Chapter 28 #3
“Did my father grab your neck”—Lo places a hand on the back of Ryke’s, bringing him close—“and tell you, ‘son…’” He pauses, only inches separate their faces, and something intangible circulates in the air, a tension so thick I can hardly breathe. “… ‘son , grow the fuck up.’ ”
Ryke refuses to back down. He meets Lo’s challenge, not deterring from his sharp gaze.
He even goes one step further and sets a gentle hand on the back of Lo’s neck.
“I’m sorry,” Ryke breathes with so much hurt that it takes me by surprise.
“I’m so fucking sorry, Lo. I’m here for you now.
Whatever you’re going through, I may not have experienced it, but I’m right here. ”
And just like that, Lo takes his hand off Ryke, the strangled moment passing. What kind of response did Lo expect? A fight? Another verbal showdown? Something other than compassion—that’s for sure.
Lo flags down the bartender and acts like nothing happened. Like Ryke never offered to help in some giant immeasurable way.
“Let’s go dance,” I try again.
He avoids my gaze. “I’m busy. Dance with Connor.”
The bartender slides over another small glass. Should I leave him alone? Ryke drinks from a water bottle and watches him carefully. He’ll stay here with Lo. I’ll just…go. Maybe he’ll remember me and follow after a while.
When Connor returns, I convince him to dance with me—the chaste, friendly kind with more than twenty inches between our bodies.
Occasionally I glance back at Lo, but he drinks silently, staring off at the towering racks of bottles behind the bar.
The only difference is the burger in his hand, which gives me some relief.
At least the food will soak up some of that liquor.
I try to relax and concentrate on the pumping music, drifting away from Lo and his worries. The bump bump bump of the bass carries me.
In the pit with other bodies bouncing up and down, I lock onto wandering eyes, and for a brief moment I connect with another guy. The clandestine looks set my blood ablaze and it takes all of my energy not to follow them subconsciously.
After our sixth song, Connor looks back to the bar and someone takes an invitation to dance against my backside. His hands linger on my hips. I don’t see his face, and in my head I imagine it being Lo or maybe Prince Charming. Someone other than Mr. Reality.
I close my eyes and float on the idea. The hand moves across my belly and then up underneath my shirt. Past the soft flesh of my abs and onto my padded bra. My breathing shallows and I sink back into the body.
I feel a hand tightly grip my wrist and yank me forward. I stumble into a chest as he wraps an arm around my shoulders in a brotherly way. “Go grope someone else,” Connor tells the guy calmly, but his hand tightens on my elbow. It was real? Not a fantasy?
My body heats and I refuse to look at my handsy dance partner. He mutters something under his breath and walks off. I steal a glance at the bar, but Lo is now in a heated conversation with Ryke, waving his burger around so wildly that lettuce falls out of the bun.
Connor puts his hands on my shoulders and makes me face him fully. “Lily,” he says, a rare drop of concern on the edge of his tongue, “What the hell is going on?”
I want to shrink in place. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not when Lo is already spiraling. My throat becomes swollen and just as I’m about to mutter the stupidest lie in the world, Ryke saves me.
He bounds over with a water bottle in hand and a scowl creasing his eyes.
“Lily,” he snaps. “I need your help.” He points to the bar.
“Lo is going to be piss drunk in five minutes. You need to tell him to switch to water. Every time I say a word about it he throws back a shot of whiskey just to spite me.”
“He’s eating a burger.” Is defending Lo engrained in my DNA?
Ryke stares at me, dumbfounded. “Don’t do this right now. He needs his fucking girlfriend. This is not going to be like Halloween, okay? I’m not carrying him up to your apartment unconscious.” He rubs the back of his neck with a shaking hand.
I take a shallow breath. “I’ll go try.” I push past people and slide into the empty bar stool beside Lo.
He barely acknowledges me, but he says, “Just when I was starting to like that fucking prick.”
“What did he do?”
“He doesn’t take a hint. I don’t want to talk about my parents.
I don’t want to talk about his mother when I don’t have one.
I don’t want him to badger me about drinking.
” He takes another shot. “What the hell is this article on anyway? Two rich kids with silver spoons in their mouths? Or two spoiled brats who became destructive fuck-ups?” Lo’s words spill out clear and coherent.
He rarely slurs, but there’s an edge to his voice that comes with drinking a lot, and I hear it tenfold.
“I don’t think he’s asking about that stuff for the article,” I say softly, “maybe he just wants to get to know you.”
“Why?” Lo asks with furrowed brows as if it’s completely foreign for someone to befriend him.
“He cares about you.”
