Becca Ritchie - Kiss the Sky

Connor speaks before I have the chance. “She likes what she likes. Let’s leave it at that, Lo.” He says it casually, but we all sense the warning behind his words.

“Okay,” he says, but he’s having trouble holding back a smirk and a laugh. Ryke shakes his head at him, but he’s about to laugh too.

“I hate both of you,” I tell them.

Ryke looks a little apologetic. “We’re not laughing at you. Honestly, it’s just…” His eyes flicker between me and Connor. He smiles again. “You go through life, seeing people one way. And in one fucking moment, what you thought was commonplace becomes something else, something…different.” He shrugs. “That’s all. I see you guys a little differently. Not bad, not good. Just fucking different.”

It takes me a moment to digest that. I can be okay with different. Connor is trying to stifle an even larger grin. I can practically hear his thoughts: Ordinary is boring, darling. He loves every word that just came out of Ryke’s mouth. And that rarely happens.

Loren nods to Connor. “You going to help us lift this?”

Connor’s eyebrow arches. “Is it really that heavy?”

“It’s solid wood,” Loren says, about to kick the table to demonstrate.

I glower and hold a finger to him. “Don’t scuff my table.”

His foot freezes mid-kick. He sets it back on the ground while Connor goes to the middle, each brother on either side.

Before they pick it up, Connor stares off for a second, and I watch his eyes tighten in confusion. “I’ve been meaning to ask,” he says, clearing his throat. He looks between both of them. “Did either of you fuck in the showers?”

“No way,” Ryke answers first.

Oh. Shit. We couldn’t have been the only ones, right?

Loren says, “Lily was too scared to take a shower naked for six whole months. Do you really think we were going to fuck in there?”

So there’s no footage of Lily bathing in the nude. She must have kept her swim suit on. Thank God. I’ll take that miracle.

“Did you two do anything?” Loren asks us.

We stay silent as we both recall the blow job. I look far more suspicious than Connor.

Loren meets my gaze, and I glare. He laughs harder. “Oh, this is too rich.”

“What’s rich would be my foot to your balls,” I retort.

“Why don’t you just hit Connor?” Loren banters. “And then he can spank you for it.”

“Or I can just spank you,” Connor says.

Loren laughs. “Before or after you tie me up?”

“After.”

Loren grins, and I cut him off as his mouth opens again, “You’re both adorable. We get it.” Before he can comment, I add, “How are Lily and Daisy doing?” I haven’t spoken to either of them about the tapes yet. I’ve been avoiding, and they’ve been giving me space while I packed.

Loren and Ryke say nothing at first, and my eyes must widen to saucers because Connor returns to my side, drawing me to his chest.

“You go,” Ryke whispers to his brother.

Loren shakes his head and then rolls his eyes. Then he looks at me. “Lil is concerned about you. She’s fine, but…I mean…” He cringes. “We’re both kind of relieved.” He looks guilty for saying so. “Honestly, we’re just glad it’s not us.”

“Me too,” I say.

He exhales and runs a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. Really, Rose. If that was Lil…” His face breaks, and it looks like there’s a physical weight that bears on his shoulders, dropping them.

“She’s okay,” I say with a nod. If not her, then me, right? I can handle this. If I keep repeating it, it may come true. Or I’ll just believe it until it does. “And Daisy?” I ask.

Ryke stuffs his hands in his jeans. “She’s been quiet. I think she’s just in shock.”

“She’ll be okay,” I say again with another nod.

“Yeah,” Ryke says, his muscles tense, “she’ll be fine.” It’s like he’s trying my new tactic. Repeat it and believe it.

Connor kisses my cheek and departs from me again to help with the table.

I take a deep breath as I watch them lift the antique in the air. The last piece of furniture in this townhouse. And the last moment left before we’re free from the reality show.

But I realize that I’ll never be free from Scott Van Wright.

He stamped himself all over me.

And distributed it to the world.

“I’m sorry,” I apologize to my mother almost immediately as I walk into her office, a city-view of Philadelphia covering a whole wall. Her office is minimal. A couple black bookshelves and a clean desk. No pictures of her family. Everything personal and private is kept out of sight.

“Shut the door,” she says stiffly.

I close it behind me. The blinds are already snapped shut on all the windows that peer into the hallway. We’re alone.

I take a seat in the chair across from her desk. I wait for her to say something about the sex tape, but she stares at her computer, clicking her mouse for an extra minute. Leaving me to my own fucking thoughts.

I always protected my reputation. It meant everything to me. But I don’t even care anymore. I have what I want: a job at Cobalt Inc. and my girlfriend. Besides Rose’s well-being, the only thing I worry about is how I’ve hurt this company.

Scott can collect his cash.

I have the girl. Now I just need to secure my position here.

I wait for my mother to say, “You’re fired.” To strip me of my standing as interim CEO. To hand everything I’ve worked for to Steve Balm. I could lose something important to me, something that I’ve spent years toiling over, in five minutes or less.

“I’m willing to make this right,” I say. “Whatever you need me to do.” It’s a lofty statement, and I’m not sure I’m prepared to pay. But I fucking make it, and I wait for her response.

She finally swivels in her chair, facing me. And she says absolutely nothing. She just stares at me, testing me, maybe. She wears a face I can barely even read.

“Did you watch the tape?” I ask, internally cringing at the idea of my mother seeing me screw my girlfriend.

