Becca Ritchie - Hothouse Flower

He steered me into the front cabin and pushed me onto a cream leather recliner.

My sore muscles tense the longer I’m in a room with the fucking devil and his sidekick. That devil, by the way, has already poured his second glass of whiskey: straight, one ice cube. By the window, he takes big sips, sitting on a chair next to Connor, watching Greg face me in his own seat.

“I don’t even know where to start,” Greg admits, his green eyes zeroed in on me like a fucking target.

I rub the back of my neck and say, “You can ask me anything.” I can’t look at my father, only ten feet away, right fucking there. I haven’t been this close to him in years.

“I can think of a hundred places to start,” my dad pipes in, swishing his glass of whiskey. Instead of meeting my father’s eyes, I look at Connor beside him, his expression unreadable, drinking red wine. He easily fits among these men who are twice his age, and Connor exudes far more fucking confidence than either of them.

I’m no longer outdoors. I’m no longer in my element. I’ve entered Connor’s fucking realm, and I wonder if he’s mentally snapshotting this picture of me, here. Like I did to him back in Tennessee.

Greg’s eyes never leave mine. “I have this, Jonathan.” His jaw clenches once, and he says, “I let you chaperone my daughter on her sweet sixteen trip.” His voice shakes, seething. “I put my trust in you, and you spat at me.”

I don’t interrupt him. I breathe through my nose, trying not to get defensive.

“I want to know,” Greg says, clutching his knees, “if you’ve been avoiding me for the past two and a half years because you knew what you were doing was wrong.”

“No,” I say, my chest inflating with these raw emotions.

“Speak up, Ryke,” my father says from the window. “And he deserves more than a half-hearted no from you.”

I run my hand through my hair. That movement stretches my sore deltoids and biceps, and I stifle a fucking grimace. I wonder if it looks like I’m pissed at Greg. I know I’m hard to read. I know the only thing people see is this fucking black expression.

Truth is, I care what he thinks of me. Maybe a year ago I’d say believe what you want. I don’t give a fuck. But I don’t want Daisy to have to choose between me and her parents. I don’t want this fucking headache for her. I’m trying to do what’s right.

“I never thought being her friend was fucking wrong,” I start. “So no, I never intentionally avoided you because of Daisy.” I avoided you because you were friends with my father, who I never wanted to see.

I can tell Greg is fuming inside. He breathes heavily. “Let’s cut the bullshit. You were more than just her friend.”

I’m too exhausted to lean forward and start shouting. Which may be a fucking good thing. “No, I wasn’t. I never kissed her until Paris,” I tell him the truth.

Greg is still on the offensive. “Help me to believe you, Ryke. I work eighty hours a week. I don’t have time to hover over my daughter, but I have been very aware of how much time she’s spent with you. And I’ve been very aware of how much she’s fallen for you.”

“Then why not tell her to get the fuck away from me?” I ask, extending my arms. “If you thought I was such a bad influence, then why let her hang around me for so fucking long?”

He lets out a tight breath. “Samantha didn’t care for you, but I remembered you as a young boy. You were tough and strong, and you didn’t take shit from anyone, not even Jonathan.”

My dad smiles at that and raises his drink. His eyes meet mine, and I see a glimmer of fucking pride. That I’m strong like him.

My stomach roils.

“Out of my four daughters, Daisy is the most reckless. She never sits still. Even as a child, she always found a way outside when her mother or nannies weren’t looking. And you came into her life around the same time that our family became a public spectacle.”

I read into the rest. “You liked that I could keep up with her,” I realize. “You wanted me to be her fucking bodyguard, and you never thought I would be stupid enough to cross that line.” No matter how hard Daisy flirted, no matter how much she teased me, he believed I would never take her shit. I’d shut her down every time.

I didn’t.

I couldn’t.

Because I fell in love with her.

He nods once. “All this time I’d been worried that you’d lead her on and she’d be crushed from the rejection, but I never actually thought you’d get with her.” He lets out a short breath. “It was naïve of me.”

 I shake my head. How do I change how he sees me? I don’t know. I don’t fucking know. I comb my hand through my hair again, a weight on my chest. “I’m not like her ex-boyfriends,” I say. “I’m not in it for…” Fuck. I can’t end that thought.

Greg looks just as uncomfortable.

“The sex,” my father finishes for me. “No need to beat around the proverbial bush.”

Greg rolls his eyes. “You don’t have any daughters, Jonathan.”

“Thank God for that.”

Connor looks amused by the whole conversation. He leans back and sips his wine.

Greg has simmered down some, but his shoulders still stay locked and rigid.

“Let me help you out, Greg,” my dad says. “It’ll be easier for me to ask the harder questions.” No. Fuck no. Still, I don’t shoot to my feet. I stayed glued to this fucking chair, my eyes flickering to an ash tray on the glass end table. Avoiding my dad’s gaze for another moment. The plane shakes as we fly through a cloud.

My dad rises and holds onto the back of Greg’s chair, the turbulence rough. “Did you ever think about Daisy sexually when she was fifteen?” my father starts.

My chest inflates with anger again. “Fuck off.”

“I’ll take that exceedingly rude and annoying answer as a yes,” my dad says, sipping his whiskey.

I glare. “No. I had no intention of…” I trail off and glance at Greg.

“Act like her father isn’t in the room,” my dad says.

That’s fucking impossible. He’s four feet away from me. “Look,” I say, “Daisy is gorgeous, but I tried not to think of her like that.”

“Tried? Did you fail?” he asks.

“Why are you prosecuting me like a fucking lawyer, Dad?” I retort.

