Addicted for Now (36 page)

{ 38 }

LOREN HALE

“I can’t believe you’re fucking engaged,” Ryke
tells me.

We stretch by the small koi pond at the edge of our property,
trying our best to run without nearing the wrought iron gates. Paparazzi camp
on the street, peering through the gate that does little in terms of privacy.
Rose already called a landscaper to plant tall hedges, but they won’t be
finished for a whole month.

“In a scandal management perspective, marriage is the clear
solution,” Connor says. He stretches his quads on the ground.

“Yes because now people will think Lily’s an adulterer and
not just cheating on her college boyfriend,” Ryke retorts.

Connor stares him down. “Society believes marriage shows
commitment, a stronger bond.” He stands to his feet. “Not to mention gossip
mongers eat up a good love story. And what’s better than love uniting a sex
addict and an alcoholic?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be in New York right now?” Ryke
snaps back, surrendering the fight. Everyone has an opinion about the
engagement, but the only one that matters to me is Lily’s. “I thought Rose was
running around with her fucking head off her shoulders.”

All of our family’s companies have been hit financially from
the scandal, but unlike Fizzle and Hale Co., Calloway Couture is a young
business already on shaky ground. The blow toppled it over. The menswear line
that she’s been slaving over for months—the one I briefly modeled for—is being
reviewed for Fashion Week. Even Connor said that the likelihood of the line
surviving is slim to none. So she’s going to be pulled from the show, two
department stores just dropped her, and she had to let go her assistants,
including Lily. Rose won’t tap into her trust fund to pay her employees, and
she’s losing money too quickly to keep them.

“She called and told me not to come,” Connor admits. “She
doesn’t want me to be in the way.”

“Is Sebastian there?” I ask. I can see that scheming
motherfucker trying to whisper his awful opinions about Connor into Rose’s ear.
With the slow annihilation of her company weighing on her, she must be
vulnerable.

“He’s been helping her with the line. I’m sure he’s there.
Why do you ask?”

I should tell Connor that Sebastian is not fond of him, but
he probably already picked up those signals. I should
definitely
mention how Sebastian is most likely plotting a way to
cut him out of Rose’s life. But Lily still needs those tests. “No reason,” I
say with a shrug.

He stares at me for a long moment, disbelieving, but he
doesn’t prod further. We start walking back towards the house, our shoes
crunching the stones on the path.

“Speaking of Calloway girls,” Connor says, “I read that
Daisy is doing a spread in
Vogue
. Is
that true?” After Lily and I talked with the lawyers, Daisy went to stay at her
parent’s house again. Her modeling career catapulted because of the scandal.
Magazines and photographers are lining up to book her for five-page spreads,
labeling her as a “sex symbol” in ads that transform the sixteen-year-old into
a man’s wet fantasy. They call her a young Brooke Shields, but comparing her to
another teen icon doesn’t settle my stomach. And my blood is on boil, angry
that anyone is willing to exploit that girl.

What’s worse, her own mother booked her the jobs. But it’s
not my place to stick up for Daisy. I often wonder whose it is. Poppy has taken
sanctuary at her small house in Philly, trying to protect her three-year-old
daughter from the paparazzi. Rose is frazzled enough with her fashion line, and
Lily and I are just trying to keep our heads on straight.

So who’s protecting Daisy?

Her parents sure as hell aren’t.

“I’m not sure,” I admit. “I haven’t talked to her in a
while.”

“She’s doing it,” Ryke says. “She says it’s tasteful or
whatever.” He shakes his head, disgruntled by the situation. “She was a high
fashion model and overnight she became a fucking supermodel, and instead of
sheltering her from the media, her fucking mother is pushing her into it. I
think I hate that woman.”

“You and me both,” I say, “and since when are you talking to
Daisy?”

He gives me a glare. “Don’t fucking get onto me about that
shit,” he snaps. “She needs a friend.”

“You know, I heard about that recession of sixteen-year-old
girls,” Connor says. “It must be difficult for her to find a friend her own
age.”

I smile and Ryke glowers. “Fuck off, Connor,” he snaps. “You
know what all her prep school friends are doing? They keep asking her if she’s
a sex addict too. As if it’s genetic. She needs someone who knows Lily, who
fucking understands what’s going on.”

