Fuel the Fire (22 page)

“To investigate your sister based on her weirdness? I don’t think so.”

I point at him. “You’re going to wish you did.”

“I sincerely doubt that, darling.”

I choke on an irritated laugh and then perform a signature hair-flip
.
I stomp up the stairs, determination fueling my forceful stride. I feel Connor watching me, waiting for me to leave before he does. His caginess puts me on guard. Like I really need two Christmas mysteries.

I decide to stalk my sister first, trusting Connor more since I’m fucking him and he better believe my vagina will cast out his dick for a hint of betrayal.

Once I reach the top of the stairs, I immediately spot Lily standing outside
my
bedroom door, biting her nails.

She turns her head to the crack of the door and whisper-hisses, “Hurry up.”

If I had high heels on, she’d hear me. This is a clear case of fate. I’d shove this in Connor’s face, but of course he’s not here. I encroach her space quickly, and she jumps, almost falling against the wall. She rights herself before she does.

“Rose!”

“Who’s in my room? Is it Loren?” I ask, edging past her easily and ramming the door open with my foot. Lily tries to grab onto my arm, but I am a one-woman bulldozer, steamrolling everything in my wake.

No one is in my room, but someone haphazardly threw my pillows on the bed, my vanity drawer left half-opened. A velvet blanket has been misplaced from the chaise to a nearby ottoman…also not in its proper spot by my Queen Anne chair.

I beeline for the bathroom.

“Rose,” Lily calls, struggling to keep up with my vigorous pace. “I need you to take me to the doctor’s. I’m not feeling well.”

“Nice try, Lily,” I say.
I am on the hunt.

“I told you this would never fucking work! Rose can sniff out a predator a mile away!” Loren shouts from the hallway, which means someone else is in my bathroom…or my closet. I veer towards my closet instead.

“I’m not a predator,” Lily tells him, drawing away from me and towards her husband.

“Of course not, love.” His voice softens for my sister.

I swing open the closet door. Ryke, of all people, is crouched beside my extensive rack of heels, searching behind them. I clear my throat, and he stands, not even trying to hide the fact that he has been digging through my belongings.

“What are you doing?” I place my hands on my hips.

He scratches his unshaven jaw. “I was looking for something.”

My brain circumnavigates to the sex tapes, to the diamond collar. “My sex toys?”

“Fuck no.” He grimaces, eyeing the exit behind me like he plans to leave without offering me a single answer.

I lock the door, imprisoning us both, and I even stand guard. “Spill.”

He saunters forward, only a foot from me, and he tries to reach behind me for the knob. “Move, Rose.”

“You’re the one who’s been snooping in
my
personal things.”

“Is someone going to help me here?!” he calls to his allies on the other side.

Lily jimmies the knob. “It’s locked!”

Ryke looks down at me again. He won’t physically push me aside. I’ve never seen him manhandle a woman unless it’s playfully or flirtatiously. This falls in neither category.

“You give me the truth,” I say, “and I open the door. It’s not so hard, is it?”

“I was looking for your husband’s cocaine stash,” he says bluntly. “Is that what you wanted to fucking hear?”

No.

Shock, from being caught, washes over me before I can shroud a trace of it. The other
Celebrity Crush
article this week centered on Connor dropping a little baggie of white powder, photographed picking it up. It was powdered sugar, but Walter took a wide shot, the substance up for interpretation.

Ryke reads my uneasy features. “For fuck’s sake, Rose, are you doing it with him too?”

“No. And he only did it once,” I lie, spinning on my heels and trying to unlock the door quickly. I fumble with even turning the knob, Ryke putting pressure on me as he hovers close, his stance carrying too much doubt.

“Are you sure it was just once?” he asks.

“Yes, I saw him.”

“What if he has a fucking problem, Rose?”

I finally free myself from the closet with Ryke. “You’ve
all
tried it before. He doesn’t need your concern. He’s twenty-six.”

“I don’t care if he’s fifty-five,” Ryke retorts. “We’re fucking worried. You both are acting unusual—”

“We are not.” I begin to clean my disorderly room, fixing the pillows so they’re not turned sideways, shutting the crooked nightstand drawer. Lily and Lo linger in the doorway, his hand slipping
down
her pajama pants.

