Thrive
Authors: Krista Ritchie,Becca Ritchie
Thrive
Copyright ©
2014 by K.B. Ritchie
All rights reserved.
This book may not be reproduced or transmitted in any
capacity without written permission by the publisher, except by a reviewer who
may quote brief passages for review purposes.
This book is a work of fiction. Any names, places,
characters, resemblance to events or persons, living or dead, are coincidental
and originate from the authors’ imagination and are used fictitiously.
Cover image © Shutterstock.com/pudi studio
Cover design by Twin Cove Designs
ADDICTED SERIES
RECOMMENDED READING ORDER
Addicted to You
(Addicted #1)
Ricochet
(Addicted #1.5)
Addicted for Now
(Addicted #2)
Kiss the Sky
(Spin-Off: Calloway Sisters #1)
Hothouse Flower
(Calloway Sisters #2)
Thrive
(Addicted #2.5)
Addicted After All
(Addicted #3)
Fuel the Fire
(Calloway Sisters #3)
Long Way Down
(Calloway Sisters #4)
More information about the reading order can be found on
Fizz Life
.
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHORS
Before you begin reading
Thrive
, there are a couple factors to consider. If you are planning
on reading the Calloway Sisters spin-off series and have not done so—STOP HERE.
Thrive
takes place during the events
from
Kiss the Sky
and
Hothouse Flower
. All major climaxes and
arcs will be spoiled for you in this book. We
highly
recommend that you read the Calloway Sisters #1 and #2
before reading
Thrive
. However, if
you have no intention of ever reading the spin-off series, then continue on.
Secondly,
Thrive
is
not
a novella. What we discovered is that people change in moments,
in days, months and years. They learn, grow, and sometimes even regress. To
show the evolution of Lily & Lo and their friendships in a little over two
years, we needed more than a hundred pages. At one point, we thought—"let's
cut out everything that happened in the spin-off books, act like it never
existed and step over those months"—maybe it's too much for the reader to
handle all in one space. But then we'd only give you a portion of the truth, of
what really happened, and to do Lily & Lo's full story justice, you
deserved the entire picture.
So this is their story. No holding back.
Hang in there. We'll see you at the end.
xoxo Krista & Becca
{ Prologue }
2 years : 05 months
LILY CALLOWAY
Life moves too slowly.
Loren Hale told me that once. When we were sixteen, lying on
his bed with comic books spread around us. He clutched a bottle of Maker’s Mark
to his chest and took a long swig.
For Lo—one minute on this Earth was a century. He was
waiting for someone to end the pain of living.
Today he told me: Life moves too quickly.
After these two years, I have to agree.
Life does move too quickly. And I can’t predict a second of
it.
PART ONE
“You know I am not good with words. Or anything else.”
— Laura Kinney, X-23 Vol 3 #1
{ 1 }
0 years : 00 months
August
LILY CALLOWAY
Whenever I envisioned my twenty-first birthday, it
included lots of booze, maybe some drugs, and a giant pack of male strippers. A
giant
pack
.
Possibly even the kind of strippers that give you a little something
special at the end. That imagination belonged to a different Lily. From a
different time. Possibly a different cosmic universe. At least that’s what it
feels like.
My twenty-first birthday, in actuality, is far less toxic.
And the only men I’m celebrating with happen to be my boyfriend and his
brother—as far from male strippers as I can get.
In fact, I had proposed a nice birthday in front of the
television, but Lo dragged me out of the house, seducing me with my favorite
place in Philly: Lucky’s Diner. I previously told my sisters that I would not
be having a party, and this impromptu event resulted after Lo found out. Now I
kinda wish I invited Rose or Daisy or even my eldest sister Poppy.
A long wave of awkward silence passes between Ryke and me, and
I silently beg Lo to return to the table. But he stands by the hostess podium,
still talking to the manager about closing the blinds.
Ten cameramen are stationed outside of the diner, some
heftier cameras perched on their shoulders, the lenses pressed to the glass
window. A week ago we learned that Ryke’s mom leaked my sex addiction to the
press, the reason I am now on the front page of tabloids and discussed across
social media.
