“Why didn’t you say something?”
“I don’t know,” I murmur, my voice raw and scratchy. I stand to brush my teeth. I shakily find my toothbrush and some paste.
“Lily, talk to me,” he says from behind me. He sets a gentle hand on my hip while I spit into the sink.
When I finish, I turn around and lean my backside against the counter. “Do you want to break up?” I say bluntly.
His breathing shallows. “No. I love you, Lil.” He holds my hand. “Look, I’ll try harder. We both will.” I’m not surprised by the sudden proclamation. We fight one minute and then try to make up the next. It’s why we’ve lasted so long. And I suppose, the fear of losing each other is always stronger than the pain we cause.
“Try harder to do what?” I want clarification of where we stand.
“I’ll drink more beer. Ryke was pissing me off yesterday, so I chose hard liquor.” He pauses and eyes me hesitantly, about to turn the tables. “Lily…I love having sex with you, but the past two weeks, you’ve been crazy. I can barely even think.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” But I’ve been like that to stop him from drinking. I guess we need to work on fulfilling our compromises, which means I need to stop trying to force him to be sober by diverting his attention elsewhere.
Ryke will be disappointed, but this is the best I have without shoving Lo away. I need him more than he needs me. His vice is a bottle of whiskey. Mine is his body. So when we fight, I’m the one who loses out in the end.
“Do you want to break up?” he offers me the same out.
It’d be easier to let him go, to return to our regular rituals, but now that I’ve had him, I can’t imagine not being swept in his arms and being fulfilled to the highest degree. He’s my drug that I gladly consume, and I think that’s what he fears most. He enables my addiction. Always has. And the longer we’re together, he always will.
“No,” I whisper. “No, I want to be with you.”
He draws me close and kisses me on the forehead. “We’ll do better.” His lips brush my ear. “Next time you feel sick, please tell me.”
“I will.”
He tilts my chin up and kisses me on the lips, urging my mouth open. His tongue slips in for a second and then he breathes, “Let’s do it right this time.” He scoops me up in his arms, and I hold him around the neck, gladly about to erase all the bad moments and replace them with good.
{21}
“Can you zip me?”
Lo fixes his tie and then rests a hand on my hip. I try not to focus on the way his fingers press into my side. We just had sex and took showers. I do not want to show up to Rose’s fashion show with ratted hair and flushed cheeks.
He zips my dress to the collar, and the touch ripples my skin. “You okay?” he asks.
“Yeah.” I smooth my hair that reaches my shoulders, trying to satiate the nervous jitters in my stomach. I struggle to think of an instance before middle school where I willfully introduced any friends to my family. In part, it was probably because Lo has been my only companion for some time.
A buried, vile part of me almost wishes Rose and Connor never met. Or that I wasn’t his friend first. Anything so that my two worlds don’t have to collide—my family and my college life. Connor knows things. More than even Rose, and I fear we made a mistake in not scripting lies for our new friend. But how was I supposed to know that Rose of all people would find Connor Cobalt’s personality attractive? My luck is like a perfect storm.
At least I wasn’t selfish enough to destroy their relationship before it started. That would have been mean.
With Ryke following us to events, it doubles the stress. At any moment Connor or Ryke could let something slip to my family, and everything could be ruined. More than that, I feel overwhelmed by letting my family see another part of my life. I compartmentalize for a reason, and now everything seems utterly messy and complicated. If Lo feels the same, he doesn’t let on. I watch him casually check the cards in his wallet before sliding it into his pocket.
Someone knocks on the door.
“Are you decent?” Connor’s voice muffles from the other side.
Lo opens the door, and Connor stands there, wearing his own thousand-dollar suit and an equally expensive smile. “We need to leave. I don’t want to be late.”
“We’ll be an hour early,” Lo complains. “We can wait around a few minutes.”
I follow them into the kitchen where Ryke sits at the bar, typing on his cellphone