“No,” she says flatly. “I’ve read about your situation with Rose online. You have the lawyers involved, I hope?”

“Yes.”

She exhales loudly and nods a few times before leaning back in her chair. “Connor,” she starts. “I don’t think I’ve ever told you this, but…I’m really proud of you.”

Wait. I repeat her words over again in my head. “Are we talking about the same situation…?”

She smiles. She actually smiles. “You have a sex tape. And I’m not proud of you for that, although, I really want to talk to Rose at the wedding. To clarify. I was in a bad place when we met at the restaurant, and I was projecting. I mistook your relationship with her as somewhat distant and contrived. Really, that was what I had with your father.”

“My father.” She never talks of Jim. I never talk of Jim. He’s nothing more than a name on a birth certificate.

“We were rarely intimate.” Why is she telling me this? “When we were, it was to have children. And then I couldn’t have any more after the twins…” She clears her throat, and lines wrinkle her forehead in hurt. She lets me see it.

Sweat gathers underneath my white button-down. My whole body heats at her unfamiliar sincerity. I feel like I’m on fire. It’s my only feeling in this moment. I don’t understand my reaction. I can’t understand anything. I just listen and try to let my mind reconnect to my body.

“Hearing about you and Rose…I think you’re going to make it for the long run.”

My mother just approved of my relationship after a sex tape circulated online. What world do I fucking live in?

“Like I was saying,” she says, “I’m proud of you.” She straightens up and rests her hands on her desk, shifting papers nervously. She shows me that emotion as well. And then her dark blue eyes meet mine. “You’re incredibly intelligent, and you will do great things in life, Richard… Connor… Cobalt.” She smiles at my full name, as though she remembers when she chose it for me. “I have no doubt about this.” Her eyes tighten in pain the longer she stares in my direction. I don’t know how much time passes. Maybe a minute before she says, “And I’m so very sorry for things that I have done to you.”

“What are you talking about?” I shake my head. She’s put a weight on my chest that I can’t release.

“I made you feel like you didn’t need a father in your life—that it was so unimportant that you could live without one.” She takes a sip from a glass of water. “It’s taken some therapy to come to terms with this, but I have…” She pauses. “You didn’t need Jim. And you didn’t need me. I gave you necessary tools to thrive on your own, but I never gave you the ones that every child deserves.” She wipes a tear before it falls. “I never showed you love. And I’m so sorry for that. I hope…I hope that Rose can do what I’ve neglected for so many years.”

I open my mouth, but she cuts me off with a raised hand.

“Let me finish. There’s something else.” She grabs a tissue, sniffs, and walks around her desk.

She sits in the chair next to me.

And just by the serious, tortured look on her face—I know there’s no way to prepare for her words. I can’t anticipate anything she’s going to say.

So I grip the armrest, I clench my teeth, and I brace myself.

I don’t want to fall.

I never have before.

* * *

I feel blindsided.

My whole life I always made sure I knew every possible path, every probability and what if so that I wasn’t ever assaulted by this feeling. And today, I wake up and there it is.

The path I never saw coming.

I left Cobalt Inc. with this insane thing ripping through my chest. I thought about calling Frederick, but there’s only one person I want to see. And it’s not my therapist.

The Calloway Couture loft is crammed with people and boxes, bustling around with fervent urgency. A dramatic change from months ago. Her company is still in flux. She won’t know how the sex tape will impact it until a few weeks pass.

I find Rose in her glass-walled office in the back. She subconsciously touches the bruise on her cheek, concealed with makeup, as she scans her computer screen. I enter quickly and shut the door.

She springs to her feet in an instant upon seeing me. “What’s wrong?” Her fingers touch the corners of my eyes, as if she needs to feel my tears to know they’re real. I don’t blame her. I did the same fucking thing.

I don’t remember the last time I cried. But it was probably over something trivial. A grade. An accomplishment I didn’t fully succeed. The things that used to matter to me. I never cried over a person until now.

“Hold on,” Rose chokes, worry coating her voice. She moves swiftly, drawing cream curtains closed so that her employees can’t see into her office.

I take a seat on her white couch, another breathtaking view through the window. This time New York City. And then Rose sinks down on the cushion, turning her body towards mine.

She rubs my leg. “Connor…”

I take her hand in mine, lacing our fingers together slowly. I try to speak, to let it out, but I shake my head and pinch my eyes as they outflow. Why is this so hard? Why do real emotions have to be so devastating? Why do they have to cripple me?

“It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything.”

But I do. I need to fucking say it. “I hate her…” I start. The first thing that comes out of my mouth is impudent and juvenile. I can’t take it back. I just keep going. “I hate that she has continued to blind me. No matter how wide I open my eyes, there’s been a haze that only she could clear. And she made me believe that I was walking in the fucking clear sky.” I pinch my eyes again, and I actually scream, one that burns my throat. “I am so—”

“Don’t you dare say stupid,” she snaps. “You’re not stupid, Richard.”

“I feel like an idiot,” I tell her. “I was fooled by my own mother for two fucking years, Rose. Two years, and she couldn’t find it in her heart to tell her only son that she has breast cancer? That she’s dying?” My throat swells as the truth bears down on me. “She made me believe I’d be taking over Cobalt Inc. in five years, maybe ten. And this whole time, she knew I’d be taking it in two months.”

Rose’s mouth falls. “Two…months?”

“Two months. That’s how long she has left.” I extend my arms. “And she didn’t think it was important to tell me.”