Chapter 4 Lily
LILY
“Rise and shine, princess,” an all too familiar voice calls out, as he storms into the room and rips open my curtains.
The groan that leaves me is anything but dignified, as I shove my head under my pillow to shield my eyes from the blinding light now pouring in.
Not that Max lets that deter him. No, instead he rips the pillow from atop my head and tosses it aside, offering me a forced, cheerful smile, while a hint of disappointment lingers in his eyes.
“You look like shit,” he adds, scolding me in only the way he can, and I hide my grimace.
“Good morning to you too, asshole,” I grumble, forcing myself to sit up, which allows the bedsheets to tumble down to my waist.
I don’t miss the way his eyes track the movement, his stare lingering longer than it should to still be considered friendly.
Not that he hasn’t seen it all and more before anyway, but those days feel so far away now that it’s like they never even happened.
It contradicts the statement he just made about me looking like shit, but with the throbbing pain in my head, I don’t have the energy to point it out.
I’ve known Max for almost the entirety of his friendship with my brother, but for most of that time I was nothing but Zack’s little sister.
I was a kid, and between being away at boarding school and their time at college, I barely featured in the background of their interactions.
I was both silent and unnoticed, just the way I like it, but when I came back from college last year, things changed.
I’d grown up, become a woman, and it seemed Max finally noticed I existed.
Not in an obvious or creepy way or anything, but after being mostly allowed to fade into the background in my family, it was hard to ignore his lingering glances, no matter how subtle they were.
That night at Dakota’s, he saw his chance and I let him take it. Fucking him was both exciting and addicting, and it probably would have turned into more, but like I said, that was another lifetime ago now.
“From the stench of stale alcohol, I’d say it was a good night too,” he claps back, grabbing my laundry off the floor and tossing it into the basket in the corner, like he’s done a hundred times, before turning his glare back on me.
“Just drinking away the sorrows of my dead brother, you know, the usual,” I grunt back, tossing the rest of my covers aside and heaving myself to the edge of my bed.
My silk slip bunches around my thighs, and again his eyes track the expanse of my bare skin, as if he can’t help himself, and I fight off the feeling it evokes in me, as he lets out a scoff.
“Logan would feel nothing but fucking disappointment if he could see you now,” he curses without remorse, and if I wasn’t immune to his barbs I would probably flinch beneath his harsh words.
Max is the only person who doesn’t coddle me, he doesn’t handle me with soft kid gloves, or placate me in my grief.
No, instead he treats me exactly the same as before, and it’s both refreshing and infuriating.
He’s the only person in the world who has seen me at the heights of pleasure and the deepest pits of grief.
It affords him more freedom with me than anyone else, and I can’t help but hate him for that sometimes.
Holding his stare, I rise to my feet, ignoring the pounding in my head, as I slowly make my way toward him, not stopping until I am almost pressed against him.
“Didn’t anyone tell you, Foster, dead people don’t feel anything,” I breathe, before pushing past him, shoving him with my shoulder as I head into my ensuite, slamming the door behind me.
Only when I’m under the hot spray of my shower do I let myself break, the tears flowing freely just as they do every day in here, as I wish I was the one who was dead instead of Logan.
Forty minutes later and I am showered, dressed, and heading into the kitchen to fetch myself a drink to take the edge off, but instead of a drink I find the biggest pain in my ass instead.
“Great, you’re still here,” I greet him sarcastically, but the insufferable asshole just smirks as he flips my pancakes and bacon.
“You know I love to start my day with protein and a side of bitchy vixen,” Max replies without pause, and I have to force myself not to remember the real way he likes to start his day, as I grab the jug of orange juice off the counter.
“That before or after you took your sexual frustrations out on my brother on the mats,” I toss back, eyeing him over the glass for his reaction to my words, as I sip my juice with a smug look.
Of course his smirk doesn’t falter, it never does, in fact all he does is smile even wider. “Let me know when you’re ready for a turn again, princess,” he winks, snatching up a strawberry and tossing it into his mouth.
I roll my eyes, ignoring him and the memories he tries to pull on, and turn in my stool to look out over the New York City skyline.
I’ve lived here almost my whole life, well, my whole life with the Roytons, and I don’t really remember a time before them.
I have some brief memories of my birth parents, flashes here and there, but Helen and Arthur are the only mom and dad I truly know.
Logan was my only connection to my old life, to my birth parents, and now he’s gone and only I’m left behind.
I’m grateful for the comfortable silence that Max lets us remain in as he serves up breakfast, taking a seat across the counter from me, and even as I force myself to eat, I can’t stop my gaze from lingering out of the window.
Some days the city seems overwhelming in a way that I can’t imagine such a big and busy place that my brother no longer exists in.
And other days I feel like I am the only one who even remembers his name.
Which isn’t true in the slightest, he was the good twin, the happy one, the one so full of life that people couldn’t help but fall in love with him.
And he found that love, the one people search their entire lives for, the kind people would give their life for, and he did.
A sickening trade that I will never recover from, one still so raw that it stops me from functioning some days.
Because how am I supposed to move on and be happy and let my family help me, when the two people who loved him just as much as I did are part of my family too?
