“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.