I’m not even joking.

Rooms. There are rooms for these things (and
not
my room), but when it comes to teasing Lily, Loren rarely cares about the location.

“You dyed your hair orange for a day,” Ryke says. “That’s not fucking strange to you?”

“
Blonde
,” I say. “It was supposed to be blonde.”

That
Celebrity Crush
article about my hair was horrendous. They said that I was trying to be like Daisy, grasping at my youth since I’ve had a child. Some people cited it as a mental break. I change my hair color
once
, and I’m losing my mind. Daisy can change her hair color every other week and she’s expressing herself.

It’s unjust.

“Connor went down on you in a fucking parking lot.”

I stop midway to my curtains that are creased incorrectly. I rotate to face him and our chests collide. I refuse to step back first, and unfortunately, he stands his ground too, his features darkening like
what the fuck is going on?

“And you go down on my littlest, most precious sister on our
roof
.” I point a finger at his chest, hoping he’ll take
one
step back. He does not. “I could’ve castrated you for even waving your dick around her, you know. You’re
my
age.” I bring up old news to thwart the current event.

His jaw hardens. “Thank you for not castrating me.” I wait for him to say
I like fucking your sister
just to piss me off, but I forget that he’s not Loren. “And you’re right—it shouldn’t be strange that you’re doing things that the rest of us do or have tried once. I guess none of us thought you two would be so…” His brows pinch, unable to find the word.

“Wild,” I answer for him.

“Yeah.”

I return my course to the curtains. I think I did really well, even
without
Connor’s assistance. “I thought you don’t read tabloid articles.” I wonder how he read this headline. “And you rarely believe anything inside of them. Unless you really have been in a three-way relationship with Lily and your brother?”

“Fuck
no
.” He follows me to the curtains. “Daisy saw the article first, and she asked me if I knew that Connor did cocaine. I asked Loren, who asked Lily, and we were all just confused. Look, I didn’t want to fucking believe it, but some photographs can’t be taken out of context. I couldn’t spin this any other way.”

“He was picking up drugs for a friend. How about that one, Ryke?” I stop by the window, straightening the chic, light-blue fabric that matches my bedspread.

“Is that true?”

“No,” I say, “but you could’ve just asked us.”

“Addicts lie,” Lily chimes in from the doorway, her face flushed from Loren’s groping. He’s just holding her around the waist now and whispering in her ear.

I smooth a crease in the curtain. “The only thing Connor is addicted to is his own monstrous ego.” I glance at the window for a brief second, movement outside causing me to do a double take. Is that…? I edge closer until my legs touch the wall.

“Guys!” Daisy calls, bounding into my bedroom with wet hair. Ryke rotates abruptly, his body tensing, but Daisy is fast approaching, unharmed. She squeezes past Lily and Lo. “After I finished taking a shower,” she exclaims quickly, “I looked out the window and I saw—”

“What is he doing?” My eyes sear holes through the window. In freshly plowed snow, Connor treks along the street, wearing a black winter coat, a blue-wrapped present in hand.

Loren knocks into my shoulder, trying to peer down below. “Did he say something to you?”
No.
Lily worms her way between us, her nose nearly touching the glass. There’s not room for all five of us, not until Ryke lifts Daisy onto his shoulders, his body squished on my right.

Connor veers towards the gorgeous stone house with manicured hedges and circular driveway. Scott’s house. “He better be gifting Scott rat poison,” I announce. Why wouldn’t he ask me to join him? I recall last time—where I couldn’t bottle my emotions. Where all of us went off the hinges. All of us but him.

“I bet it’s road kill,” Lo guesses. “Maybe a dead armadillo.” That’s something that Lo would’ve done to frighten Scott.

I can’t picture Connor mimicking Loren’s actions. I draw another blank. He’s hiking up the driveway to Scott’s front door.

Daisy has both palms to the glass. “I bet it’s a
fuck you
cupcake.”

Ryke holds her legs affectionately and stares up at her. “Cute, Calloway.”

Their exchange pulls my mind to that night again, when Scott planted vicious seeds of misery in our heads. “Daisy,” I begin, “did you ever sleep with someone named Trent?” I question how much bullshit Scott was spewing our way.

