How can that be right?
“The summary of the film says the hour long session is rough and for mature audiences only.”
Rose increases the volume to the highest level. Why does she insist on listening to it like this?
“What the fuck are you doing?” Ryke asks, his hand rising to his ear.
“Maybe she’s like…having a mental break…” Daisy says.
Rose retreats to the kitchen, more on attack than anything. She disappears from view as she digs through a lower cabinet.
“Seriously though, Rose!” I yell. “Are you okay?”
She pops up with a bottle of whiskey. I forgot that Brett hid his booze with the dishwasher soaps. She spins her heels and collects a wine glass from another cupboard, pouring the whiskey to the brim.
It’s like watching a fissure run through a person made of stone.
I don’t like it.
“Rose, not to lecture you at this really sensitive time in your life,” Lo says, “but that’s not how you drink whiskey. And as an expert in liquor, it offends me.”
She glowers, one so fierce that my breath dies in my chest. “You’re not an expert in liquor. You’re an alcoholic.” She sets the whiskey bottle on the table and takes a giant swig from her wine glass.
She doesn’t even cringe.
“Which makes me an expert,” Loren argues. She waves him off like she’s shooing away an animal.
“What’s going on?” Connor’s voice emanates from the stairs. His gaze travels to the television, the source of the cacophony. No…
That’s why she turned the television up so loud? She decided to deafen everyone just to call him downstairs.
“Look honey,” Rose says. “We have a sex tape together.”
She’s lost it. Officially.
{ 36 }
0 years : 10 months
June
LOREN HALE
Want to know the most deplorable, heartless thing in my head?
I am so fucking relieved that wasn’t Lily on the news. Extending empathy for my best friend, Connor, or for Lily’s sister—I can’t do it. Deep down, I just think: finally it’s not us, finally the world has shit on someone else.
It’s a thought that turns my blood cold, my forearms on my knees, sitting on the couch and waiting for the guilt to come crush me. I wish that I was like my brother. Ryke stares at Rose with so much concern that you’d think he was dating her.
“I’m on the phone with my attorneys and Cobalt’s,” Greg Calloway says through the cell’s speaker in Connor’s hand. “We’re looking through the contracts all of you signed. Until we can come to a clear picture of what’s going on, I need you to get my daughters out of that townhouse. No more cameras.”
Goodbye, Scott Van Wright. I thought Scott would go further and further until he reached an unbearable point with us, but leaking a sex tape with Connor and Rose—it never crossed my mind.
Connor has been unsurprisingly stoic during the whole ordeal. Sometimes I just want him to scream like the rest of us. Most of the time, I don’t want to see it. Because if someone like Connor ever breaks to that degree, then the whole world is headed for hell.
He places his hand on Rose’s shoulder, but she barely relaxes. “We’ll pack today and leave,” he tells Greg over the phone.
“Let me know when you make it safely back to Princeton. If there’s too much press around the house, you should all stay at our place in Villanova.”
My frown deepens, waiting for Greg to add, I need to have a serious talk with you, Connor. He just watched Connor screw his daughter on national television, albeit censored. And not only that—they’re into bondage and kinky shit that I’d think would have Greg tapping into his paternal side, ready for an hour-long conversation.
It never comes though.
“Do you know where Scott is?” Connor asks him.
My ribs burn when I inhale.
“No idea,” Greg says, “but Loren’s father is about to rip him a new asshole.” Good. “To be honest, I’d love to see it happen.” He pauses. “Is Rose around?”
“She’s on speaker.”
“Rose, honey, how many lawyers looked over the contract before you signed it?”
I presume he’s talking about the reality show contract—the one we trusted Rose with before we all signed the bottom. What the fuck did she do? I glare at her with everything inside my soul. What the fuck did she do?
She cradles Sadie in her arms, Connor’s orange tabby cat that usually scratches Rose. Instead, Sadie purrs. The world is backwards today.