Ryke keeps blaming himself, even when we tell him not to. If
anything, this is all
my
fault. I’m
the one who went down this path. If it wasn’t true, it’d be a different story,
right? But I’m a sex addict. Everyone knows it. And now we have to figure out
how to deal with this spotlight.
The quiet grates on me, and I instantly break it without
thinking. “You know what’s funny, I always thought today would consist of a
pack of male strippers,” I blurt out.
Why,
Lily, why?
I look anywhere but his face, already feeling my cheeks heat.
“A pack?” Ryke says in disbelief. “Men are fucking people
too, Lily. Can you not talk about them like you’re ordering a case of beer?
And…what the fuck?”
I think he should have started with
what the fuck
. But I let that go.
He adds, “Don’t tell me you used to look at men and only saw
another dick to ride.”
I flush but manage to reply despite my embarrassment. “
Used
to. Key word. Past tense,” I say
quickly. “Now I see all the other anatomy.” I wave my hands towards him and
then realize what I’m doing. “Not that I
ever
thought about you as just a dick. I mean, I thought you were a dick, but the
metaphorical kind. Not the kind I would ride.” Holy shit. I just need to shut
up.
“You have some
serious fucking issues, Calloway,” Ryke snaps.
“So says you and the
rest of world,” I mutter and tear open a packet of sugar. I try hard to avoid
the cameras that
click click click
behind the giant glass window.
His eyes soften and he shakes his head before letting out a
gnarled groan. “Look,” he says, “it’s your birthday. I didn’t get you
anything—”
“I didn’t expect you to.”
“Let me fucking finish.”
I roast again.
And he shakes his head. “You have to stop, Lily. Everything
I say isn’t sexual.”
“Sorry,” I mumble.
“I was going to say, I didn’t get you anything
yet
. What would you like?”
What would I like?
There
are too many things I want, but most of them have to be acquired by
supernatural forces.
“Are you a warlock?” I end up asking him.
“What?” His eyebrows knot.
“Never mind,” I mumble quickly. The cameras suddenly flash
in quick succession. I slouch further in the booth, so low that I’m practically
hiding underneath the table.
“Get a fucking grip.” Ryke glares.
“You shouldn’t even be here,” I hiss. I don’t know why I’m
hissing. The diner isn’t even half-full, but I’m sure it’ll be packed within
the hour now that we’re here.
“I was invited,” Ryke retorts.
“By Lo,” I whisper, “who somehow forgot that the press
thinks you and I are hooking up. We don’t need to give them another reason.”
“So because I’m having lunch with my brother and his
fiancée, we’re obviously fucking.” He gives me a hard look. “Makes complete
sense.”
“Don’t say the f-word,” I reply. “It gives me hives.”
He glowers. “You’re getting married in less than a year.
That isn’t fucking changing, Lily. You’re going to have to accept it.”
“I accept
nothing
,”
I say lamely.
He rolls his eyes. “You’ve stopped making sense ten minutes
ago.”
I’m about to refute, but Lo walks back to our booth, his
cheekbones sharpened in aggravation. Shit. As he slides in next to me, he
swiftly grabs my arm to lift me from my slouched position, as if it was the
most natural course of action for him, as though he’s done this a thousand
times with me.
Has he?
All I know for certain is that my hiding place is gone.
Damn.
“He won’t close the blinds,” Lo tells us. “He says that it’s
good publicity for the diner.” At least they were honest and upfront about it.
“Maybe we should leave.” I throw it out there. Just like
that.
Wow that feels better.
I wait
for one of them to catch it. I spring up from the table, already expecting them
to agree.
“No,” Lo says, his hand on my shoulder, forcing my butt back
to the seat.
Double damn.
“Today’s
your birthday, and you haven’t been out of the house in a week.” His arm fits
around my waist, and I take a deep breath and lean into his warm body. I would
like to admit that all my thoughts are chaste in this moment, but a brief
flicker of a naked Lo fills my mind.
Of his muscles, his lean body…Naked Lo has a nice ass and a
very large—
“Again,” Ryke says roughly, eyes on me, crushing my dirty
thoughts. “What do you want for your birthday?”
