Addicted for Now (46 page)

Ryke nods over and over, trying to believe the words. After
a long pause, Ryke says in a strained voice, “Our parents spent so much time
hating each other that they didn’t even fucking realize what they were doing to
us.” He shakes his head in a daze.

Lo squeezes his shoulder.

I stay quiet, not wanting to disturb them, but I’m thankful
that through all of this, they both have each other. Even though Sara and
Jonathan repelled their child with their constant fighting, they’ve also
unconsciously drawn their sons together.

Ryke stares at the boxes. “I’m never coming back here.”

“Are you sure?” Lo asks.

“Yeah,” Ryke nods. He pats Lo’s back. “Yeah, I’m sure.” And
through the silence, I hear the words that pass between them.

You’re my family.

I think we can finally move on.

{ 52 }

LOREN HALE

My father didn’t tell me Sara Hale was the leak to
protect himself. Or me.

He was protecting Ryke.

While the news has devastated Ryke, I am freed by it. I can
stop being so rooted in hate. Now I can try to be a better man than my father.
I can breathe.
 

My fist raps a black door. No one stands beside me. No one’s
here for me to lean on. I am alone with my own resolve, and maybe months ago
that wouldn’t have been enough.

The door flies open and almost swings right back in my face.
I brace the frame with a hand. “Hear me out,” I tell him.

Aaron Wells lets out an exasperated sigh, but he surrenders
to my plea. “What do you want, Loren? I thought we already had this talk four
months ago?” It’s been that long?

“This is a different talk.”

His eyes darken and he crosses his arms over his chest.
“You’re not coming inside this time, and just so you know Julie isn’t home. So
don’t try screaming for her either.”

“I don’t want to talk to Julie.”

“Then what do you want?”
What
do I want?
Why do people always ask me that?

“You met me at a really bad time in my life, and you were
just being nice by inviting me to your party.”

“And then you broke every wine bottle in my parent’s cellar.
Yeah, I remember,” he says. “Is this your way of apologizing? Is this like Step
7 in AA or something? Do you have to go around and ask for forgiveness from
everyone you screwed over?”

I shake my head. “It’s nothing like that. I’m not asking you
to forgive me, and I can’t forgive you for what you did to Lily.” I want to,
but maybe that type of strength is out of my control.

His jaw locks, and I sense that he’s about to slam the door
back in my face. “But,” I say quickly, “one of us should have been the bigger
person and stopped it before it got out of hand.”

“You mean before you and your father made sure I wouldn’t
get accepted into an Ivy League,” he growls. “Thanks for that.”

“Look, you don’t have to be my friend or anything. You can
hate me all you want, but I came here to tell you that I’m sorry.” The words
are hard to produce, and I don’t feel exactly better by saying them. I’m not
searching for that relief. I just know that this is right. And this is what I
have to do. “I’m done,” I say. “Whatever shit we had in the past, it’s the past
for me. You want to carry it around, fine. Regardless, I want you to have
these.” I remove two white envelopes from my back pocket.

His eyes glaze over them with curiosity and then he snorts.
“Are you buying my forgiveness with tickets to Wrigley Field?”

“You told me that you couldn’t get a job and compete with
Ivy grads,” I say. “That should help start your career. Greg Calloway and my
father wrote references for you. I know there’s lots of bad energy with the
companies, but Fizzle and Hale Co. are still world-renowned. It still means
something.”

Aaron stares at the letters and shakes his head. “I don’t
want your fucking charity, especially if you’re only doing this to make
yourself feel better.”

“I’m doing it because it’s right,” I say in irritation.
“Burn it if you want. And I promise, you won’t ever have to see me again.”

I turn around and descend the stone steps. Lily waits in the
car for me, tapping her hands to the dashboard and singing aloud to whatever
song blares through the speakers. I immediately smile.
 

“Loren!”

I look back. Aaron’s face has softened into something less
hateful. Almost like the first time I met him, when he was just that nice
lacrosse kid inviting me to his party. “I’m sorry too,” he says.

Hearing the words are almost as hard as saying them. I see
him terrorizing Lily for months, cornering her in the halls. I realize how
difficult it must have been to listen to me say the same thing. My throat
closes up before I can speak. So I just nod.

I set my sights on Lily again.

She is my past, my present, my future. So when I open the
door and slide into the driver’s seat, I’m not surprised that it feels like I’m
returning home.

***

My nerves rocket the closer we reach our house in
Princeton. I can’t stop fidgeting, and Lily keeps giving me weird looks. I
spout off some story about a new client for Halway Comics.

