Hothouse Flower

< 68 >

RYKE MEADOWS

We don’t rush the living room. I walk back and forth in the kitchen a couple times, and then I see Daisy curled on the couch and Rose tucking a flannel blanket around her. Her black dress rises to her thighs as she sits beside Daisy, stroking her hair. Normally Rose would pull down the hem of her dress, but she’s too concentrated on her sister to notice. She whispers to Daisy, who tries to sleep.

Lily pads into the kitchen first, dried tear marks all the way down her cheeks. Lo pulls her into his chest, leaning against the cabinets while she wipes her face.

I’ve spent the last ten minutes explaining what happened with Daisy’s friends to both Lo and Connor. She asked me to do that part, so it would be less awkward. I would have told everyone months ago, but it wasn’t my place. That story is too fucked up and personal and she needed to talk about it with other people. I couldn’t do that for her.

When Rose’s heels clap into the kitchen, the tension breaks. Her blazing yellow-green eyes are on me, and my back straightens, on the fucking defensive. “I’ve tried to get her to talk—”

“Thank you,” she cuts me off. Surprise coats my face. I can’t hide it, but she continues anyway. “You were there for her, and if you weren’t, I don’t think she could have managed… So thank you.”

My throat squeezes, and I nod in reply.

Connor sidles behind his wife, and his arms slip around her waist. I notice how his palm rests on her stomach for a brief moment or two. His head lowers, and he whispers in her ear.

The silence strings through the kitchen, and there’s this unspoken feeling of regret, of wishing we could have been there to fucking stop it from happening. The most I could do was protect her afterwards, but it was hard while she was still living with her parents. She had to walk down the hallways and find an inner-strength that I couldn’t give her. I don’t think anyone could.

Rose is the first to disrupt the quiet. “I can’t believe it was her own friends.”

Friends aren’t forever. Daisy used to tell me that a lot. One of her fucking theories. I wish I could disprove it, but we’ve all had shit luck with friends since the fame. Small price to pay, most people would claim.

“I never fucking liked her friends,” I say, stuffing my hands in my leather bike jacket. “They were fake.”

“I’m not surprised,” Connor adds. “Teenagers can be crueler than most. They feel above the law, especially the ones who come from our kind of lifestyle.”

Lo nods like he understands that. In prep school, he was known to be a fucking bully and be bullied. But he was also verbally abused as a kid—not an excuse, just a fucking fact.

Lo stares down at Lily as she starts drifting off into space. “You okay, love?” he asks.

“I wish that had been me,” she says softly.

He kisses her temple and holds her closer. The room blankets in a velvet silence. No one saying much of anything. But I think everyone’s heads are at the same place. The kitchen is barren, with boxes and boxes piled high. We’re all moving, separating, but it seems like we’re not at the place we should be.

Any of us.

Splitting apart—it feels fucking weird, not right.

“Does your offer still stand?” Lo asks, his eyes on Connor.

“Which offer?”

“The one where we move in with you guys,” Lo says. “I was thinking that we could buy a house with a lot of security. More than this place. And Daisy could live with all of us. I think she might feel safer than living alone with Ryke. And then when the babies are born, we’ll just…we’ll figure it out then.”

It’s probably the most selfless suggestion my brother has ever made. Because I know how much he hates to be moving back in with Connor and Rose. How much he feels like a little kid on a leash, even though it’s probably saved his ass on numerous occasions. But I also know how much Daisy will love this.

How much it will help her.

It’s why no one says anything else about it.

It’s just understood.