Thrive (14 page)

{ 19 }

0 years : 06 months

February

LILY CALLOWAY

The premiere of
Princesses of Philly
couldn’t just be a quiet event at the
townhouse. I counted over ten cameras swarming the ballroom of a five-star
hotel. Servers meander with champagne and snacks, adding to the masses of
bodies and general hoopla.

My mom is here.

With my dad.

And all of their socialite friends.

In a few minutes, the big screen televisions along the walls
will air all of our antics. And we don’t have
any
idea what will be shown. “So this is live television from here
on out?” I ask Lo, his arm around my shoulder.

We stand close to a potted plant, which shields half of our
bodies from the narrowed lenses.

“Not exactly,” Lo says. “Connor tried to explain it to me. I
think we’re just going to be filmed every day, and they’ll play footage from
the previous week.” Oh. There’ll be a small delay then,
almost
live. Most shows are filmed months in advance, and the
shooting wraps before the first episode ever airs.

But we’re still filming while the show plays on television.

I think it’s just going to make everything crazier.

“Hiding out?” Ryke asks, nearing us from the bar with a can
of Fizz Life and a plate of Swedish meatballs.

“Maybe,” I say. My stomach grumbles at the sight of the
meatballs. I’ve been so nervous all day about the viewing party that I forgot
to eat.

“Come to join us?” Lo asks with a half-smile.

“Yeah,” Ryke says, giving Lo the Fizz Life can and then he
hands me the meatballs.
For me?
I
smile so much. Before I can thank him, he adds, “If I have to listen to Sam
Stokes talk about Fizzle’s product placement for another minute, I’m going to
fucking shoot myself.”

Lo’s lips rise, and he laughs. “Maybe you should take
notes.”

In the center of the room, Poppy’s husband converses with my
dad, a handsome smile on Sam’s face, his hands gesticulating as he speaks. My
oldest sister stayed home with Maria, just to shelter her from the cameras.

“What do you mean?” Ryke asks, running a hand through his
hair. He wears an expensive suit jacket with a regular shirt underneath like
Lo, tailored perfectly for their bodies.

I kind of want to take the shirt off Lo though and slide my
hands across his abs.
Maybe later,
I
think as I chew my meatball.

“I know I don’t fit into this.” Lo motions towards the
ballroom and the fancy decorations: gold-leafed lilies, daisies and roses as
high-table centerpieces. “But you stick out even worse than me.”

“It’s true,” I nod.

Ryke extends his arms. “I’ve been to events like this one
before. I’ve told you both that.” Plus he attended Fizzle’s soda unveiling with
me about a year ago. It was just as glamorous.

“You look kind of angry,” I add and scrunch my nose to
illustrate.

Ryke frowns. “Are you constipated?”

“No.” I relax my face.

“Then what the fuck are you doing?”

He’s so mean. “Exactly,” I say, not making much sense. But
he demonstrated how rough around the edges he really is.

I don’t think anyone has approached him this whole time.

“People don’t have to like me,” Ryke tells us. “I am who I
fucking am.”

Lo takes a swig of his drink and pats Ryke’s back with more
affection than dry humor. “I guess we’ll find out
how
well people like you after the show airs.” Then he turns and
snatches one of my meatballs by the toothpick.

“How was that thievery for you?” I ask him.

He washes the food down with his soda. “Illicit,” he says
with the wag of his brows. I punch his arm and he actually winces. For real
this time. “Jesus Christ.”

“I’ve been lifting weights, remember?” I flex to show him my
bicep muscle (still tiny, but a bigger tiny than before). The cameras go wild
behind me, flashing crazily, and I immediately drop my arm and roast.

“You mean that dinky weight that Ryke bought you?” Lo asks.

Ryke no longer pays attention to us. He focuses on Daisy
across the room, who’s being chatted to death by our mom. I should go rescue
her…but a run-in with my mom—who acts like I’m a daughter, twice removed—is not
high on my list of things I want to do.

Lo waves his hand in both of our faces and we sufficiently
face him instead of the gathering crowds. “Maybe we should just bail?” Lo tugs
at his collar. He has a point. We’re standing in the loser’s corner with
slightly sullen faces, despite a good laugh here or there. And I’ve only
thought about bathroom sex
once.

Definitely a success on that count.

“Fine with me,” Ryke says.

“No,” I end up declaring, surprising even myself.