Our apartment feels abandoned when we walk inside.

“Rose!” Lily calls out. She doesn’t know that Rose is
staying over Connor’s tonight, that I have specifically vacated this place for
us.

“She must be working late,” I say.

“She works too much.” Lily heads to the kitchen. “Maybe we
should cook her dinner…” She thinks about this, probably remembering she can’t
cook. “Or order her dinner and bring it to her office? She’d like that.”

She would. If she were at her office.

“I’m sure Connor already had dinner delivered to her,” I
say, hooking my fingers in her belt loops.

“True. He’s been spending more time with her lately, hasn’t
he? I think he’s worried another Sebastian will Jedi mind-trick her.”

I’m surprised she’s not focusing on the fact that I’m
tugging her into my chest. It’s becoming easier and easier to touch Lily
without her jumping my bones like a wild animal. The horny, insane part of me
will probably miss her crazy sex drive. But the part of me that loves her, the
one that I choose to listen to, is so fucking proud of this girl.

“How about we call it a night?” I say and slip my hand down
the back of her jeans.

She gasps a little and grabs onto my T-shirt. “Is that code
for what position we’ll be taking?” she asks with a delighted smile.

“I don’t speak in code. You’ll know exactly what I want.” I
squeeze her ass. “Me. You. Bedroom. Now.” My teeth catch her earlobe lightly,
and her breath deepens. And then I press feather-light kisses on her neck. At
the fourth one, she squirms with laughter.

“Okay! Okay! Okay!” She throws her hands up in surrender.
“Do not tickle me with your kisses! That’s a dirty game.”

I can’t stop grinning.

She spins on her heels, and I follow her close up the
stairs. She stops a couple times to check that I’m right behind her. The third
time, I give her a look. “Do you think I’m going to disappear, love?”

“Maybe,” she says softly and then scampers the rest of the
way.

She presses her back against the door, blocking our entry. I
try to remain calm, but I know what’s behind those doors. And she unknowingly
prolongs this process.

“I think I’m going to get fat off scones,” she tells me,
relishing this fact.

“You’re supposed to sell the scones, not eat them.”

“Who made those rules?”

“Capitalists.”

She crinkles her nose. “I like my way better.”

I nod to the door. “You going in?”

“I’m trying something new,” she tells me. “Restraint.”

Jesus Christ. She has to choose
tonight
for her personal achievement? “Should we discuss donuts
next?” I say jokingly.

She looks like she’s taking this into serious consideration,
and I give in. I reach past her waist and turn the knob, opening the door
behind her back.

Her eyes go big, and she
still
doesn’t turn around. “Are you testing me?”

I put my hands on her shoulders and walk her backwards,
leading her slowly into our room. Step by step. Her eyes fix on mine until she
looks down, obviously feeling something soft under her bare feet.

“What…”

Red petals decorate the bedroom floor while burning candles
flicker on the dresser and nightstand. It’s simple and perfect. I drop to my
knee.

Her hands press to her lips, and I see that gaudy ring on
her hand glinting back at me. It represents coercion and deception, all the
wrong reasons for a marriage that should be filled with love. We have lived
through lies for too long. I’m ready for this to be honest, not another sham. I’m
so ready for her to take it off. Her eyes have already welled with tears and I
haven’t even spoken yet.

I pull out a small box from my pocket. Colorful and wrapped
in comic book strips.

All my nerves seep out of me. I am filled with something
else, something warm and pure that makes me never want to leave this
moment.
 

“Lily Calloway, will you marry me, for real this time?”

I open the box, and a ruby cut into a heart sparkles back at
her. Diamonds circle it.

“Yes!” She jumps a little, tears seeping out of the corners
of her eyes. I rise to my feet, and with one kiss, I have her planted firmly
back on Earth. She tangles her fingers in my hair and lets
me
deepen the kiss.

When I part from her, she begins yanking at her gaudy ring.
She gets wild-eyed. “Lo, it’s not coming off,” she panics. “It’s not coming off!”

“Calm down,” I coax. I test it out, but it’s tight around
her swollen finger. Maybe she is gaining some weight. I kiss her temple and
take her hand in mine, leading her to the bathroom. We spend a couple of
minutes soaking her finger in soap before the ring comes loose and clinks on
the counter.

What if my ring doesn’t fit her?

She reaches for the box, and I grab it from her. “Let me,” I
say.

