didn’t mean…” Tears flood her eyes, thinking she’s
ruined everything. She tries to lift the candle back up, but Loren catches her
around the waist, pulling her to his chest before she burns herself.

The flame ignites a paper napkin and a paper plate. Daisy
picks up the napkin like it’s a dirty diaper, not a ball of fire. “Whoa, guys,
this is pretty warm.”

“Really?”
Ryke
says, grabbing her
wrist and trying to relinquish the burning napkin from her.

“Yeah, really, really. Want to feel?” She smiles playfully,
waving the thing towards him. He doesn’t even jerk back.

“You’re hilarious.”

“I thought I was just smoking hot.”

I’d like to say that I am the normal one out of my sisters,
but I am frantically trying to grab the pitcher of water that sits on the edge
of the coffee table. So much so, that I knock over another candle.

Just lovely.

The cameras are swinging behind us, as wild as the
flames.
 

Daisy has to toss the napkin back down on the table before
it burns her hand. And the psychic yells something about her cards, gathering
them in a messy stack.

And then a pair of hands peels me away from the growing
flames that has eaten our napkins and started for the purple tablecloth. “The
water,” I start, but Connor places me by the wall and then brings out a fire
extinguisher.

In seconds, my boyfriend has snuffed out the fire. And the
psychic has bolted from my house with her purple bag in tow.

The quiet lingers, and all we hear is muffled, “
ImsorryImsorryImsorry
.”

My heart constricts, and I find Lily mumbling the string of
apologies into Loren’s shirt. He has his hand on the back of her head, his
features sharpened. When he looks up at me, he says, “Thank God for Connor,
right?” He tries to play off the pain that contorts his face.

“God always has a way of stealing my credit,” Connor says.

Loren’s lips curve in a small smile.

I think, in this moment, I love Connor more for lightening
the mood than for saving my cedar coffee table. But I am glad this table isn’t
burned.

It’s an antique.

Loren lifts Lily in a front piggy-back so she doesn’t have
to meet the camera’s concentrated gaze.

Scott turns to me. “Looks like we’ll be seeing that lap
dance after all.”

“Excuse me?” I sneer.

The room blankets in tense silence. Scott grins. “You made a
bet a few days ago. I saw the footage. If someone cried during the psychic
segment, you’d have to give your boyfriend a lap dance.”

Shit. Fuck. Shit…

“Lily didn’t really cry,” I say instantly.

Loren shifts her a little, and I see his T-shirt, wet with
her tears. She wipes her cheeks quickly, trying to hide her sadness, but it’s
there. I forget that Loren’s not on my side for the bet. Hell, he’s the one who
proposed the wager.

I snap at Lo, “You should feel awful for profiting off of
her emotions.”

“She was there when you made the bet,” he reminds me. “Lap
dance rain check? Lily and I want a front row seat.”

Lily mutters something that sounds like
only if she wants to
.

“Fine,” I say as Connor’s hand skims my waist. I step out of
his touch, anxiety heating my neck more than the small fire ever did.
I am going to have to gyrate on him. In
public. With millions of people watching later on television. Oh. Shit…

The only upside: the first episode is airing in February, a
month from now. So I have some time before people witness my inability to
grind.

“I think we missed something,” Daisy says to
Ryke
.

He stares down at her. “Apparently I’ve been missing a lot
of fucking things lately.”

She looks away from him, and when she notices I’m watching
her, she just smiles at me. I think
Ryke
is worried
about her. We all are. There’s a small fear she’s going to end up like Lily—sex
crazed and compulsive. All this media attention is affecting her at school in
ways that no one knows. Daisy won’t talk to us about it. And she could very
well blow off steam in a bad manner.

Loren carries Lily out of the living room and up the stairs,
her legs wrapped around him. Wiry Ben follows close behind.

I turn slightly, and my arm hits a camera. Pudgy Brett has a
big smug grin on his face, as if he won the bet too. Well I guess everyone
fucking won but me. “Put that smile away, Brett, before I make it a permanent
frown.” My threat does sound serious (it’s really not), but I’m edgy enough
that I feel like I could truly cause astronomical damage.

I glance around at the coffee table. White foam. Charred
napkins. Burnt food. Dirtied plates. An overturned ottoman. Is that a stain on
the rug? Oh…

“I’ll clean it up,” Connor tells me.

“I’ll help,” Scott adds.

Connor gives him a look.

“What?” Scott smiles. “I live here now. Might as well lend a
helping hand.”

I have a feeling that a “helping hand” is more than I’ll get
from Scott.

Six months. Six
months.

If I repeat it, maybe it won’t feel so long.