Both Ryke and Lo stare down at me like I’ve grown a unicorn
horn.

“Rose needs us,” I explain. Across the ballroom, my sister
stands next to Connor while he schmoozes some business people. This show is for
her, mostly. A little for Fizzle’s reputation. But we’re all here and
participating so Calloway Couture will survive the blowback of my sex scandal.

Lo hugs me to his chest like I said some magic words. My
dirty plate almost smashes between our bodies, but Ryke swiftly steals it from
my hands.

He has quick reflexes.

And then the countdown appears on all the television
screens. The boisterous talk dies to soft murmurs.

“I can’t look,” I whisper, my hands flying to my face. Lo
keeps his arm around my shoulders.
Five
seconds.

“No matter what happens,” Lo says, his lips brushing my ear,
“I’ll always be here, Lil.”

I’ll always be here.

I inhale.

I think I’m ready to watch myself. Even if I turn out to be
one insatiable fool.

{ 20 }

0 years : 06 months

February

LOREN HALE

As the reality show continues, I’m
more and more surprised that they’re focusing on the romance aspect of my
relationship with Lily, not just making out, but real stuff where I talk about
how she’s never cheated on me. Where she says that she loves me more than
anyone.

Next to us, Ryke, Rose, Connor and even Daisy didn’t seem
that shocked by the good light we’ve been put in. I’m not counting on it to
last the whole hour.

“You sure you want to stay for the rest?” I ask Lily who
holds my hand.

“Positive,” she says, taking a deep breath.

“Okay.”

Not long after, a montage airs. It takes me a few seconds to
discern that they’re all moments where Lily was at the townhouse. Alone.

Lily squirms on the
leather couch. And then her hand lowers towards her jeans. She retracts quickly
and then checks over her shoulder.

She looks straight
into the lens, at the viewers, and stuffs a pillow in her face.

The bottom of my stomach falls.

I didn’t realize…it’s been that hard for her while I’m at my
office during the day. “Lil,” I whisper. She drops my hand, her palms pressed
to her face. I’m not sure if she’s even watching through her fingers anymore.

Lily lies on the
couch, her laptop on her legs. She looks around and then shuts her computer.
Her hand descends towards her jeans but remains on top of the fabric.

She reaches the place
between her thighs.

Lily almost crumbles in front of me. Christ. I lean down and
whisper in her ear. “It’s okay.”

She shakes her head, trembling.

My whole body tightens—my muscles on fire. I speak quickly,
words gushing out of me. “You did fine, Lil. You didn’t break any rules. You
didn’t do anything that we haven’t done together. You stopped yourself.” I hope
that this’ll relieve the pain in her chest, the nearly unbearable kind that
slams into me like a thirty-foot wave.

I wait for it to drag us beneath the current. As I hold her
from behind, her tears drip onto my arms. The footage airs just as rapidly as
my voice meets her ear.

Lily rubs up against a
kitchen chair. She flushes when she notices what she’s doing.

Lily rubs her pelvis against
the counter.

I feel so fucking sick.

Not because she failed herself. She didn’t. But because she
believes that she did. She knows that everyone will see this and think she’s a
head case.

Lily spins into my chest and clutches my black crew-neck. Before
I can grab her, she ducks underneath the shirt, hiding inside. I feel her wet
tears on my bare chest, and her arms wrap tightly around my waist.

“I’m not coming out,” she murmurs, her voice cracking.
“Don’t make me come out, Lo.”

I place my hand on her head and stare down at her through my
collar. “Stay there as long as you want, love.” She knew the show would
humiliate her in some way, but it’s different when it actually happens.

When you feel the unrelenting judgment from every goddamn
person in the room.

I get it.

Any eyeball that pins on her—I meet with the hatred that
turns me cold and dark. I could kill right now. It’s not a lie or an
exaggeration. It’s a feeling.

It’s a hurt so deep that
the
worst
seems possible.

I want to hurt people the way they hurt us.

“Hey,” Ryke says looking between me and my shirt, where Lily
has hid away from the party. He mouths,
you
okay?

I can barely shrug.

He takes a step nearer. “She’s alright,” Ryke says under his
breath. “Lily, you hear me?”

Lily sniffs loudly but she can’t form words. She hiccups,
and I rub her back. Her body relaxes into mine.

“Stay strong,” Ryke says, patting my shirt. He looks up at
me. “Tell me that was her head.”