She holds out her hand. The ring slides effortlessly, the
leftover soap on her finger probably helping. She appraises the ruby and the
band for a long moment. “I love it, Lo.” Her eyes twinkle as they meet mine. “I
love you more.”

After all we’ve been through. Years and years of mistakes,
it feels like a dream to be here in this moment. Right now. Sober. Alive. With
her.

I pull her to me, and I lean in for a kiss. Her hand
instinctively raises and slides across the back of my shoulders. When we break
apart, I rest my forehead to hers. Our breaths mingle and I say, “I have
another proposal. Or…more like a confession.”

“Is it bad?” she whispers.

“Terrible.”

She doesn’t pull away from our closeness and her eyes flit
to my lips. “I can handle it.”

“I don’t know about that.”

Her lips twitch as she recognizes the tone of my voice. Oh,
how I do love teasing her.

I nudge my nose with hers before my lips find her ear. I nip
it softly before I say, “I confess, that I’d very much like to make love to
you.” My heart does a dance at the last words. We never say
make love
. We fuck. We screw. We bang.
Making love is for the soft-hearted without tar-coated pasts. Lily claims she
doesn’t deserve to make love, but I’m determined to change her attitude.

“Is it different than fucking?” she asks me with wide eyes.

“Very much so.”

Frown lines crease her forehead. “How?”

“I’ll show you.”

Her eyes brighten with possibilities, but she doesn’t
insist, doesn’t ask or compel me for more.
She
waits for me
.

Just as I asked.

BONUS MATERIALS

KISS THE SKY

PROLOGUE & CHAPTER ONE

[ prologue ]

CONNOR COBALT

“You wanna know real life, kid?” a man once told
me. “You gotta know yourself first.” He drank a bottle of booze from a paper
bag, sitting on the back door steps of a five-star hotel. I wandered outside on
my tenth birthday, needing air. Everyone in the convention hall was thirty-five
and up. Not a single kid my age.

I wore a suit that squeezed my prepubescent frame too tight,
and I tried to ignore the fact that just inside my mother pattered around her
business partners with a swelling stomach. Even pregnant, she commanded every single
person in that room with reticence and stoicism that I could easily mimic.

“I know who I am,” I told him. I was Connor Cobalt. The kid
who always did right. The kid who always knew when to shut up and when to
speak. I bit my tongue until it bled.

He eyed my suit and snorted. “You’re nothin’ but a monkey,
kid. You wanna be those men in there.” He nodded to the door behind him. And
then he leaned in close to me, as though to confess a secret, his vodka stench
almost knocking me backwards. And yet, I still anticipated his words. “Then you
gotta be better than them.”

The advice of an old drunkard stayed with me longer than
anything my father ever said. Two years later, my mother sat me in our family
parlor to deliver news that I would parallel with that memory. That shaped me
in some catalytic way.

You see, a life can be broken down to years, months,
memories and undulating moments.
Three
moments
defined mine.

One.

I was twelve. I spent holidays at Faust Boarding School for
Young Boys, but on one fluke of a weekend, I decided to visit my mother’s house
outside of Philadelphia.

She chose then to tell me. She didn’t set a date, plan the
event, make it into something larger than she thought it was. She broke the
news like she was firing an employee. Swift and construct.

“Your father and I are divorced.”

Divorced. As in past tense. Somewhere along the line, I had
missed something dramatic in my own life. It had passed right under my fucking
nose because my mother believed it meant very little. She made me believe it
too.

Their separation was deemed amicable. They had grown apart.
Katarina Cobalt had never let me into her life one-hundred percent. She let no
one see beyond what she gave them. And it was in this moment that I learned
that trick. I learned how to be strong and inhuman all at once.

I lost contact with Jim Elson, my father. I had no desire to
rekindle a relationship with him. The truths that I kept close were only
painful if I let them be, and I convinced myself fairly well that they were
just facts. And I moved on.

Two.

I was sixteen. In the dim Faust study room, smoke clouding
the air, two upperclassmen appraised a line of ten guys, stopping in front of
each pledge.

Joining a secret society was the equivalent of being
accepted to a lacrosse team.
 
Dressed in
preparatory slacks, blazers, and ties, the lot of us were supposed to grace the
halls of Harvard and Yale and repeat the same mistakes all over again.

They asked each guy the same question and each responded
with a simple submissive
yes
and was
told to drop to their knees. Then they set their sights on the next boy.
 

When they stopped in front of me, I stayed relatively
composed. I tried mostly to hide a burgeoning, conceited smile. They looked
like two apes pounding their chest and asking for a banana. The thing about
me—I was not so willing to give just anyone my fucking banana. Every benefit
should outweigh the cost.

