He runs his hand through his hair. “You can be single. I’m not saying that you have to get a boyfriend. I just…” he trails off in thought, and his jaw locks tight.
“No, I get it,” I say with a nod. “We both used to date a lot, and you’ve stopped because of me. It’s not fair to you.” All because I’ve been an emotional train wreck at night. Now that he has a month apart from me—no longer sleeping in my bed—it makes sense that he’d want to have sex. He finally has the chance to do it.
“I’m going to be fucking honest with you,” he says. I lean against the dresser and meet his dark gaze. “I’m not used to abstaining from sex for this long, and I think it’s in both of our best interests if we start opening ourselves up to other people again.”
His words shouldn’t hurt me that much, but they feel like sharp knives sliding into my belly. “So I should find a number seven then?” I ask him. “Maybe he’ll last longer than five minutes.” I try to put on a smile, but it disappears pretty quickly.
I can’t tell what Ryke is thinking. His features are hard as a rock. Brooding like normal. He stands up and takes a couple steps towards me.
I eye the ridges in his abs and the complex tattoo on his shoulder. I shouldn’t suggest it—I shouldn’t say it, but it leaves my lips before I can take back the words, “You could be my number seven.”
“Daisy…” He shoots me a look.
My stomach twists. “You’re really okay with me fucking another guy?” I imagine him with someone else, and it makes me physically ill. I don’t want him to date another girl, and I know it’s wrong of me to feel that way, but how do I change these emotions? How do I let them go? Maybe he’s right. Maybe we do have to date other people to get over this.
“It doesn’t matter what I fucking feel,” he says. “I’m seven years older than you.”
“You just turned twenty-five a week and a half ago.” He has literally only been seven years older for four months. But once my birthday arrives in February, he’s going to be all, I’m six years older than you with the same I’m a fucking man and you’re a little girl tone that he likes to put on when he’s making a point.
“I’m still seven fucking years older than you right now.”
“Really? I should file a complaint to the woman who made me seven years younger than you. What a horrible, horrible thing.”
He almost smiles.
“You know,” I tell him, more serious, “I started modeling when I was fourteen, and right when I entered the industry, no one ever treated me like I was a teenager. I was doing things that people in their twenties would do.”
I feel like I’ve already been to college, partying, drinking too much, experimenting, and I’m only eighteen. It’s one reason why I don’t want to go to a university. I had my fill when I was fifteen, sixteen and seventeen. And I can’t picture myself sitting behind a desk all day either.
“I hear you,” he says. “I do, but disregard our ages completely—you’re still my brother’s girlfriend’s little sister. And there’s no changing that.”
I set the sweater on top of the dresser. When I look up, he’s beside me. “So what happens when we’re both back in Philly a month from now?” I ask. “Do we just pick up where we left off or are we going our separate ways from here on out?”
He rests an elbow on the dresser. “I don’t want to lead you on, Dais. We can’t fucking happen. I’m just here to help you until you can sleep better.”
Maybe I should stop torturing myself then and just try to move on too. “I can find someone in Paris, and if not, I’ll just fly solo. I’ve done that a lot. Maybe I’ll make a lasting friend from New York,” I say. “I can move out there when I come back, and I’ll start over—”
“You would move out to New York?” He frowns.
“I don’t know…maybe,” I say softly.
He abruptly reaches out and draws me to his chest. He’s hugging me. Willingly. But this feels more like a goodbye than anything else. A pain ripples through my body.
And then that cracked door to my bedroom—it whips open.
I turn my head with Ryke, and we both see my mother standing at the threshold of the doorway with her phone in hand. Her eyes grow to saucers, horrified at the sight of my embrace with a guy she finds unworthy of my time and affection.