CHAPTER TEN #2
Ryke turns a fraction, his gaze still hidden behind wayfarers. “My brother loves her, so obviously some guys are into skinny girls. Everyone has a different preference.”
Harper interjects with a little too much eagerness. “What’s yours?”
I imagine he’s rolling his eyes right about now. Damn, sunglasses, I’d actually like to see him break in front of a few girls. How is he going to handle all twenty together?
He doesn’t miss a beat. “I like women. Big breasts, curvy waists, an ass I can grab.” He keeps steady, unflinching.
I am cringing inside and slightly aghast that he even responded back.
Daisy’s friends look around at each other, realizing that they all have tiny hips, decent-sized boobs and no butt.
Daisy scrutinizes Ryke for a while and then says, “How big of boobs?” Ohmygod.
“How about we change the subject?” I say.
“Big,” Ryke tells her.
“You like to grab those too?” Daisy tries. Her friends literally gasp out loud .
Ryke’s lip twitches, but he holds back what I think is a smile.
I’m glad he finds this amusing. I do not.
At all. This is like…no. If Lo was here, he’d have yelled at his brother for flirting back with an almost-sixteen-year-old.
That’s what Ryke’s doing. Even if his intentions are to start an argument or make someone uncomfortable, it looks like flirting.
“Only if I hear a woman moan when I do it.”
“Ryke!” I shout at him. I mouth, enough.
My eyes widen to emphasize the severity.
I know he’s not intentionally trying to flirt back, but he’s about to cross a line.
And I suspect he knows it exists, and that he’s crossed many in his life.
Maybe he thinks traditional rules don’t apply to him. Or maybe, he just doesn’t care.
Daisy opens her mouth to say something back, but he cuts her off, “There’s your male perspective.” He turns back to the television, closing off to the girls.
Cleo isn’t finished harassing me though.
“About Loren Hale, he’s in rehab, right?
My parents heard from some family friends.
” She nods to the Katy Perry girl. “You remember Greta? Her parents found a dime of coke and she got sent to rehab. It’s like they don’t understand that we’re young, and we want to have some fun. They’ve done it before.”
“Yeah,” Katy says. “It’s so hypocritical.”
I hate that they’re comparing Lo to a teenager screwing around. That’s how it starts, sure, but his problem has exceeded a small dose of adolescent rebellion. It’s not a shame that he’s in rehab. It’s what my father said… admirable.
“He chose to go,” I defend my boyfriend, heat gathering in my eyes. “He wants to get help.” Which is a better place than where we were before.
The lounge silences in this awkward layer, and Cleo presses her lips together, avoiding my narrowed gaze.
Thankfully, the snacks parade over on a tray, rescuing me from the tense situation.
The girls start chatting again, and I look to Ryke.
He gives me a supportive nod, which means more to me than I’ll ever let on.
I want to do this right. I want to be strong and fight, and being on this boat is a big step.
Last time I was here, I was a mess. This is my redo.
Daisy grabs her sub, and her long hair sticks to the tuna that squeezes from the sides. She plops the sandwich back on the tray and uses a napkin to wipe the strands. “I hate my hair,” she mutters under her breath.
“Ever heard of a ponytail?” Ryke says to her. His antagonizing is not helping. After New Year’s I realized her “signature trait” brings up insecurities.
“Yeah,” Daisy snaps back, “want me to put your hair in one?”
Cleo shakes her head. “He doesn’t have enough hair for that.” She bites into a strawberry.
“You could always make really tiny ones all over his head,” Harper chimes in.
Ryke keeps his gaze trained on Daisy. “You shouldn’t bitch about something that you can change.”
Daisy’s lips form a tight pout. She pulls the hair band off her wrist and gathers her long locks into three sections, braiding them easily. “Happy?” she snaps back.
“Only if you are,” he says. “It’s not my hair.” He returns to his basketball game where he rightfully should stay. He’s making me paranoid. I do not want my sister to grow attached to him or think that he’s giving her attention for the wrong reasons.
Cleo crosses her ankles, sitting on an ottoman that faces us. Her baby blue bikini washes out her fair skin. “Aren’t you going swimming?” she asks me. “Where’s your bathing suit?”
“I’m going to put it on later.” Though I am not looking forward to swimming with Daisy’s friends.
Cleo’s stares have given me a third degree burn.
She does not like me. Her hatred could stem from anywhere—like the fact that I’m the only one who brought a guy on the trip, or that I’m four years older—so I try not to waste my time questioning it .
“What about you?” Katy asks, scooting closer to Ryke on the couch.
“You swimming with us?” Her long lashes flit over the curvature of his body, the angles of his muscles that cut so supremely.
Of course he rock climbs. His muscles scream, “I scale mountains!” Not just “I run a shit ton!” I should have known. Silly me.
“I’m going to finish watching this game first.” His voice tightens, and he sits more rigid than before.
I want to laugh, but I can’t because out of the corner of my eye on another ottoman, I see Harper pulling out a travel-sized vodka bottle, dumping the contents into her virgin daiquiri.
“What are you doing?” My brows pinch. Is she serious? I’m sitting right here. Am I not that threatening? My mother specifically said no alcohol. They all heard her warning before she sent them off in the limo.
