Hothouse Flower

< 21 >

RYKE MEADOWS

Lo raises his arms as we walk down the hallway towards him. “I called you ten times. What the hell were you doing?”

I point to Daisy beside me, a normal amount of distance between us even though I’d rather be back in the stairwell, with her wrapped in my arms. “I was trying to find this one. She wasn’t in her room.”

“I went for a vending machine run,” she says, masking the lie with a bright, overwhelmingly beautiful smile.

Lo relaxes some. He wears a backwards baseball cap, looking like a fucking ‘90s kid. But it’s partly to disguise himself from people, not that it’s doing a good job. He has striking features that bring attention, even among male models.

“So you came to check up on me?” Daisy asks with an even larger smile, bouncing on her feet as we stop by her hotel door. She looks to the other person next to my brother.

Two inches taller stands Connor Cobalt.

We’re the only ones who hopped on Connor’s company jet.

And it’s a new situation that none of us are used to—the three of us alone with Daisy. Usually it’s Lily, not the youngest, wildest Calloway with us.

“Yeah,” Lo says. “How are you doing?”

“Better.” She fits a strand of hair behind her ear.

Daisy looks fucking terrible. And I don’t say anything about it, but I think we all can tell that she hasn’t been sleeping. She’s really fucking pale, her body frailer, and all I want to do is hold her and tuck her into bed. I wear my concern outwardly, and I don’t give a shit if someone hounds me for it. I’m fucking concerned, and I’m going to stay that way.

“Right…” My brother says, not believing her at all as he scrutinizes her features.

I asked Lo to come along. I’ve been so fucking worried about his state of mind that it’d be just as hard leaving him as it was leaving Daisy.

But the tension builds in the room because we all know his feelings about my friendship with her. Now that Daisy and I have moved beyond that title, the lie weighs heavy on my chest.

Lies.

I’m used to being wound tight by them, and the guilt will come later. It always does.

“Bad news,” Lo says, turning to me. “Connor fucked up.”

I let out a short laugh. “I never thought I’d hear those magic fucking words.”

“So much of what you just said, I hate,” Connor tells me causally, as though he doesn’t really care, but I see that he does when his lips twitch.

Magic—Connor fucking hates magic.

He also hates being wrong. “What’d you do?” I ask.

“Nothing,” Connor says. “Which is why I didn’t fuck up.”

“He forgot to book a hotel room,” Lo explains. “And with the Rugby World Cup happening in Paris this weekend, plus Fashion Week, there’s nothing here or close by available.”

Fuck. “How’d you forget to do something?” I ask Connor, cringing the moment I give him that much credit. But honestly, he has a photographic memory. He has charts and alerts and fucking notes everywhere to remind him of things too.

“Not that it’s any of your business—I’m having a fight with my wife,” he says. “My mind was somewhere else.” He’s still fighting with her?

“Is she okay?” Daisy asks, pulling her phone out of her pocket to text Rose.

“She’s how she normally is,” Connor says vaguely.

“Bitchy,” Lo clarifies. “High-strung, obsessive compulsive.” He smiles. “God, I’m so glad she didn’t come.”

Connor’s eyebrow arches. “I’m starting to be thankful too. Truthfully, I’m not in the mood to handle two five-year-olds.” He pauses. “And in case you didn’t catch that, I was referring to her and you.”

Lo laughs, not taking the insult to heart. See—that shit is fucking annoying. If I said that to Lo, he’d give me the cold shoulder. But for Connor, he can say whatever he wants in this mellow, chill way and get any reprieve from my brother.

It irritates me so much that I turn to Daisy and hold out my hand. “Your key card.” She takes it out of her pocket and passes it to me. I unlock the door, hearing their conversation continue without me really in it.

Daisy asks, “She’s not texting me back. Should I call her?”

“No,” Connor says as I walk into Daisy’s room. They follow close behind.

She has a chair propped underneath the handle of her bathroom door. I set it back on four legs before any of the guys notice and ask questions.

“I’m worried though,” Daisy says. “She usually answers me within the second.”

“Don’t take offense to this,” he begins. “You’re younger than Rose by seven years, and while I don’t take that much stock in ages, she still feels weak if you console her. In Rose’s mind, that’s her job.”

“But you can console her?” Daisy asks.

“I’m her husband, her equal.”

I can sense Daisy reading into that last word. Her shoulders fall at the idea of not being equal to her sister, at being less somehow.

“Hey,” I nod to Daisy and shake my head at her. “Don’t overanalyze what he’s fucking saying.”

She barely looks at me. Then she asks Connor, “If it’s her job to console me, why isn’t she here?”

This shadowed anger passes through his features. “She’s challenging me.” Connor stuffs his hands in his black slacks. “She wants me to figure out whatever’s been upsetting her, and she’ll do anything to beat me.”

“I thought she said that she had meetings all week,” Lo says with a frown.