So I don’t go to the house they all call home, I skip the birthdays, anniversaries, and anything else they use as an excuse to try and lure me back into the fold.
I’d rather be alone in my misery than revel in their happiness.
My therapist tells me feeling alone is normal, that grief won’t define me, but she’s wrong.
It defined me when I was a child, and again last year, and I don’t need to use my own psychology degree to fucking know that.
As if he can read my thoughts, Max cuts in. “Therapy at 11 a.m. right?” he asks, a pointless question considering he is the one who booked my first appointment six months ago, and has been taking me every week since.
The first few months after Logan was killed I barely got out of bed, I didn’t eat, I drank more than I do now, and genuinely didn’t care whether I lived or died.
If it weren’t for my brother and Max, I’m sure I would have drank myself into a grave right alongside my twin.
And I get why Zack kept showing up, he’s my brother and there was no way he wanted to lose another sibling, but with Max it was different.
He isn’t my family, and despite the couple of months we were fucking, he wasn’t my boyfriend, far from it in fact, but still he came.
It didn’t matter how many times I told him to fuck off and leave me alone, he still showed up every day and forced me out of bed.
I’m still not sure whether it was guilt from what we did, or his loyalty to my brother, but either way I can’t shake him.
I finish the remains of my orange juice, pretending it’s enough to satisfy my thirst, as I arch an eyebrow at him. “That depends on whether you’ll let me jump out of the window and die so I don’t have to go?” I ask, and like the smug asshole he always is, he offers me a beaming smile.
“No, I won’t,” he chirps back, as if he’s doing me a favor, and I roll my eyes.
“Then I guess we should get it over with then.”
I don’t wait for his response before I push away from the table, knowing there is no point in trying to clear away my plate and glass because he will just smack my hands away.
Instead I head back into the bathroom and brush my teeth, taking one last look at my haunted face in the mirror, before I steel my spine and return back to the main room.
Of course the mess of breakfast has already been erased from my kitchen island, the dishwasher already running, as Max watches me approach from his spot by the front door.
His eyes once again drag over the full length of my body, and the snark is on the tip of my tongue, but when his gaze finally clashes with mine, it’s full of so much heat it almost makes me stumble.
For a moment we just silently stare at one another, and I remember every way he made me scream his name.
I remember the way he couldn’t resist the taste of me, the way his rough hands would throw me around into whatever position he was in the mood for, and the way my body would tremble with the pleasure he gave me.
There are moments where what happened between us feels like a dream, like they didn’t even happen, but then there are moments like this one.
Where the pleasure we shared is still so potent in the air that it’s almost suffocating.
Those are the ones that remind me my body is still alive, it’s just my heart that’s dead.
“You good?” he asks, clearing his throat, making whatever thoughts were in his mind disappear, and I nod wordlessly, side-stepping him so he can open the front door.
Our elevator ride is both silent and awkward, nothing like the breakfast we just shared, and the drive across to my therapist’s office is the same. I almost think he isn’t going to say anything before I can get out of the car, but then he clears his throat again.
“Your mom and dad want to go away next month,” he states calmly, and I bring my gaze from where it was staring out of the window, to his side profile.
“Okay,” I say slowly when he doesn’t elaborate.
“They want to go with the whole family, right after Elle has the baby,” he explains, as panic floods my system.
Of course they do, why wouldn’t they? We always did big, elaborate family trips, it’s some of the last memories I have of Logan.
We all went away for Elle and Marcus’s wedding, it was the last time we were all happy and together like that.
His comment also reminds me that I have basically missed Elle’s entire pregnancy, which stings more than it should, especially when I was by her side for the last one.
I miss her and Cassie more than I would ever admit to anyone, but that’s not what has emotion clogging my throat.
Tears burn the back of my eyes as I nod slowly, because I know what he’s asking without him saying the words. He wants to know if I’m ready, if he can make my parents happy by telling them that I’m getting better, and that I would love to be on that trip with them.
“When you say the whole family,” I start slowly, trying to think of a way to say it, but Max cuts me off, already knowing my deepest fears.
“Yes, Asher and Lincoln will be there.”
Asher Donovan and Lincoln Blackwell, the loves of my brother’s life, who now get to live on without him.
Pain slices through me again, and I can’t stop the stray tear that tracks its way down my cheek, and I know Max sees it because he sighs.
“Look, princess, I know, I get it okay,” he breathes, his fingers tightening around the steering wheel. “I know you want to drown in your self-pity and anger, but you can’t, your family needs you, Zack needs you, so pull yourself together for that fucking trip because they can’t lose anyone else.”
His words echo around the otherwise silent car, hitting me like a fucking whip, as another tear falls to my cheek. With that, he pulls into the underground parking garage of my therapist’s office, double parking across two spaces and not even turning off the engine, as he turns to look at me.
“You’re stronger than this, little vixen,” he says softly, reaching up to swipe away the tear with his thumb. “I just need you to remember that.”
I’m captured by his stare once more, his touch lingering in a way that is neither casual nor comforting, and instead of feeling good, it burns.
Shoving him away, I reach for the door handle, as I reply, “The only thing I remember is that my brother is dead.” Then I get out of the car and slam the door without looking back.