“Your boyfriend may be an alcoholic, but I’m not,” Harper tells me with a dry smile.
“Harper, that’s so fucking rude,” Cleo says in this pretentious tone that makes it seem like…well, not that fucking rude.
I can’t take anymore. “I’m going to go put on my bathing suit.” I shoot up from my seat, and Ryke, surprisingly, follows suit.
Daisy mouths an apology as we go inside. I shrug my shoulders to try to tell her that it’s okay, but my nerves still vibrate in not only frustration but severe anxiety. Ryke shuts the sliding glass door behind us.
“Afraid of being alone with them?” I ask.
“I’m more afraid of you being alone by yourself,” he tells me.
Oh. He has zero faith in me. “I’ll be okay. We should get our bathing suits on.”
“Sure.”
We head to our bedrooms, and I manage to keep a safe distance from all the male servers.
If Lo is hounded about being in rehab for alcoholism, how would people react to rehab for sex addiction?
I can’t even imagine. Maybe it’s a good thing that in-treatment facilities turned out to be a bust for me anyway.
I wouldn’t want to shame my family with the news—that their daughter or sister is some freak.
I close the door to my bedroom, one of the larger ones with a fancy gold bedspread, a fur throw, and a granite-topped dresser. A Victorian cream chaise rests against the right wall, gold-stitched pillows decorated on the buttoned cushions.
I slip on my simple black bikini and comb my fingers through my short hair before taking a quick peek in the mirror.
If I inhale a deep breath, my ribs stick out.
I feel low, and to combat this sinking emotion, I’d normally jump on my bed and find porn to watch.
Masturbate until everything washes into bliss.
Things need to change, I remind myself. So I back away from the bed and stop fiddling with my fingers.
A knock sounds on my door. “You naked?” Ryke asks.
“No.”
He walks in. “You okay?”
I swallow the lump in my throat. I wish Lo was here. He’d make me feel better. Maybe not even with sex. He’d just smile, kiss me, tell me I’m beautiful and say, “Fuck them.” Because at the end of the day, we were the only thing that mattered to each other. All I needed was him.
“I hate people,” I blurt out. Lo and I used to shun the entire world because we were scared of the ridicule. Of how people would perceive us. We created this bubble around ourselves, filling it with lies and misery, until it eventually popped.
“So now you’re generalizing the entire world for three catty girls?” He picks up a sailboat decoration on the dresser, overturning it as he talks. “Four girls, if you want to include your provoking sister.”
“I exaggerate a lot,” I tell him. “And if anyone’s provoking, it’s you. ”
Ryke lets out a long, dry laugh. “That’s funny considering your boyfriend is ten times worse with his words. If anyone can poke at someone’s soul, it’s him…and probably my father, but that’s another story, isn’t it?” His lips form a pained smile.
“So you don’t hurt people with your words?” I question with raised brows.
“You want to know the difference between Lo and me?” Ryke asks, leaning his elbows on my dresser, nonchalant and assholish all in one swoop.
“Sure.”
“You remember the Halloween party? Lo stole liquor from the house, and he barely admitted that he took it. Before you came out there, he spent about five minutes telling them all the ways in which they were complete fucking morons. It wasn’t even close to being funny, especially not when he told Matt that guys like him are worth nothing in life.
That they’ll take shit and eat it until they fucking die. It was cold and cruel.”
My chest hurts because I believe every word Ryke is telling me. I’ve heard Lo tear down people in prep school until they cried, not because it made him feel better but because they hurt him first and it was his greatest weapon of defense.
“He walks away sometimes,” I say in a small voice.
“He’s not always like that.” I defend him because he’s not here to speak for himself.
And what I said is partly the truth too.
Lo knows when to walk away. Like the first time we were at The Blue Room.
If someone’s harassing him back, he won’t stand there and take it for long.
He’s too used to verbal abuse, and I think he’d rather not be weakened and drained by it.
He’d rather just get out of the fucking way.
“Okay,” Ryke says, “but in the context of the Halloween party, he didn’t.”
“And what would you have done, Ryke? Not stolen the liquor? Not started the fight? Congratulations.” Rehashing the past puts a bitter taste in my mouth. We can’t change that event. Talking about it rubs my skin raw .
“I would have punched him,” Ryke says easily. “I would have decked the little shit in the face. That’s the fucking difference.” He straightens up, and my jaw slowly unhinges, not expecting that.
“You don’t seem like a fighter.”
“I don’t?” Ryke says, his eyes pulsing with something fierce. “If someone is giving me shit, I’m not going to stand there and take it. Maybe Lo was defenseless all his life, but I wasn’t.”
“And then what? It would have been four to one at that party. You would have gotten your ass handed to you.”
“I never said it would be the right thing.” He shrugs. “It’s just a different kind of wrong.”
His wrong. And Lo’s wrong. Neither are better or worse, I realize. Their dissimilar upbringings make them react to situations in opposite ways. That’s what he’s telling me.
It also makes me incredibly sad. Because he basically admitted to being as damaged as his brother. I picture his fist flying into Matt’s face before awful words are spewed, impulsive and brash.
Only it’s a different kind of damaged.
Just as he said.