“Connor Cobalt,” the blond said, leering. “Will you suck my
cock?”

The question was supposed to show how willing we were to
follow orders. And I honestly wasn’t sure how far they would go, all to prove
this point.

What do I get out of
it?

The prize would be a membership into a social clique. I
believed I could obtain this a different way. I saw a path that no one else
did.

“I think you have it backwards,” I told him, my smile peeking
through. “You should suck my cock. You would enjoy it more.”

The pledges broke into laughter, and the blond stepped
forward, his nose nearly touching mine. “What did you just say to me?”

“I thought I was perfectly clear the first time.” He was
giving me the opportunity to bend down again. But if I wanted to be led by a
group of testosterone poisoned monkeys, I would have joined the football team.

“You weren’t.”

“Then let me reiterate.” I leaned forward, confidence
seeping through every pore. My lips brushed his ear. He liked that more than he
thought he would. “Suck. My. Cock.”

He pushed me back, bright red, and my eyebrow arched.

“Problem?” I asked him.

“Are you gay, Cobalt?”

“I only love myself. In that respect, maybe. And yet, I
still won’t blow you.” With this, I left the secret society behind.

Eight of the ten pledges joined me.

Three.

I was nineteen. I attended the University of Pennsylvania,
an Ivy League, and stood with forty other Student Ambassadors. Eager freshman
filled the auditorium, hoping to be admitted to the prestigious Honor’s Program
as I once was. I would take a group of them on tour of the campus before their
interview with the Dean.

“Look around the room,” the Dean told them. The freshman
glanced over their shoulders to meet the faces of their competition. From my
place by the wall, I briefly locked eyes with a brunette in the third row. Her
narrowed, brutal stare caused the girls next to her to shrink into their seats.

But she was focused only on me.

I mouthed,
Hello Rose.

She read my lips well.
Die
Richard
, she replied back, using my real first name.

Faust defeated her prep school at the Model UN Conference
over a year ago, and it was her last chance to beat me at something before I
entered college. The girl smoked with anger every time she neared me, every
time she was forced to hear me speak.

She made me realize that nothing was better than winning.
Not even sex. Although, I had never touched Rose. She more or less spit on any
guy who got too close.

“Make sure you look around,” the Dean repeated. “Because
there’s a ninety percent chance that someone in this room will be your future
spouse.”

I watched Rose and rubbed my lips to hide an even larger
grin because I knew she was incensed by the mere idea. She would be more likely
to cut a dick than ride one. Rose Calloway was the heiress of Fizzle, the
daughter of an international soda empire that rivaled Pepsi and Coca-Cola. But
she never let the fame define her. She worked hard and she was naturally gifted
at telling men to fuck off.

I didn’t believe in luck, but by some strange coincidence,
she was randomly assigned to my tour group.

“You again,” she said.

I hadn’t seen her in over a year. And yet, we picked up
right where we left off. We always did.

She added, “I beat your stupid boarding school this year at
Model UN, you know.”

“I wasn’t there, so I’m not surprised that Faust lost to
Dalton.” I had graduated one year before her.

She sucked in a sharp breath, her yellow-green eyes trying
to penetrate me, a gaze that would cause a flurry of boners among the male
student body. And she wouldn’t even know it. “I’m not an idiot.”

“You aren’t,” I agreed. “You’re perceptive, but ten meters
to the right is Ashley Gracen. She’d school you in any match, intellectual or
athletic. In the far back, fifty meters away sits Beth Anne Johnson. She’d beat
your test scores without studying.” But Rose Calloway was different from all
the girls at Penn. She was fashionable. But not a sorority girl. She was a
genius on paper. But not a team player. She was quick to loathe others. But not
against loving.

She was a complicated equation that didn’t need to be
solved.

“All that proves is that you have a high proficiency to
stalk girls.”

I like to know my
competition.
“You must possess the same skill then.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t stalk girls.”

“No, you just stalk guys. You searched the room for me when
you came in here.”

Her lips pressed in a thin line. After a long pause, she
said, “I did not.”

I tilted my head, my smile bursting through. And we stared
at each other for a long time. Everyone nearby watched us. But we were stuck in
our own world. In our own personal battle. I wasn’t sure there would ever be a
winner. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see the day where one of us demolished the
other.

Then the game would end. And where was the fun in that?

“Fine,” she retorted, crumbling beneath my persuasive gaze.
“I was looking for you. But only because I think you’re the most narcissistic,
egotistical, self-righteous human being in the universe.”