I let out a weak laugh.
God,
how the hell am I laughing right now?
The noise ends up fading quickly.
“Yeah, it was.”

I barely watch the rest of the premiere, mostly
disinterested in what Scott edited. Lily stays buried beneath my shirt, and she
clings tighter when they switch to a series of interview questions cut
together.

“Do you think Daisy is
as sexually active as Lily?” Savannah asks me, Ryke, and Connor the same
question but at different times.

I clench my teeth. They keep trying to paint her sister as a
sex addict too—or at least a girl that could become one. Lily’s breath catches
like she’s trying not to cry again.

This sucks. This whole fucking thing. Shame. Guilt. What
more do they want to throw at her?

I stand up, the
leather chair rolling backwards. “I’m done with this sh*t.”

“What the f**k kind of
question is that?” Ryke asks. He rises and throws a pillow.

“No, she’s not,”
Connor says, with more force than usual. He stands and buttons his suit jacket.
“That’s enough for the day.”

Daisy, who was texting on the ground, slowly rises to her
feet. She avoids my gaze.

My brother’s.

Connor’s.

“You okay?” I ask her. I realize we’ve all been checking
each other throughout the show. If something can rip friendships and family
apart, it’s airing dirty laundry.

“Perfect,” she murmurs, eyeing the emergency exit door.

My brother leans close to me and whispers, “She’s going to
bolt.”

I tilt my head towards him. “You wanna go after her?” Daisy
terrifies me.
But so does the idea of
my brother being with her.

Ryke frowns and turns to look at me, studying my expression.
“No. I want to stay with you.”

I’ve been too paranoid about his intentions with Daisy. And
I’ve been an ass to him all night. He’s just looking out for that girl. That’s
it. “You can go if you—”

“No,” he says forcefully. “I’m not leaving you.”

His weighted words hit me hard. He stares at me like they
mean more than just this single moment. I’ve been abandoned by family before. A
birth mother—who didn’t want to acknowledge me as a kid or an adult. By his
mother, someone I believed was mine for too long.

It’d be easy for him to just leave. At any second. I’m not
the nicest person to be around. I’d have given up on me within a few minutes.

But Ryke is still here.

This guy…he’s too good for me. I don’t deserve someone like
that in my life.

* * *

After some minutes with the cameras
creeping up on us, Daisy is gone. Disappeared within the masses of people.

We’re in the last portion of the show, where it focuses on
the fake love triangle between Scott, Rose, and Connor. When Lily unburies
herself from her hiding place—my shirt—I wipe away her remaining tears.

She sniffs and holds onto my belt loops. “That was bad.”

“Yeah,” I agree. “They didn’t even show me flipping off the
camera. Not once. Those assholes.”

She laughs and rubs her cheeks with the back of her hand.
“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” I say. “You didn’t pull me into the bathroom or
the car, Lil.”
You stayed strong.
I
kiss her lightly on the lips, but it turns into something more desperate. Her
body curves into mine, and my hand clutches the back of her head.

“I think about her all
the time.”

Scott’s voice echoes through the ballroom, causing us to
break apart and turn to the screens.

Scott wears a longing
smile. “She’s a firestorm that I won’t ever smother. I’m the one who inflames
her, who riles her to a new confounding degree. She’s my perfect match.”

That sounds like something Connor would say. Right beside
Rose, Connor actually pales, his lips parted in shock.

“I hate this guy,” Ryke says softly.

“You want to do something about it?” I hope he’s reached the
point I have—ready to fight back, something more than just saying
fuck off.

Ryke inhales deeply. “What can we do? We signed a fucking
contract.”

“Plenty,” I retort.

“Don’t go down that road again, Lo. You need to bury those
demons.”

I thought I’d never attack a guy after I apologized to Aaron
Wells and shut the door on that feud. But isn’t this different?

Scott is waiting for us to explode. For ratings. He won’t
stop until the show does. And Lily and I care too much about Rose to do that to
her company.
So
Princesses of Philly
has to continue.

Ending it isn’t an option.

“I’m still in love
with her,” Scott says. “And I can’t help what I feel, but it’s there. I love
Rose the way she deserves to be loved. I just…I just don’t see Connor being the
best thing for her. He’s too self-absorbed to care for that girl the way I do.
And I hope, over the course of living with her again, she’ll realize that we’re
meant to be.”