“So she needs you,” I say like he’s an idiot.

Ryke throws up his hands and stops walking. “For fuck’s
sake,” he exclaims. “I’m giving her rock climbing lessons, not taking her on a
date. We’re
friends
. The perverts who
stare at her in magazines may forget she’s sixteen, but I won’t.” He starts
uncapping his water bottle. “I also thought we talked about badgering me. We
made a fucking deal in Cancun, remember?”

I won’t admit it, but there’s a piece of me that’s lashing
out in guilt. I should be the one talking to Daisy and being a friend to her,
yet I’m swamped in my own bullshit. If I was a better person, I’d probably actually
thank Ryke. She does need someone to talk to, even if that someone has to be my
hot-headed half-brother.

When we start walking again, Ryke ignites a conversation I
thought we dropped at the beginning of our run. “Maybe you should start a
company about pissing people off. You can call it Bastards-R-Us.”

I knew I shouldn’t have told him about accepting my trust
fund or being obligated to build a company from scratch, like I’m a little kid
playing with Legos. Ryke is vehemently against anything that puts me in contact
with my father. He even went so far as offering me half his inheritance.

I turn around and he walks right into my chest. He takes a
step back and glares. “What? You can dish it out, but you can’t take it?”

“I’m not taking your goddamn money,” I sneer. “Stop bringing
it up.”

“Children,” Connor says, breaking our feud. “As entertaining
as this is, doesn’t Lily have a Stats exam in a half hour?”

I glance down at my watch and curse. We’re supposed to be
escorting her to her class, since she refused to accept the bodyguard her
father wanted to hire for her. It was a generous offer that Poppy and Daisy
accepted. Rose was too fucking stubborn, and Lily didn’t want to be “shadowed
by a big beefy guy,” which I took to mean she doesn’t want to be tempted by
someone that isn’t me.

We jog back to the house quickly, but Lily isn’t in the
kitchen where I left her. She’s become sedentary since the leak, moving at a
snail’s pace. So I can’t imagine she wandered too far. I’m about to check the
living room when I hear the pipes groan through the walls.
 

“Do you hear that?” I ask, turning to Connor and Ryke for
clarification.

“Sounds like someone’s taking a Jacuzzi bath,” Connor tells
me. That doesn’t make any sense. Lily took a shower this morning. Why would she
need to bathe again?

Holy fuck.

My first thought: She’s masturbating. My second: She slit
her wrists. The second thought propels me into hyper-drive. I am running up the
fucking staircase before I can think anything else. I must look scared out of
my mind because Ryke and Connor are right behind me. Maybe they fear it too.

I’d like to believe Lily couldn’t reach a low like that, but
I’d be fooling myself. I’ve been there. I know she has too. It’s what happens
when you hit a bottom that you can’t crawl out from.

I push through the door, envisioning her cold lifeless body.
She jumps, and I don’t have time to breathe in relief. Because if she’s not
dead, it means she’s masturbating.

I can’t believe this is how my world works.

Bubbles cover her naked body but don’t hide her cheeks that
burn bright red. Connor and Ryke stumble in behind me and then Connor swivels
right back around. “Sorry.”

Ryke blocks the door so Connor can’t leave.

“Get out!” Lily yells at them.

I haven’t moved closer, but she is bathing in guilt. You
don’t just shower and then fifteen minutes later hop into a bubble bath.

“No, stay,” I tell them.

I’ve chastised her about porn.

I’ve pleaded with her to be honest with me.

Obviously, I need to find different fucking methods to make
her stop doing this shit. I don’t want to embarrass her, but how else is she
going to stop?
 

Ryke spreads his arms in the doorway, sufficiently blocking
Connor’s exit.

“Really?” Connor raises his brows.

Ryke shrugs, and Connor shields his eyes with his hand as he
backs into the counter.

I keep my gaze on Lily.

She avoids me and the two guys. “Make them leave,” she says,
looking anywhere but here. “I have to get changed. What time is it?” She acts
like nothing’s wrong. Like she’s innocent in all of this.

“Why are you taking a bubble bath?” I ask, sitting on the
porcelain ledge.

