“Freefalling,” he tells her. “You said it’s better than sex.”
Her lips twitch into a smile. “Do you agree with me now?”
“As fun as that was,” he says roughly, “it’ll never be better than fucking someone you love.” He adds, “Don’t do that shit again.” And he turns around and motions to the pack of girls to follow him back to the parking lot.
I catch Daisy’s arm before she goes to Cleo. Her weak smile immediately falls to the wayside at my near-tears frown. I’ve never been more terrified.
“Lily…I’m sorry. My intention wasn’t to scare you.”
“What if you died?”
“I didn’t.” She touches my arm and shakes it. “Come on. Be happy, we’re in Mexico.”
“That’s not okay, Daisy,” I say. “You can’t just sprint away without telling someone where you’re going.” I have never read the Big Sister Handbook, so I decide to just tell her what I feel. That has to be enough. “We could have found a cliff that was supervised, not one clearly meant for professional, local divers.”
“I wanted to jump off this one.”
I sigh heavily. “Do you hear yourself? You wanted this one? You sound like Cleo and Harper, spoiled and entitled.”
She cringes. “I’m sorry. I really am.” She shakes her head. “I shouldn’t have…If I’d known your reaction beforehand, I would have stopped.”
The scary thing—I don’t believe her. Not one bit.
“Okay.” Nothing else can be said. Ryke grilled her. I gave her the disapproving, brokenhearted look.
“I’m not on your shit list, am I?” she asks. “Honestly, I didn’t even think you had one.”
“I didn’t.”
She gasps. “So I’m the only person on it?”
I can’t help but smile. We begin to walk back together, her friends farther ahead of us. “I guess.”
“What can I do?” she asks. Her eyes brighten. “I know! Cake. Cake fixes everything.” She shouts at the girls, “Cake time!”
They let out cheers and clap and spin around to record Daisy for the end of their videos. I’m sure those will be circulated around her prep school for quite some time. She’ll be a superstar. For all the wrong reasons.
Ryke turns his head at the announcement and still looks pissed. He rolls his eyes and shakes water from his hair with a firm hand.
“You know what he said to me?” Daisy says. “He told me that I was going to crack open my skull, bleed into the ocean, and be eaten by sharks. And then he goes and jumps in after me.” She lets out an irritated laugh. “I didn’t need him to be my hero, showing up, scaling the cliff and speaking Spanish to the locals—”
“Wait, they didn’t speak English?”
Daisy realizes she let that little part slip. She winces as she flashes an apologetic smile. “They were telling me stuff, and I just replied back with, ‘Sí,’ over and over again. I got the gist of what they were saying when they moved their hands. You should be more surprised by the fact that Ryke is fluent in Spanish.”
“I’m not,” I snap, “because he grew up with a mom as neurotic as ours.”
“He did?” Her brows furrow.
“I don’t know her personally,” I clarify. “But she kept him busy.” I refrain from saying like you because she does not need to be attracted to him anymore than I think she already is. Their age difference is no-no territory. Ryke understands this, and I’m afraid, Daisy may not.
“Oh.”
I hesitate. “Daisy, you don’t…” have a crush on him.
She meets my eyes and reads them well. “Like you said before, Lily, he’s seven years older…well, about to be six.” She tries to give me a reassuring smile before she breaks from my side and catches up to Cleo, but I’m not satisfied. Because she glances back at Ryke as he peels off his wet shirt and wrings it out. Her eyes flit over his body, and I see a not-so good future.
I’m not sure how Lo would react to a Daisy and Ryke scenario.
All I know is that he wouldn’t be happy.
MARCH
{10}
Back in the states, the March chill makes it near impossible not to layer up. I devise a plan to stay at the house until the very last second. Usually I arrive seven minutes late to class when I decide to go, but I think everyone should have a ten minute grace period. Seriously. It’s cold.