Becca Ritchie - Hothouse Flower

“Don’t worry about it.” I motion with my head to the white colonial house. “Let’s go make some breakfast for the girls.”

“Wait,” he says, holding out his hand. “I have to say this.”

But I don’t want to hear it. I’ve made up my mind already. I’m not going to California. Not when he’s in a bad place with his recovery. I’m his sponsor. I have to be here.

“I need you to go,” he says. I open my mouth and he cuts me off. “I can already hear your stupid fucking rebuttal. And I’m telling you to go. Climb your mountains. Do whatever you need to do. You’ve had this planned for a long time, and I’m not going to ruin it for you.”

“I can always reschedule. Those mountains aren’t fucking moving, Lo.” I’ve wanted to free-solo climb three rock formations, back-to-back, in Yosemite since I turned eighteen. I’ve been working up to the challenge for years. I can wait a little longer.

“I will feel like shit if you don’t go,” he says. “And I’ll drink. I can promise you that.”

I glare.

“I don’t need you,” he says with malice. “I don’t fucking need you to hold my hand. I need you to be goddamn selfish like me for once in your life so I don’t feel like utter shit compared to you, alright?”

I internally cringe. I was selfish for so many fucking years. I didn’t give a fuck about him. I don’t want to be that guy again.

But I hear him begging me. I hear please fucking go. I’m losing my mind.

“Okay,” I say on instinct. “I’ll go.”

His shoulders instantly relax, and he lets out another deep breath. He nods to himself. I wonder how long he’s been carrying that weight on his chest.

I can’t explain why I love him so much. Maybe because he’s the only person who understands what it’s like to be manipulated by Jonathan for his gain. Or maybe because I know deep down there’s a soul that needs love more than anyone else, and I can’t help but reciprocate to the fullest degree.

I put my arm around his shoulder again and say, “Maybe one day you’ll be able to outrun me.”

He lets out a dry, bitter laugh. “Maybe if I break both your legs.”

I grin. “Would you even be fucking fast enough to do that?”

“Give me a lacrosse stick and we’ll see.”

“Not fucking happening, little brother.”

I don’t say it with scorn.

I never do. And I never will.

DAISY CALLOWAY

I have this theory.

Friends aren’t forever. They’re not even for a while. They come into your life and they leave when something or someone changes. Nothing grounds them to you. Not blood or loyalty. They’re just…fleeting.

I’m usually not this cynical, but I popped up Facebook this morning, my laptop resting on my bent legs. I should have deleted my account a couple years ago, around the same time my family was thrust into the public eye—when my older sister’s sex addiction went public.

But alas, I had a different theory about friends back then.

Butterflies, rainbows, hearts holding hands—it was literally a PBS special in my brain whenever I thought about my friendships.

And now Cleo Marks posted this on her wall: During Daisy Calloway’s sweet sixteen party, she couldn’t shut up about sex. It’s all she cared about. You know she’s a closeted sex addict like her sister. All the Calloway girls are skanks.

Those are the beautiful words of my former best friend. And it doesn’t even matter that she brought up an incident from two and a half years ago. Resurfacing it is enough to elicit 457 comments, mostly all in agreement.

Four months have passed since I graduated prep school and I’m still being haunted by my former friends. Like the Ghosts of Hell’s Past.

A hand reaches out and smacks my computer closed. “Stop wasting your fucking emotions on them.”

A tall six-foot-three guy is in my bed. Beside me. In only a pair of drawstring pants. And I’m sitting against the headboard, wearing white cotton shorts and a cropped red and blue top that says: Wild America.

On the outside, we probably look like a couple, gently rising from the morning sunlight that peeks through my curtains.

On the inside, there’s no touching. No kissing. Nothing beyond friendship status.

Reality is a whole lot more complicated.

“When did you wake up?” I wonder, avoiding any discussions that center on my old friends.

He doesn’t sit yet. He stays beneath my green comforter and sheet, running his hands through his disheveled dark brown hair. Attractive doesn’t even begin to describe his “I-don’t-give-a-shit-about-it” hair. It never looks neater during the day, but he knows that.

“The better fucking question is when did you go to sleep?” He stares at me with narrowed, accusatory eyes.

Never. But he knows this too. “Good news, I finished packing in the wee hours of the night.”

He rises and nears me a little. I tense at his closeness, reminded that he’s a man, his body easily dwarfing mine. It’s not a bad tense. More like the kind of tense that stops my breath for a second. That makes my head float and my heart do a weird little dance. I like it.

The danger of it all.

 “Bad news, I don’t give a fuck about your packing,” he says roughly. “I just give a fuck about you.” He reaches across my chest to grab a pill bottle off my nightstand. His muscles constrict as he accidentally brushes against my boobs. Neither of us announces the brief touch, but the tension has turned a corner, down onto Don’t Go There Lane.

To relieve this new tension, I stand up on the bed and kick a decorative pillow off. “You do care about my packing. You thought I’d never get it done.”

“Because you’re fucking ADD and a lot of other things.” He watches me from below, his eyes traveling up the length of my long bare legs. “Sit down for a second, Calloway.” Instead of acting like he’s into me and all that, he just reads the back of the pill bottle, his brows tightening in concern.

You know that theory I have about friends not being forever...or even for a while?

Well, every theory has an exception.

Ryke is mine.

As I watched each friend call me a sex-addict-in-training and a media whore, stabbing me routinely in the heart, Ryke was the one who pulled out the blades. He even shielded me from them. He’s like my wolf—dangerous, alluring and protective—but I can never get close enough or else he’ll bite me.