[ 6 ]

CONNOR COBALT

This is a shit waste of an afternoon.

The thought runs on repeat as I listen to another Cobalt
Inc. board member drone on about advertising and angel investors. I have the
urge to stand up and let everyone know that they have successfully battered the
conversation.

But I don’t.

These are the highest ranked employees in the company. If
there’s any hope of taking the reins to Cobalt Inc. without looking like I
undeservingly inherited it, I have to bite my tongue. The company owns brands
like
MagNetic
, Smith & Keller paints, and other
profitable subsidiaries—things that have lined my pockets since birth.

I feign interest as best I can, but I’m sitting at the head
of a long conference table filled with twenty middle-aged men. During these
meetings, I’m my mother’s interim—a position she granted me two years ago. It
means nothing really.

On paper, I’m still just her son. This is merely a test.

My mother has never been quick to let go of the empire she
built from the ground up. In order to be a board member, become the CEO, and
acquire her shares, I have to prove myself. Like these meetings or certain
tasks she gives me at the least opportune moments. My cellphone is always in my
pocket, threatening to go off.
 

I keep waiting for the sudden demand to entertain her
business partners or a family friend. And I’m always grateful when she’s
decided to leave me alone for the night.

I type “notes” onto the small tablet in my lap. Really, I’m
outlining an assignment I have to complete tonight for one of my business
courses at Wharton. I may have graduated from Penn last year, but now I’m in
the big leagues. Grad school. I want an MBA. I don’t need it. Not really.

I’ll be CEO of Cobalt Inc. with or without the degree. But
the respect I crave won’t be handed to me so easily.

My phone buzzes in my pants, loud enough for Steve Balm, the
COO and my mother’s most respected board member, to pause his discussion on
finger paints. Steve has been ranting about primary colors and the hearts of
children everywhere. He wants to fuck over Crayola. Not his words, but I read
between the lines.
 

“Are we interrupting you, Connor?” Steve asks, his gray
brows furrowing critically. Steve and I have a long history. I suppose it began
at birth—when he was dubbed my godfather.

I don’t make a move for my phone. “Did I say anything?” I
refute. I hit the mute button before it can vibrate again.

“Aren’t you going to answer that?” Gary Holmes, a
stocky-built board member asks a few chairs down. “Could be Hollywood. You’re a
movie star now, aren’t you?”

Light chuckling filters across the room. They
jest
because they knew me when I was seven years old, when
my mother carted me through the hallways.

I am a boy in their eyes.

I won’t win them over by arguing, by pounding my fists
against my chest and demanding to be taken seriously. So I turn to Steve. “If
you’d like to drive this company into the ground, by all means choose to spend
millions of our research fund into finding an unpatented health-friendly finger
paint.”

Steve doesn’t reveal whether he agrees or not, his face as
blank as mine.

“Katarina wants to expand.” Steve directs the statement to
the boardroom. “She’s giving us a week to propose
viable
options to take
Colbalt
Inc. to
the next level.”

“We could just get in bed with Fizzle,” Gary says, “Connor’s
already a quarter of the way there.”

Before the room can erupt in another wave of laughter, I
ask, “And what would we do with Fizzle? We’re a paint and magnet company.
Should we poison consumers with our magnetic soda cans?” Everyone remains
quiet, eyes flitting between one another. I keep my gaze pinned on Gary as he
reddens and sinks lower into his chair.

I straighten, silently reminding everyone who’s
not
a child in the room.

“It was a joke,” Gary says in defense. He looks to Steve for
support, but my godfather never offers him a life vest. If you’re drowning, you
fucking drown.

“Unless they involve productive opinions, keep your jokes to
yourself,” I say sharply.
Now
I slip
my phone out of my pocket. It was a text…

Virginia Woolf, Jane
Austen, Anne
Brontë
–
Rose

My lips threaten to rise, and it takes all my strength not
to smile. I begin typing and speaking at the same time. “Katarina just notified
me that she’s on her way,” I lie. Though after reading a quick email this
morning, I do know she’s coming later.

Fuck. Kill. Marry.
I
type back and hit send before pocketing my phone.

“Any other fabulous ideas, Gary?” Steve asks. And
there
it is. His opinion. I meet his
eyes and he gives me a small nod, letting me know he agrees with me. I don’t
let out a breath of relief. This is just one meeting of many.

Katarina arrives only five minutes later, and after Steve
offers her a brief update, the board members clear out of the conference room.
Leaving me alone with my mother.

Her deep, dyed red hair cascades in waves over her
shoulders. She takes a seat in Steve’s open chair at my right-hand side. This
won’t be a quick conversation then, but I’ve already spoken to her about the
reality show.