His eyebrows rise in genuine shock. “So you still consider me your father? That’s funny considering you’ve returned only one of my calls in a year.” Before I tell him to fuck off again, he asks, “Did you masturbate to her image or likeness?”

“No,” I growl. A few times. Once recently. She was eighteen already. A part of me will always feel guilty for it.

“That’s enough, Jonathan,” Greg says. His eyes actually soften on me, noticing how worked up I’m getting. I’ve balled one of my hands into a fist, and a bitter, nasty taste rises in my mouth.

Greg asks, “What’s your longest relationship, Ryke?”

“A few months, maybe four.”

Greg sighs. “Okay, here’s where I stand. I believe that you weren’t with my daughter until Paris, but that doesn’t mean I approve of you with her. You’re still twenty-five, and maybe in ten years the age difference won’t seem as significant, but what you’ve just said makes me think you’ll last three months. You say you’re not in it for the sex, but I’m not that naïve.” He pauses and adds, “She’s given you her heart, and if you’re going to give her anything less than that, then you need to end this right now. Understand?”

I nod a couple times. I can’t just leave it like this. I dig inside my soul, trying to produce something more. “I hope,” I say, meeting Greg’s gaze, “that one day you’ll be able to see how much I love your daughter.”

“If you stay with her long enough, I just might.”

It’s definitely better than where we started. He reaches out to shake my hand.

It’s a kind offer, one that I won’t fucking reject.

I’m going to build a relationship with her father, even if it means having to get closer to mine. It’s a sacrifice I am willing to make a thousand times over.

I’d fucking call that love.

DAISY CALLOWAY

How I ended up in the back cabin with all the couches, alone with Lo and his father, I have no idea. We have two hours left of the flight, and my mom wanted to go talk to my dad, and everyone kind of shuffled around. I think Rose is announcing her pregnancy to our parents.

Jonathan pours a glass of whiskey and sits back next to Lo while I sprawl out on the other couch, a monogrammed burgundy blanket covering my legs. HALE in black lettering. I braid my hair for the twentieth time, bored and anxious.

I learned that my dad wants to “get to know” Ryke. Jonathan mentioned that, so my dad made him stay up front with everyone else.

I’d join them, but my mom is in there.

So here I remain.

Jonathan looks to his son. “You need to send me your sales report for Halway Comics by next weekend. I need to know if you’re driving the fucking thing into the ground.”

“It’s been slow,” Lo says. “I took a month off for the road trip.”

“That’s your goddamn fault,” he refutes. “You’re running a business now. You can’t afford to take month-long vacations.”

“Connor took the same time off,” Lo defends.

“And he’s running a multi-billion dollar company with a staff of thousands. You don’t even have an assistant. Christ, you don’t even have an annoying assistant, the kind that screws up coffee orders and likes to share personal life stories that you don’t give a fuck about.”

This is why Lo doesn’t come to Sunday family luncheons with Lily. He gets berated and my sister either gets ignored or scolded. I don’t blame them for skipping.

“It’s called initiative,” Jonathan says after he takes a pretty giant swig of whiskey, without grimacing. And then his eyes fix on me, realizing that I’ve been watching. He stands. “Daisy—I think you and I should have a talk.” He sits on the couch next to me. “Loren, can you give us a minute?”

Lo frowns deeply. “Why do you need to talk to her?”

I’ve never had a conversation alone with Jonathan Hale. I don’t think I ever needed to.

“She’s dating my son.”

Lo doesn’t move. He’s twenty-four and wears anger like a weapon. It almost makes me shrink back, but he’s on my side of things. If anything, I should be recoiling from Jonathan, right?

“I’d like to talk to her alone,” Jonathan repeats.

I’m confused. I don’t know what to do because my boyfriend doesn’t talk to his father, so even entertaining the idea of listening to Jonathan kind of feels like a betrayal. Should I cold-shoulder Jonathan too? In solidarity? I don’t know how this works.

These are deep waters that I actually need help swimming in.

“I’m not leaving her alone with you,” Lo snaps.

“Stop being a little—”

“If Ryke found out that you talked to her in private, he’d kill you. So think of it as me doing you a favor.” Lo crosses his arms.

Jonathan rolls his eyes and then focuses his attention back on me. I sit up and tuck my legs to my chest. His eyes fall to the saying on my shirt, and his lips rise in amusement. “How long have you and Ryke been dating?”

“A little over a month.”

I have to remind myself that I’ve known Jonathan since I was a little girl. He’s even Poppy’s godfather.

Jonathan tilts his head at me. “Your father is warming up to that timeframe, but your mother seems to think you’ve had a relationship long before that.”

I’m not surprised that she believes that. The tabloids have been throwing out those rumors for a while. “She’s wrong. Ryke wouldn’t ever be with someone underage.” Even me.

“I know,” Jonathan says, surprising me. “Ryke’s a lot of things: stubborn, hardheaded, foul-mouthed.” He stares at his glass. “But he’s made it clear that he’ll never follow in my footsteps.” He washes back the liquor.

Lo tenses on the couch, and his eyes briefly flicker to me. I know the truth, what Jonathan is talking about, like the rest of my family, but it’s different airing it out like this.

Twenty-four years ago, Jonathan had an affair with an underage girl.

Lo’s mom.

The press doesn’t even know the identity of Lo’s mother. It’s what’s kept Jonathan out of jail.

“Is that all you wanted to ask?” I wonder. “Whether or not Ryke was with me before I turned eighteen?”

“That and I wanted to know if you could talk to Ryke for me. I’d like to have dinner with him next weekend, catch up. You’re welcome to come too. The more the merrier.” He almost takes another sip of his drink, but he realizes his glass is empty. But he doesn’t stand to refill it again.