Rose whips her head to us, just registering our presence. “The party was horrible.”
“The party was boring. There’s a difference,” Connor says easily. He takes note of his surroundings, scanning us on the chair and then Ryke and Daisy on the couch.
Rose spots our little sister just as quickly and walks around the couch to approach, Connor by her side. “What are you two doing here?”
“Both of our parties fucking sucked,” Ryke answers. And I realize how quickly he was able to move a spotlight off of Daisy. Exactly what she would want.
Lo holds up his hands. “I’m confused. Was the party in your hotel room?” Lo asks like he’s the only one thinking logically. “Otherwise, you could have left the party without coming here.” He gives Connor a look like what the fuck happened?
“We’re no longer welcome at that particular hotel…for eternity. Those were the manager’s exact words.” Connor loosens his bowtie. “I don’t blame him for thinking we’re immortal. In some preclassic civilizations, I’d be considered a god.”
Rose’s yellow-green eyes drill holes into him. “Congratulations, you are officially the cockiest human being on planet Earth.” That’d be Iron Man. But I hold my tongue.
“That’s Iron Man,” Lo says. I literally rise like I’m floating. I kiss him on the lips, so suddenly that I think he’s caught off guard too.
Rose holds her hand at him like stay out of it.
Lo doesn’t care. His eyes fix on me with questioning and longing. Like he wants to kiss me again. But I stop. I show him I can.
I don’t want sex.
Just a kiss.
Like back in Cancun. When I was on the road to truly recovering. I’m going to be there again. I can feel it.
Today is a very good day.
His lips rise, saying everything that needs to be said.
He’s proud of me.
I glance back to my older sister. Connor still grins at her and speaks French. Damn. I flip open my cell and try to log into a translator, but he talks too quickly for me to type the words. This is when I wish I had my nicer, newer phone with app capabilities that translates by sound, no manual typing involved.
I consider snatching Lo’s phone, but one of my hands is still in the popcorn bag.
Thankfully, Rose uses English. “The manger was exaggerating.”
“Clearly,” Connor says, “but it doesn’t change the fact that we were kicked out tonight.”
The gears in my brain start spinning. My eyes widen in realization, and I cough on a popcorn kernel. Lo pats my back. He hands me what used to be Ryke’s water. It’s grossly become communal. Survival instinct triggers and I drink it anyway.
Rose. She found a way to dodge Connor’s suite without cheating on him or putting him in an uncomfortable position. She got the hotel to kick them out.
She’s ballsy and slightly nuts. Wouldn’t it have been easier to tell him that she didn’t want to have sex?
“I broke one bottle of champagne in the lobby,” Rose states. “The punishment was hardly warranted.”
“You called the manager an oversized twat,” Connor says with an arched brow. “And what you did was hardly an accident.”
“So?” she retorts defensively.
“If you wanted to go home, darling, all you had to do was say so.”
Ha! I suggested as much to her, didn’t I? I hope I did. I can’t remember that phone conversation that much. Lo’s hands and lips were traveling to dangerous places during it.
“Then you would’ve won,” she says.
He gives her a look. “I already did.”
“But—”
“Sex isn’t a prize to me. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you for you to believe it.”
They start speaking in French again, and Lo scoots me closer to his chest, resting his arm around my collar. I pick up the remote and unmute the television, which hangs above the fireplace mantel.
“Thirty seconds,” the host counts down.
I think back to last New Year’s where Lo was in rehab, where I spent most of the night with Daisy, where we sat in Ryke’s car—stuck in traffic—as the clock struck midnight.
“Twenty seconds.”
Now I’m in Loren Hale’s arms.
He’s sober.
I’m in recovery.
I wasn’t sure if we’d ever be at this place. I glance at Daisy who balances her spoon on her nose with a bright smile—the first genuine looking one I’ve seen from her tonight. Ryke stares at her for a long moment before messing her hair with his hand. The spoon falls to her lap.