She shrinks back and begins descending, her chin
disappearing beneath the suds. “I dropped my ring into the trash. And then
after I fished it out, I smelled like our leftover sausage, which is not a
pleasant stench. So I decided to take a bath, but I dozed off. Baths do that,
you know. They’re like nap-whisperers or summoners or whatever.”

“Is the shower broken?”

She shakes her head. “You know that pink soap ball—I saw it
on the counter just before I hopped in the shower. And curiosity just kind of
overtook me. I was hoping it’d turn this thing pink.” She holds up her left
hand, flashing the diamond. “But alas, soap chemicals are inferior to shiny rock.”
Her eyes flicker nervously to Ryke who stares at her, unflinching. “This is
awkward.”

“Not for me,” Ryke replies.

She points to Connor, who still covers his eyes. “You’re
making Connor uncomfortable,” she tells me. “You have done the impossible.”

“I’m not uncomfortable, Lily,” Connor says. “I’m just not
looking forward to the two hour lecture from your sister about female privacy.”
But he must know what I’m trying to do because he stays here, and when he
lowers his hand, he nods to me like I’m doing something right.

Lily pales a little, realizing
Connor
is not going anywhere. “Don’t you think you can give me more
privacy if you went in the other room?”

“Believe me, you don’t want to know what I think right now.”

Her eyes flit around the room again. She knows she’s been
caught, but she won’t admit it. Normally, I’d yell, maybe say a few encouraging
words, and then dial Allison’s number so she could give Lily a proper lecture.
But yelling does nothing, and Allison isn’t her therapist anymore.

I know what I have to do.

“You have an exam to get to,” I remind her. “So why don’t
you finish what you started and then we’ll head on out.”

She blinks a couple times. “What-what are you talking
about?”

“Finish up and then we’ll leave,” I repeat, unwilling to
clarify. She has to admit it herself.

“I’m done, so can you hand me that towel?”

“You’re done?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure?”

“I don’t smell like garbage anymore, so I call it a bathing
success.”

“Maybe you misunderstood me,” I say dryly. “Finish fucking
yourself.” I’m angrier than I thought. In my head, I meant to say
finish pleasing yourself
but my mouth
had a different agenda.

Her eyes bug in horror, and I refuse to back down.
Stay strong. Be tough
. She doesn’t need
a hug or to be coddled anymore.

“Can I talk to you alone?” she asks, refusing to look at the
two guys that make this situation really fucking uncomfortable. That’s the
point though. This isn’t allowed to be easy for her.

“No,” I snap. “I know what you were doing.
You
know what you were doing. And Connor
and Ryke do too. It’s not a fucking secret.”

Her nose dips below the water, and in seconds, she’s about
to submerge to hide from us. I reach out, and put my hand underneath her arm, holding
her upright to face her problem.

She stares dazedly at the bubbles and a part of me wants
nothing more than to climb into the bath and pull her into my arms. To hug her
and tell her that everything is going to be okay. But that’s how it begins. She
self-medicates her sadness and anxiety with sex, and I let her do it too many
times before. I have watched this girl fall into the cycle of addiction, and
she’s jumping onto those tracks again.

“I can’t be around you twenty-four-seven,” I tell her. “You
have to figure this out, Lil. You can’t masturbate.” How many times do I have
to say the words for her to understand them? How many times did I have to hear
no more booze
to fully accept it? It
never gets easier. This is going to be a long-term battle. And I’m prepared to
be there for her every fucking step of the way. Even if she wants to drown in
this water, I’m going to pull her back up until she’s healthy. Until she can
stand on her own two feet.

“You don’t understand,” she starts.

“Lo,” Connor cuts in. “If we don’t leave soon, she’s going
to be late for her test.”

I nod and then grab the black cotton towel off the rack.
“Turn around,” I tell Ryke, since Connor has already shifted his view.

When Ryke faces the wall, Lily stands, and I wrap the towel
around her. “Get dressed and talk,” I say roughly, reminding her I’m still mad.

I lead her into the bedroom and look back to Connor and
Ryke. “Can you two check the bathroom for porn and toys?” I ask them. “Destroy
the room if you have to.”

Ryke looks a little too excited to fuck with my shit.

I follow Lily into the walk-in closet. “What don’t I
understand, Lil?” I ask as I kneel and push past her shoes, grabbing a large
black metal case.