Rose looks over to Lily and Lo, the latter of which is watching me in Ryke’s arms. Even though Lo is still getting used to seeing us like this, he doesn’t scold or reprimand Ryke. He just lets us be.
“How many names do you have picked out?” Rose asks Lily. “Connor thinks it’s ridiculous that I have options.” This must have been the subject of their text war.
Connor says, “You can have one or two options, anymore becomes superfluous.”
“Why am I married to you?” she retorts.
He replies in French, and I’m fairly certain he says: Because you love me. And I love you.
Ryke must have his fill of them because he starts carrying me to the staircase. But I see the look on my sister’s face, something pure and magical and beautiful.
Definitely love.
“We only have two names, one if it’s a boy and one if it’s a girl,” Lily tells Rose.
Her mouth drops and Connor gives her an I told you so expression.
They all break out in discussion, Lo starting to bicker with Rose.
I was worried that they’d all change now that they’re having kids—that they’d desert their twenties for the mini-van and every time-suck that seems to come with children. Maybe they will eventually, but right now, I revel in the impromptu snowball fights, the game nights and the dinners we cook together. We’re rooming as though we’re living on a college campus, saving rent, but we’re also living as sisters.
It reminds me every day that I’m only eighteen. They’re only twenty-three and twenty-five.
We have years to grow up and split apart.
That time doesn’t have to come yet.
Halfway up the stairs, Ryke sets me on my feet, his eyes grazing me from head to toe with powerful want. I want him too. I walk backwards and he follows in close pursuit.
“You know what would make me closer to my sisters?” I joke. And then I rub my belly.
His eyes darken. “You know that handstand you did this morning?”
“Yeah.”
“And that cartwheel?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And how you tried to do a fucking backflip off the trampoline?”
I smile at the fresh memory. “That was really fun.” Snow blew up at my face with each bounce. I take a couple more steps backwards, ascending the staircase. He matches me.
“Imagine not being able to do all of that for nine fucking months, Calloway.”
I stop on one of the stairs, my smile fading. That sounds…not fun.
He reaches me and holds the back of my head, his lips brushing my ear, “No restraints. One-hundred-and-fifty miles per hour. You and me, sweetheart.”
My smile returns. That sounds much better.
< 71 >
RYKE MEADOWS
There are so many things left that I want to do before I settle down and have a family.
And I want to do all of them with Daisy.
Every time I imagine myself in another country after a climb, traveling, living—she’s by my side. I know we’ll make it a reality. I know that wherever she goes, I’ll go. Wherever I go, she’ll go.
We’re no longer the out-of-place fifth wheels.
This is fucking real. And I’m determined to make it last.
I peel off her sopping wet shirt, no bra, but she turns her back to me before I catch sight of her breasts. She accidentally steps on a skateboard, hidden below wrinkled clothes, and it rolls underneath her feet. She trips, and I grab her by the waist.
“What was that?” she asks, her breath knocked out of her chest.
“Your skateboard.”
She scans our room. It’s fucking dirty. Clothes littered everywhere, the bed unmade, the sheets tangled and the blinds crooked. I almost smile as I remember smashing her back into the window last night, rough and slow sex, but fun sex. Standing up.
It didn’t help her sleep. I never expect it to. She gets about five hours now, and I just hope the more she opens up about the fucking past, the more she’ll stop waking in the middle of the night.
She’s definitely not as scared though.
It’s a start.
She wrings out her wet hair from the snowball fight and then belly-flops on the mattress. Staring at her bare back causes my breathing to heavy more than usual. Her jeans are fucking soaked, but I want them off for many fucking reasons. I yank them down her thighs and off her ankles urgently, my eyes trailing the tattoo between her shoulder blades as I do so. I was with her the day she got it.
She’s smiling, her head turned as she catches my reaction.
I wear desire pretty easily now. But beneath that there’s something else. Something I haven’t shared with anyone but her.