Cock.
I have to close my eyes while I curse my brain from
automatically jumping to
that
.
“She wants something that you can’t give her,” Lo answers
for me.
“Like telekinesis and teleportation,” I blurt out, just in
case Lo was thinking about the other thing Ryke can’t give me.
“I was referring to sex, but that too, yeah,” Lo says. Today
isn’t going so well. Nope.
I hide my face in my hands and I wait for the perfunctory
click click click
of the cameras. Any
second now.
Click.
Click
Click
There it is.
I don’t come out from my hand-fort.
“Lily…” Lo starts, concern in his voice.
“I don’t want to talk about sex or cock,” I blurt out.
A man clears his throat.
Shit.
I look over guiltily. The waiter stands at the end of the
table with his notepad in hand. His gaze lands anywhere but on me. I might as
well wear a walking road sign that says: Pervert and Sex Addict.
“What can I get you to drink?” he asks.
“Waters all around,” Lo orders. The waiter leaves, and the
diner door jingles as more young people enter: teenagers or college students.
They gather in a nearby booth and whip out their cellphones, snapping photos.
Hibernating in our home sounds much more pleasant than this.
Maybe the bears know something we don’t.
Ryke unzips his leather jacket. “It’s your twenty-first
birthday; does that mean you’re drinking tonight?” He sets the jacket aside,
wearing a plain gray tee.
“No,” I shake my head. “I’m going to forgo those
traditions.” My reasons extend beyond Lo being a recovering alcoholic. I want
to remember tonight, especially if it involves sex.
“She lived vicariously through my twenty-first,” Lo adds. I
did. It wasn’t pleasant.
Someone bangs on the window by my ear, and I jump so fast
that I knock my water glass over. Ryke curses under his breath and mops up the
spill with a napkin before I have the chance.
A cameraman raps the glass with his fist again, and my eyes
gullibly follow the noise.
The flashes go off like busted light bulbs. And then the table
of teenagers erupts in laughter, their gazes flitting to our booth and back
away. My nerves spike, especially as more and more bells clink together,
signaling a rush of people entering Lucky’s.
We’re going to suffocate in here or be attacked or worse.
There’s always a worse.
And I let Garth, my bodyguard, go home early. Mob mentality
will overtake three people. Two’s a company, three’s a crowd, right? That makes
four a mob. We’re down a man.
“Lily, calm down,” Lo whispers, his palm on my cheek, his
thumb stroking my smooth skin. “Hey, what’s going on in your head?”
Nonsense. Fear. All of the above.
I don’t have a chance to answer him. The waiter returns with
his notepad in hand, ready to take our orders. I haven’t even looked at the
words on the menu (even if I almost know it by heart).
The sad thing: I’m craving a hot dog. Literally. But I know
photographs of me, mouth wide open with a wiener between my lips, will end up
on the front page of every tabloid. Could I cut it up and eat it? Maybe, but
it’s not the same.
My eyes drift along the salad options, slowly jettisoning my
stomach’s cravings.
“And you?” the waiter asks me. I didn’t even hear what Lo
chose.
“I’ll…just have the soup of the day.” Safe. But I can’t hide
the disappointment from my face as I pass the plastic menu to the waiter.
Lo stares at me like I grew three horns. “You hate broccoli
and cheddar soup.” Oh. That’s right.
“Maybe theirs is better.” I shrug, avoiding his amber eyes.
Then Lo starts to climb out of the booth. The teenage girls
squeal because he’s about five feet from their table. He never breaks his focus
from me. “I need to talk to you.” He nods to the bathroom.
Ryke’s brows rise. “That’s not fucking suspicious at all.”
Lo sets his hands on the table and leans closer to his
brother. “I can talk in front of
you
but not the fifty other people in this place.”
Just as he finishes his declaration, another group of people
breezes into the diner and collects behind a growing line.
Now there are no free tables.
My thighs squeak against the cheap plastic seat as I scoot
towards the end of the booth. Loren straightens up and waits for me. When I’ve
successfully left my hiding spot behind, Lo rests a hand on the small of my
back and guides me to the bathroom.