He’s my last real friend. But I know that’s not entirely true. He’s the only real one I’ve ever had.

“What other things am I?” I ask with a smile, standing by his ankles at the foot of the bed.

“Hyperactive, fearless, crazy, and probably the happiest unhappy girl I’ve ever met.”

I bounce a little, about to jostle the mattress, but he side-swipes my calves quickly. I fall on my back, smiling big as I turn on my side towards him. It fades the moment he tosses the pill bottle at my face. It hits me square in the forehead and thuds to the comforter.

He’s also an asshole.

“You lowered your dosage,” he says.

“The doctor did it. He was worried how fast I was going through Ambien.”

“Did you tell him that you can’t fucking sleep without it?”

“No,” I admit. “I was too busy explaining how I don’t want to be addicted to anything like my sister or your brother. And he said it was a good idea to start lowering the dosage.” I tuck a strand of my dyed blonde hair behind my ear. It’s waist-length and has a habit of being everywhere all the time. Like right now. I am pretty much swaddled in it.

I empathize greatly with Rapunzel. She had it rough.

Ryke glares. “Not sleeping isn’t the fucking solution, Daisy.”

“What’s a better one?” I ask seriously. I am tired, and I realize today, like most days, will be fueled by energy drinks and endorphin boosts in the form of diet pills. Yippee.

He lets out a deep breath. “I don’t know. Right now, I’m really disturbed by the fact that I knew you didn’t sleep because you didn’t scream or kick me. If you don’t wake me in the middle of the night, it means you were up the whole fucking time.” He shakes his head as he continues to think. “When you’re in Paris, are you sharing a room with another model?

“No,” I say. “No, I wouldn’t.” Because she’d hear me scream, and I’d have to explain why I have these intense nightmares. And no one knows but Ryke. Not my sisters: Lily and Rose. Not Rose’s husband. Not Lily’s fiancé (who happens to be Ryke’s brother).

Just him. It’s a secret he’s kept for half a year. When I graduated from prep school about four months ago, I moved out of my parent’s house and into a Philly apartment. Things got a little worse, so he spends the night.

At first he just crashed on the couch.

But I couldn’t sleep, and his proximity helped keep my anxiety at bay.

Anxiety—such a weird word. I’ve never been anxious about anything before. Not really. Not until the media surrounded my family.

For the first time in my life, I’m truly scared.

And it’s not even of sharks or alligators or heights and daredevil stunts.

I am scared of people. Of things that people can do to me. Of things they’ve done.

Ryke knows my fears pretty well because I never lie to him. Two years ago, when I was sixteen, he held out my motorcycle helmet, about to teach me how to ride a Ducati. He said, “For us to have any kind of friendship, you can’t pretend with me. I’ve been involved in lies most of my fucking life, and it’s not something I’m particularly fond of. So you can cut the I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m little and naïve bullshit. I don’t play that game. I never will.”

It took me a full minute to process the gravity of his words. But I understood them. In order to be his friend, I couldn’t save face. I had to be me. It wasn’t a lot to ask. But back then, I’m not even sure I knew who I was. “Okay,” I accepted. So far, I’ve kept my word. No lies. And in turn, I’ve opened up more to Ryke than I have to anyone else. Plus, he’s been the only one here long enough to listen.

“Are you worried about going to Paris alone?” he asks me. “You haven’t slept by yourself in four months.”

“I can’t keep you forever, can I? Like a miniature Ryke Meadows carry-on or pocket-sized version?” I try hard not to smile at this.

“I’m not a fucking teddy bear.”

I gasp. “Really? I thought you were.”

He chucks a pillow at my face.

I smile so hard.

He loves throwing things.

“If you’re scared, maybe you shouldn’t go to Fashion Week without your mom.”

“No,” I say. “I need to do this on my own.” I’ve wanted this for so long—before the shit storm blew in from the press and paparazzi. I dreamed about sight-seeing, and my mother won’t let me do that if she’s attached to my side. She’ll only steer me towards fashion designers, schmoozing everyone for the chance to be the face of their clothing line.

“Well, you have my number,” he says. “Don’t be afraid to fucking call me, okay?”

I nod, and he climbs off my bed and goes to my dresser, searching through the bottom drawer for some of his clothes that he keeps here. I trace his features quickly. He’s unshaven, so he looks a little older than twenty-five, his actual age. And his brows do this thing where they furrow hard, like he’s in a bad mood. But really, he’s just brooding.

It’s his normal expression, one that’s insanely attractive in this possessive—I will protect you even if it fucking kills me—quality that I didn’t think I would like until I met him.

And it drew me in like this magnetic pull or a moth to a flame. All those cheesy things people say about attraction.

But below the physical connection (which I’m sure isn’t too hard for any girl to possess with a guy like Ryke Meadows) there’s something more strong and pure. A friendship built from three years of non-fucking. Of talking and laughing and yes, maybe a little bit of flirting.

And below that. There is only need.

I didn’t realize it was there—that need—until the nightmares of my dreams became the nightmares of my life. And he’s the kind of guy who wants to slay all those monsters for me. Too bad he can’t get to the ones in my head.

Even if he tries.

As he grabs a clean shirt and jeans, he straightens up and meets my gaze. I shouldn’t stare anymore, but I end up eyeing his muscles, the ones that are so supremely cut. Most people would be able to tell that he’s an athlete by looking—and not some muscular bodybuilder type. He’s light enough that he can ascend a mountain quickly, but strong enough that he can carry his weight on a single finger.