My blood boils at each word. I shake my head and look to my
brother. “The things we bury,” I say under my breath, “have a way of coming
back to haunt us.”

Ryke can try to bury his problems.

I’m going to face mine.

Connor sits in the
study room for an interview.

“What do you think of
Scott?” Savannah asks.

“I find him comparable
to a little teenager jimmying the lock of my house. He’s nothing more than a
petty thief, trying to take what’s mine. Is that honest enough for you?”

“And what about Rose?”

“What about Rose?”

I frown. He said her name like she means nothing to him.
 

“Do you love her?” Savannah
asks.

“Love is irrelative to
some.”

“And is it to you?”

His fingers rest on
his jaw in mock contemplation, and he smiles self-confidently.
For the
first time, his smile really rubs me wrong.
“Yes,”
he says. “Love holds no meaning in my life.”

What…the fuck.

The screens fade to
black.
That was it.

So many thoughts toss around my head while everyone claps.
People start talking and heading to the bar for more drinks.

Ryke and I face Connor. I never thought production would’ve
turned the seemingly nicest guy into the evilest. But they definitely did.

Rose plucks another champagne glass from a server’s tray and
relaxes her back against Connor’s chest. He holds her in place since she’s
buzzed. I can’t believe she’s okay with everything he just said in the show.

“So was that the real Connor Cobalt?” I ask, sliding my arm
around Lily’s shoulders. Some of the scenes could’ve been fabricated by
editing, but how much?

I hear my brother’s warning, about Connor not being open
enough with me. I never thought he had a similar relationship with Rose, but
she puts herself out there and he’s not even
willing
to admit that he loves her.

“I spoke honestly,” he says. “And that wasn’t the first time
I’ve done so.”

“So you’ve never loved anyone?” I question. “Not another
girlfriend, your mom, your dad or a friend?” I don’t want our relationship to
be a game. I knew, in the beginning, that he was just collecting me like he did
everyone else. He was upfront about it, which was why I liked him. I had money
and connections, so that’s why he befriended me. But I thought we’d grown
beyond that. Hadn’t we?

“No,” he says. “I’ve never loved anyone, Lo. I’m sorry.”

Rose points at me, her glass of champagne in hand. “Let it
go, Loren. I have.”

“Why?” I snap. “Because you’re both cold androids?”

Her glare is softened by the booze. “It’s just how he is. If
you even understood half of Connor Cobalt’s beliefs, your head would spin.”

“Rose,” Connor says, as though telling her to drop it.

I’ve never seen her give so much of herself to one person,
and I fear,
badly
, that she’s being
manipulated by him. Maybe, all this time, I have been too.

Rose still defends her boyfriend. “No, Connor has done
nothing wrong.”

“He doesn’t
love
you,”
I sneer. “He’s been with you for over a year, Rose.” He’s going to hurt her. A
girl who
never
lets anyone get that
far is letting the wrong person in. Why am I the only one who sees this?

“Lo,” Lily warns.

“No,” I say, “she needs to fucking hear this.” I point at
Connor but speak to Rose. “What the hell kind of guy stays with a girl for that
amount of time without anything in return? If he doesn’t love you, then he’s
just waiting to fuck you.”

Connor stays calm. And this time, it really fucking
irritates me. “She doesn’t need your protection,” he tells me. Rose sways in
his arms, tipsy. “She knows who I am.”

“So you’re okay with that then?” I ask Rose. “He’s going to
fuck you, and then he’s going to be out of here. Does that make you feel good,
Rose? You’ve waited twenty-three goddamn years to lose it, and you’re going to
give it to a guy who can’t even fucking
admit
that he loves you.”

He’s a coward. A guy that I thought was the best goddamn
person in the world—is nothing but a fake.

Connor says, “I’m not going to admit something that I don’t
feel.” I have a retort ready, but he beats me to it. “Would you like me to sit
you down and fill your head with numbers and facts and relativities? You can’t
stomach what I have to say because you won’t understand it, and I know that
hurts you. But there’s nothing I can do to change the way things are. I am a
product of a mother as brick-walled as me, and trust me when I say that you
won’t ever see more than I give you. In order to be my friend, that has to be
enough, Lo.”

I process each heavy word. I wish that he felt like I could
handle all of him. I wish that I didn’t idolize him so much from the beginning.
“And what about you, Rose?” I ask, turning to her. “Is that enough for you?”