“Well he shouldn’t.” Lo orders another drink as he pops a French fry in his mouth.
“Maybe we should leave.”
“No. This place has good liquor and food.”
I wait for the sexy smile or maybe a flirtatious joke but he’s consumed with what’s in front of him.
And I just sit off to the side. Even if I take off my shirt and fling off my bra, he’ll keep that glass in his hand.
He’ll drink until everything melts away.
So I keep my clothes on. The only tactic I have in my arsenal is completely worthless.
“Ryke carried you home,” I let out the truth. “At the Halloween party, you passed out and he had to carry you up to our apartment.”
His face twists in hundreds of emotions, and he settles on something blank and foreign.
“Do you really want him to carry you home again? ”
“I’m not drunk,” Lo refutes, finally looking at me. His eyes ice over. “Not by a long shot. I’m even too sober for this conversation.”
I feel rooted to this bar stool. Like if I slink away it will implode. “You’re scaring me,” I murmur.
His gaze softens a fraction. “I’m fine, Lily. Honestly.” He keeps his hands to his liquor and fries, not touching me in comfort. “I’ll let you know when I’m ready to leave, and it’ll be before I pass out.”
My chest clenches. “I’m going to go dance with Connor.”
Lo nods and doesn’t try to stop me as I leave the stool.
I find Connor and Ryke lingering by a high-table near the dance floor. “And?” Ryke asks instantly.
“He says he’s not drunk.”
Ryke gives me a disgusted look. “Yeah? No shit, Lily. He’s got a problem! He’s going to fucking tell you he’s sober.”
“What makes you an expert?” I shout back. “So you quit drinking, that doesn’t mean you know how to fix Lo!”
“You’re right,” Ryke says. “This is beyond me. He needs professional help.”
Tears gather. “Stop.” I want Lo to be helped. I do, but I can’t imagine a world where he’s torn from my life. What will become of me?
“Anyone with a heart would care, Lily,” Ryke says. “So the better question is why don’t you?”
The punch to my stomach knocks me back. It hurts too much to breathe, and the hardest part is trying to defend myself to me . I do care. I’ve kept Lo from sitting behind a wheel. I’ve made sure he returns home in one piece. I’ve protected him. From everyone but himself.
I glance at Connor as I try to wrack my brain for the right words, but for the first time he’s become silent. Avoiding my gaze by peeling back the label to his beer bottle. He agrees with Ryke ?
I let out a short laugh that borders on a choke. “I guess I’m just a terrible girlfriend.” And I believe it. In more ways than one.
I push through the sea of bodies, not having the heart or stomach to watch Ryke and Connor’s reactions. My hand shakes like a junkie needing a fix and my head spins from all the lights. I stumble over plastic cups and brush against someone on my way to the bathroom.
The stalls line up in a single row, doors ajar and empty. I lean over a sink, writing scrawled in permanent marker all over the basin. Wash up. Tina was here! Use Soap, you dirty wench! Blow me.
The door creaks and I glance over. A nameless guy with a face like a wolf, scruffy chin and dark eyes, saunters in. Is he the one I accidentally brushed up against? I don’t break his gaze, and he takes the invitation.
His hands linger on my hips questioningly, and I brace the porcelain basin in response. Rough kisses press into my neck and for a moment it feels better. It feels like it could be okay again. When my jeans lower and the cold air prickles my skin—I jolt awake.
“No.” I will not cheat on Loren Hale . No matter if anyone tells me how bad of person I am.
He doesn’t hear me or doesn’t take the hint. Hands grab my ass, only a thin layer of fabric between him and me and scoring. Fuck.
“No,” I say louder, employing the one word I’ve always avoided.
His hands slip beneath my panties and I try to turn around and pull away. But he pushes against me hard, and my stomach slams into the sink, nearly taking my breath. “Stop!” I struggle and try to kick out, but I’m all skin and bone and he’s all brawn and hunger.
Tears fall down my cheeks as I try and scream, but the thumping music bleeds into the bathroom, drowning out my pleas .
What do I do? What the fuck do I do?!
Maybe I should just take it. Get it over with. Act like I want it. Convince my body that it’s another pursuit. Make it okay. Make myself believe it’s some fantasy.
My tears dry up and I try to fight one last time only to be slammed against the basin. I cough hoarsely.
Time to pretend, Lily. Make believe. It’s what you’re good at.
Just as I close my eyes, the door crashes open.
“Get the fuck off her!” Screaming. Terrible screaming. And the pressure behind me leaves. I’m numb, but I subconsciously pull up my jeans, covering myself like this is any other night.