“Maybe she does.” Connor stuffs his hands in his black slacks. “But Rose would drop any meeting for her sisters. She should be here. She would be here otherwise. But she wants to win, and winning means putting an ocean between us.” Their relationship is so fucking weird.

“What do you think she’s hiding?” Lo asks.

“If I knew, the game would be over and she’d be here,” Connor says easily.

“Maybe I can get it out of her,” Daisy offers.

“Unlikely,” Connor says. “Lily is probably the only one who knows.” Even though Connor is being honest—that Daisy isn’t the sister Rose would turn to for anything—it still hurts her. She tucks her hair behind her ear again and then disappears into the bathroom.

Connor notices her quick exit.

I take a step towards him and lower my voice. “I swear to fucking God, you need to work on your tact around Daisy.”

“First off, don’t swear to God around me. He’s not listening when I’m in the room. And secondly, I thought she could handle it. I’m misreading a lot of things today. I admit that.” He clenches his teeth, something he rarely does.

“If you need to go home, go home,” I tell Connor.

Lo crosses his arms. “But Lily is there with Rose, so whatever she’s going through, you know her sister will take care of her.”

Lily had to stay back because she has class at Princeton, the only one of us that’s still in college.

And I can tell Lo wants Connor to be here for the duration of the trip. We’re starting our drive to California after this. If Connor bails now, he won’t be coming with us.

“If you go back home,” I say, “Rose isn’t going to tell you regardless.”

Connor nods. “It’s better if I’m here. We’d tear each other apart if we were together right now.”

After a couple minutes of setting down our bags and getting a look around the hotel room, Daisy slips out of the bathroom in pajama shorts and a tank top, her hair still in a high bun. She doesn’t appear upset anymore. While my brother bends down to his bag, digging through a pocket, she approaches me with a coy smile that lifts the corner of her lips.

I remember those soft pink lips on mine, my tongue in her mouth. It seems like a fucking dream. My eyes flicker to my brother, still searching through his bag.

I run a hand through my hair, suppressing that image. While I stand in the middle of the room, she comes close. I watch her carefully as she stops only an inch away. I look down at her.

She whispers softly, “Did you bring my birth control?”

Her eyes flit to my brother for a second, but his back is turned to us. I try not to worry about him right now.

“You willing to gain five fucking pounds by taking it now?” I ask her in the same hushed voice.

She nods, and her breath shallows. She’s not wearing a bra—she rarely does—but her nipples harden, visible with the form-fitting top. I struggle to stop thinking about taking it in my mouth, my tongue at work. I know we just had our first kiss, but I want to do so many things to her, with her. One of the reasons why I’m glad we’re not telling anyone—it forces us to go slow.

I would have fucked her in the stairwell if Connor and Lo weren’t here right now.

And then I’d fuck her again on the bed.

But this heightens everything. Drawing it out will make our first time even better. And I want it to be so fucking amazing.

I glance from her breasts to her eyes. She registers the signal and crosses her arms over her chest, her face heating already. “This almost never happens to me,” she says under her breath.

“Stop imagining me fucking you,” I breathe, “and maybe it won’t.” I brush a flyaway hair out of her face.

She smiles like I guessed her thoughts correctly. “That doesn’t sound fun.” She glances at my brother again who stands up with his toiletry kit. “Birth control?” she asks.

“Front pocket of my bag.” I take a couple steps away from her, and I flip through a room service menu on the end table.

My brother leaves the bathroom door open while he brushes his teeth, and Daisy unzips my duffel bag. Connor watches her, glancing from his laptop screen to Daisy kneeling on the ground.

Before he asks questions, she says, “Who’s sleeping in the bed?”

“You,” he tells her.

“That’s stupid. Ryke and Lo can share the bed, and I’ll take the chair tonight.”

“No,” I say at the same time as my brother, who shouts from the bathroom.

“I don’t want to waste the whole bed.”

Connor adds, “Ryke can share the bed with you. Problem solved.” He types with speed, his eyes not leaving his computer screen. “What talents I have.”

Lo peeks through the doorway, his toothbrush in his mouth. “Did you smoke a bowl on the plane? Because you’ve got to be goddamn high to put her in bed with my brother while we’re in the room.”

“I didn’t say anything about sex.” He stops typing. “I don’t want to watch that any more than you do.”

Daisy’s cheeks redden. Fucking fantastic. I forgot she saw his porn tape. I shut the menu. That’s not particularly something I want to imagine.

I run my hand through my hair. “I’m going to sleep on the floor. It’s not a big deal.”

“Of course. You probably feel at home lower to the ground,” Connor says with a growing smile.

Lo won’t stick up for me where Connor is concerned. If someone else said that to me, maybe. But I’m just supposed to take Connor’s shit because he’s Connor. “Fuck off,” I tell him, not even wanting to waste time on a good retort.

