Lily is beaming, and she pumps two fists in the air and does a short victory circle in the middle of the hall. When she realizes that she’s doing this for real and not in her head, she flushes bright. “Oh…”
I tug on her baggy tee and pull her into my chest, holding her tightly. Her green eyes are big and round and gaze up at me with longing and light.
There’s something about Lily that makes all the terrible parts of me seem irrelevant. That makes a bad day momentary and a good one infinite.
It’s love like this that’s worth living for.
{ 26 }
LILY CALLOWAY
“Lily! We’re about to start!” Rose’s voice sounds down the first floor hallway.
“Two minutes!” I shout back, focusing on the piles of clean clothes. The laundry room might be as big as Rose’s old walk-in-closet, but I still have to separate my sisters’ shirts and panties. Rose, Daisy, and I usually throw in our clothes together and let the guys fend for themselves.
I’ve never done my laundry with Lo, even when we were fake dating and sharing an apartment. It’s not that it was too intimate. It’s that we were both too lazy to harass the other person for their hamper and any other dirty clothes lying around.
I am one-hundred percent certain that Connor does his own laundry and he’ll even wash Lo’s on occasion. I assume that Ryke does his own too, but I’ve never seen him even pass this room, let alone venture inside.
I sit on the cold linoleum floor and fold panties, something I didn’t know had to be done. When I returned Rose’s undies to her all crumpled next to her neatly folded blouses, she gave me a serious stink-eye. How was I supposed to know you fold underwear? Don’t they naturally unwrinkle when you put them on?
Rose was not buying my argument. So here I am, taking my time to separate our pajamas and panties and （unenthusiastically） folding them.
I set aside Daisy’s “day of the week” cotton underwear and focus on the large pile. I apply the reach-in-and-grab method, never knowing what’ll come next.
When I pull out dark cotton fabric, I expect a pair of Daisy’s PJ shorts to reveal themselves. Instead, I hold a pair of boxer-briefs.
Male underwear.
Dark green.
I know Lo’s underwear, and that is not a Loren Hale color.
I drop them on instinct. They’re either Connor or Ryke’s, but only one of them is rude enough to sneak his clothes into the girl piles.
Ryke.
I just touched Ryke’s underwear! The same fabric that has also touched his penis. Does that mean by process of deduction that I just…
Grossgrossgross. I back away from the mound of clothes like it has turned into a tiny bomb ready to explode at my feet. Do not imagine the underwear on him. I’d rather be skeeved out than aroused, even if Ryke tells me it’s okay to feel the latter. I may be able to look him in the eyes now, but it still feels a little wrong being turned on by anyone but Lo.
“Lily!” Rose calls my name again.
“Okay! Okay! I’m done!” Not really, but I’m glad for the excuse to leave his underwear behind. Where it should be. Far far away from me.
When I enter the spacious living room, I realize that I’ve been tricked. Not everyone is here yet. And the person I looked forward to seeing the most （Loren Hale） is blatantly absent. Connor stands by the window in black slacks and a white button-down, texting quietly, while Ryke lounges on the nearby couch, his hands all chalky from a morning climb.
“Where’s Lo?” I ask Rose, who’s sitting on the Queen Anne chair, as though waiting for her royal subjects to arrive. She’s in a gorgeous black Calloway Couture dress, one of her prettier maternity designs, so she does appear regal.
“I don’t keep tabs on Loren,” Rose says.
“He’s in the bathroom,” Ryke tells me, his bare feet on a pillow. Rose looks like she wants to save the plush yellow pillow from his calloused soles.
“And Daisy?” I frown, not seeing my little sister anywhere either.
“Blow drying her hair,” he replies. My brows scrunch. When does Daisy ever blow dry her hair? She’s a let-it-air-dry kinda person.
I’m about to ask, but the six plastic babies on the heavy cedar coffee table distract me. When Rose announced that we’d all have to take baby CPR class, I almost had a mini-panic attack. I could just see the headline: Lily Calloway fails baby CPR. Another reason she shouldn’t be a mom.
Of course, Rose came up with an alternative: a “private” course, taught by her and Connor since they’ve both earned their certificates last week. I’m less nervous of tripping up in front of them.