I look to my left, and Ryke grips the guy by the arms, fighting against his drunken, hostile movements. The guy swings. Ryke ducks, and then slams him into a stall. The guy falls hard into a toilet bowl, his forehead hitting the porcelain lip, and his legs splay out the door.
Ryke clenches him by the shirt, lifting him up. “What the fuck is wrong with you?!” he screams. But I feel like that question should be directed at me.
Connor steps in front of my transfixed gaze, but I stare past his eyes.
“Where’s Lo?” My voice is small and not my own.
“He’s still at the bar,” Connor says softly. “Lily.” He waves a hand in my face. “Lily, look at me.”
I do, but I don’t. I’ve never changed my mind after I invited someone to have sex with me. I’ve never been hurt by my addiction. Not like this.
Ryke kicks the guy in the groin and then bangs the stall door on him.
This is all wrong. Lo should be here, not Connor and Ryke.
“I want to go home,” I murmur.
Ryke puts a hand on my shoulder and steers me out of the bathroom and away from my attacker—or at least a guy who doesn’t understand the word no . A frown weighs down his face. “I need to go find Lo. Connor will you…”
“I’ve got her.”
Ryke’s hand leaves me only to be replaced by Connor. He guides me, and I float away from the bar, outside, and into the backseat of Connor’s limo. Connor finds a water bottle in the cooler and places it in my palm.
“Why did you come into the bathroom?” I ask. I should have sealed my own fate once I stormed off.
“You were acting strange all night, Lily. I was worried, so I told Ryke we should check on you.”
The car door opens, and Ryke enters with a wobbling Lo. He staggers but manages to duck underneath the frame before hitting his head. He collapses onto the seat across from me, and immediately shuts his heavy eyes, drowning in a sea of darkness, silent and void of turbulent thoughts.
Ryke climbs in beside him, shutting the door and giving Connor’s driver the order to go. I envy Lo so much right now for his peaceful, temperate sleep, the kind that shields the world’s dissonance, if only for one night.
Ryke checks his pulse and then nods to me. “Are you okay?” A welt grows on his cheekbone like the guy elbowed him.
I blink away tears. “I asked for it.”
Ryke’s face contorts, like I physically impaled him. “What? Why would you fucking say that?”
Connor covers his eyes with his hand so I can’t see his reaction. If Ryke looks this wounded over something bad happening to me, I’m sure it’s not good.
“I let him touch me,” I say. “…but then…then I changed my mind. I think it was too late by then.” My hands shake.
I wish Lo could hold them. My knees bounce.
I wish he was awake. I wish I didn’t need him this much, but I love him.
I sniff as tears spill. “It’s my fault. I gave him the wrong impression. ”
Ryke gapes. “No means no. I don’t care when you fucking say it, Lily. Once it’s out there, it’s out there. Any halfway decent guy would have backed off.”
My heart clenches. If Lo finds out this happened while he was at the bar, it’ll crush him. I won’t inflict that type of pain on Lo. “Don’t tell him.”
“He needs to know,” Ryke says.
I want to scream back about how wrong he is, about how the information will tear Lo apart, not strengthen him, but something sensible pulsates in my head, telling me to listen. I never do.
“This will kill him,” I choke. “You’re not helping!”
“You can’t keep this from him, Lily. Think about how much pain he’d be in if he found out and everyone knew but him? And he will. Don’t kid yourself.”
Maybe he’s right. I disintegrate into the seat, surrendering to Ryke’s unapologetic glare.
I wipe the rest of my tears with a quick swipe and stare out the window.
The limo quiets for the rest of the ride.
No one talks. Not even as Ryke carries an unconscious Lo up to the apartment.
Not when I close his bedroom door, locking him in for the night.
When it’s just the three of us left, Connor is the first to break the silence. “I’m going to make some coffee. If you want to go to bed, I understand, but I’d like to talk to you.”
I don’t deserve friends, but I try to hold onto them because I fear the blackness and emptiness that waits if I let go.
“Can you make me hot chocolate?” I ask.
“Even better. You could use some calories.”
I sink into the recliner, snuggling into a warm blanket and watch Connor mill about the kitchen like he owns it. I imagine if I ever had a brother, Connor would fit the perfect mold. A little conceited but deep down, even below his people collecting habits, he has a warm heart.
Ryke slouches on the couch. “Should I call your sisters?”
“No. They’ll just worry. ”
Connor returns with a tray of coffee and passes me my mug of hot chocolate. “It’s too late. I already texted Rose.”
“What?” I squeak.
“She’s on her way.”