“The universe? I didn’t realize you’re so well-traveled.”

She glared. “Shut up.”

I looked her over and thought of one thing. I heard that
during a health class at Dalton Academy, her prep school, she took her baby
doll and stabbed the stuffing with a pair of scissors. Another person said she
scribbled over the baby’s forehead and handed it to the teacher. The note:
I won’t care for an inanimate object unless
the boys do it too.

People thought she was nuts—in a genius “I will devour your
soul” kind of way.

I thought she was fucking fascinating.

And then Caroline Haverford broke our quick-witted banter.
She strutted up to my group, cupping a Diet Fizz, her brown hair sleek on her
shoulders. She rode horses every day and was another notch in the WASP community.
Wealthy families, socialites, equestrian, golf, Ivy Leagues, prep schools—I had
been surrounded by it all for nineteen years.

She was another face I remembered. Another name I cared
little about but made sure that I knew. And she eyed me with that predator look
that said,
What use will you be to me?
Will I marry you some day and take all your fucking money?

After a cordial greeting, practically shoving Rose aside,
she asked, “Do you still fence?”

“Yes, Connor, do you still fence?” The icy voice sliced the
air as Rose interjected herself again. It almost brought a full smile to my
face.

Before I could answer
no
,
Caroline set her sights on Rose. “Harper Woodrow told me you’re still a
virgin.”

It came out of left field, an obvious slight that caused
Rose to spin towards me and silently say,
Don’t
you dare pity me.
I wouldn’t. Not for that.

Caroline added, “I can give you the name of a guy who’d
gladly rid you of it.”

“I’d rather make a necklace with your teeth.”

Caroline let out a short laugh, and Rose planted an
agonizingly harsh glare on her, unflinching. And then Caroline’s mouth dropped.
“Are you serious?”

“You’re right,” Rose said, “Connor has prettier teeth.
What’d those cost to whiten? A thousand dollars?”

“Not nearly that much.”

“Would you give them to me?”

She liked to banter this way. And I gladly played into it.
“Not without a price.”

Caroline’s head whipped between us.

“No,” Rose said. “I want them just because.”

“That’s not how the world works.”

Caroline interjected, “She wouldn’t know any differently.
She’s used to being handed things.” She sloshed her Diet Fizz can to
demonstrate just where all of Rose’s wealth came from.

Rose inhaled a sharp breath.

Her
just because
speech
was not out of a spoiled, bitchy heart. She was leading me somewhere—a place
that she had trouble finding on her own. So I ignored Caroline and prodded.
“What kind of man would give you his teeth for free?”

Rose stared at me with surprise, as though I cracked some
code of hers. It lit my heart on fire. “The kind who loves me.”

“You’d put a guy through that big of a test?”

She shrugged. “Why not?”

“Because it’s impossible to reach.”

“Then so be it.”

I believed she wanted to be alone forever. I believed she
was afraid to be loved for real.

Caroline muttered so only I can hear, “She’s such a bitch.”
She waited for me to confirm the fact. It was hard to deny Rose Calloway’s
bitchiness, but she was endearing in ways that Caroline was not. Most men would
agree with me, and I wouldn’t be able to explain to Caroline why guys found her
annoying but they were insanely, deeply, anatomically attracted to Rose.

And then Caroline spilt her soda all over Rose’s dress.

The tour hadn’t even begun. Her interview was still slated
that afternoon. Rose’s automatic response was to solve the crisis, not curse
out Caroline. Without saying a word, she walked quickly in her heels to the
bathroom.

Caroline grabbed my wrist before I followed Rose. “I’ll be
here,” she told me.

“I know.” Caroline was the type of girl I was destined for.
She was my future. But I was not done fighting for another one. A future that
would turn my rudimentary life into something more exciting.

I wanted the fucking challenge.

The easy path was always the most boring.

And I would be damned to miss this chance.

I sprinted down the hall and then slowed to a brisk walk as
I reached the girls’ bathroom. I pushed open the door, and Rose stood by the
sink, scrubbing the stain with wet paper towels, her eyes bloodshot with anger
and anxiety.

When she saw me enter, she directed all of her pent-up
frustration at my incoming body. “This is the
girls’
bathroom, Richard.” She tried to fling a paper towel at me
but it fluttered to the ground in defeat.

“I’m aware.”

“Then what are you doing here?” She threw her hands up. “You
know what, you should be happy. I’m not going to be accepted into the Honor’s
Program. You’ll be able to gloat about this win too.”