This just makes Connor gloat more.

Lo retreats to the bathroom, turning on the faucet.

I watch Daisy. She keeps her hands within the fucking duffel pocket, and the only time it comes out is to pop a pill in her mouth. She quickly zips it back and stands up.

Connor catches her, and he stares between us in suspicion. “What’d you just take?” he asks her, his voice quiet, which means he’s at least nice enough not to alert my brother.

“Advil,” she lies too easily. “I have cramps.” She slides into the bed without another word. I can tell that Connor doesn’t believe her. If there’s anyone who can see through Daisy like me, it’s him. But he goes back to his work, not uncomfortable by anything she said. But my brother is. I watch him linger in the bathroom a little longer.

I find her Ambien in the end table drawer, and I dole out two pills and hand them to her. She glances at Connor, but he’s busying himself, no longer interested.

I pass her a water bottle, and she hesitantly accepts it. Her paranoid gaze flickers to the balcony door.

“I’ll lock up,” I whisper so Connor can’t hear. “But you have to fucking trust that no one is going to hide in the bathroom.” There’s nothing I can do about that door.

She nods. “Okay.” She sits up on her elbows, her gaze on my lips.

I can’t kiss her right now. Because I can already tell with us, a kiss won’t stop at one fucking kiss. It’ll last five minutes, and we can’t afford that with my brother here.

I surprise her by running my hand slowly from her hipbone to the side of her ribs to her breast—all above her thin tank top. My muscles tighten as she stiffens in arousal, especially as I skim my thumb over her hard nipple.

I’ve suppressed myself from doing something like this for so long. It’s a fucking one-eighty to even go this far. The adrenaline rush is dizzying my fucking head. I watch her slender body, on the bed, lighting up underneath my hand. It grips my cock, and stopping is harder than ever before.

But I imagine my brother.

Beating my face in.

It helps. Somewhat. But I also imagine her with another guy. And that stops me from thinking this is so wrong. Turn back now, Ryke.

I won’t ever turn back.

This is it for me. I want to make this fucking work as best I can.

Her mouth falls, a heavy breath escaping. And then she smiles so fucking bright.

I take my hand off her as soon as I sense my brother returning to the room. Daisy is so flushed that she turns into her pillow to collect herself.

I love watching her feel those sensations—especially after hearing how much she’s been denied them. I want to put her in a state of euphoria more than anything.

I leave her so I can secure the balcony door. The lock is pathetic, nothing more than a turn of a latch. No wonder she hasn’t been fucking sleeping. After that, I head to the entrance, locking the deadbolt and sliding the chain across. When I turn around, Connor’s eyes flicker up from the computer.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Sara is making waves again,” Connor says.

“My mom has already caused a fucking tsunami, so whatever waves she’s making, I don’t really want to hear about it.”

Connor flashes me his phone, not letting me ignore this. I grab the damn thing from his hand. The headline of an article reads: Tell-All Interview with Sara Hale Coming Soon on 60 Minutes.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I say, glaring at the image of my mother, sitting with her legs crossed on a chair against a navy blue backdrop. I have my father’s dark hair, not hers. She’s been described as a Julia Roberts lookalike with golden-brown locks, her nose a little sharp. She’s originally from a poor town of New Jersey, a fighter, she used to call herself when she yelled at my dad on the phone.

“Do you know where I came from?” she would sneer. “If I got here from nothing, you think I can’t stay here and protect my son from you? I’m a fighter. I’m going to do everything I can to keep my head above water. If you don’t believe that, then think again, Jonathan. Think again!”

She’s a woman who can’t let go of a fucking grudge.

I examine the fine print of the article, detailing the interview to come.

Sara opens up about her marital problems with Jonathan Hale, her recent fallout with son, Ryke Meadows, and her plea to reconnect with Ryke. She also discusses the allegations regarding Loren Hale, and in a preview clip, she says, “Through the twelve years that I was with Jonathan, he was nothing but verbally and mentally abusive. The trauma my own son went through with his father…I won’t ever forgive Jonathan for what he’s done.”

“Don’t break my phone, please,” Connor says in a controlled voice. “That’s my lifeline to my wife.”

I’m gripping his cell so hard that I do almost crack the screen. I toss it back to him, my muscles on fire. “Now they think Jonathan traumatized me,” I say with the shake of my head. How can this be my life?

Connor slips his phone in his pocket. “The article could have spun one of her lines. It’s fragmented. Don’t get upset until you watch the interview.”

I shake my head. “Whatever.” I take a few trained breaths, and it returns to normal. But I’d love to go fucking hit something right now. I need the gym, to just pour my energy and this pressure somewhere healthy instead of keeping it in my chest.

I glance back at Daisy. She tries to force her drowsy eyes open, watching me from the bed, her head on the pillow.

“I wish people were nicer,” she says softly before yawning.

Me fucking too.