Daisy opens her mouth and closes it, uneasy since she’s sitting on Ryke’s shoulders.

Ryke glowers at
me
. Their relationship is ultimately the most private of everyone’s in the house. I don’t know how much they tell each other or what they share. “You can’t ask her that, Rose.”

“She’s my
sister
,” I refute.

“And she’s my fucking girlfriend,” he retorts. “You don’t need to know who she’s slept with.” He knows the truth. He knows the truth
before
me. That’s so backwards.

Where is the sisterly loyalty? I try to swat away the reality: that we’re all just a little bit closer to our men than we are each other.
This was always going to happen, Rose
. I know, but I thought we had more time still.

“It was a really long time ago, and I don’t remember a lot,” Daisy finally answers. “So hey, I figure it barely counts, right?”

“What do you mean—you don’t remember?” I’m ready to shed my protective armor and fling it on my sister. Loren and Lily have pried their gazes off the window and onto Daisy too. Ryke is the only one who seems caught up.

“I drank a lot of champagne. It was after a modeling thing. It really doesn’t matter.” She shrugs this off, her gaze drifting back to outside. “Hey, he’s at the house!”

Her distraction works. Across the street, Connor rings the bell. Seconds pass before Scott opens the door. I can’t discern small details, but I catch Scott’s trademark smile, smug and pompous. After a quick exchange, I expect Connor to shove the present in his chest and leave.

Instead, Scott swings the door wider, welcoming Connor inside. He nods and disappears within the confines of that house, the door shutting closed.

“What the hell,” Lo says, stunned.

“Connor is probably threatening him,” Lily nods a couple times.

“In his fucking house?” Ryke shakes his head. “He’s not that stupid.”

He’s making a deal
, I conclude. Our doorbell chimes throughout the house, splitting my thoughts. I didn’t see anyone traipse up our driveway. Every noise, every new change pricks my neck, setting my mood to
cautious
and
severely alarmed.

[ 20 ]

ROSE COBALT

I dart away from the window first, rushing to answer the door.

I’m not the only one.

It’s a stampede to downstairs with Lo lifting Lily in a piggyback, pushing ahead of me. I walk quickly, close to his heels. Ryke still carries Daisy on his shoulders behind us, moving at a lackadaisical pace.

“Did someone call Mom?” Daisy asks, her fingers combing through Ryke’s thick hair.

“No,” we all say. That would be a horrible surprise—to open the door in a quick rush, finding our mother on the other side. I love her, but she already spent Christmas Eve criticizing my gift choices for Jane.

After storming down the steps, Lo stumbles over a decorative three-foot Santa Claus, causing Lily to drop off his back and try to beat me there. I’ve already passed her, speeding through the foyer.

I clasp the knob, partially out of breath. Just as I open the door, the person presses the buzzer one more time.

The young guy solidifies when he meets my hot gaze, and he stuffs his fists into his black hoodie, a blue Dalton Academy beanie shrouding his brown hair. I know
exactly
who this seventeen-year-old is.

“Uh…” His eyes flicker to Lily. She tries to squeeze through to greet him with open arms. I crack the door so my body wedges into the space, not allowing her exit.

“Rose,” she complains.

“I got here first,” I tell her but keep an intimidating glare on him.

Garrison clears his throat, nervous. “We haven’t met.” He outstretches his gloved hand.

“Yes, we have.” I don’t shake his hand, the ten-degree chill numbing my fingers on the door’s edge. “You and your friends sprayed red punch on my
infant
daughter and me with a water gun.” Before Halloween, we had a long-standing feud with the teenage neighbors. It ended with all of them being charged for burglary, all but Garrison who chose not to break into our house like his friends.

His character, in my mind, is tarnished until I see otherwise, but he works as a cashier at Superheroes & Scones, thanks to Lily’s kindness and Lo’s empathy for broken, spiteful teenagers.

“It was stupid…I’m sorry…” He chews his chapped lip for a second. “Hey is Willow here? I know she’s a distant cousin, or whatever…”

He means Loren’s half-sister, but Willow has to lie about her connections to her brother the same way that Ryke once did. No one can know that Willow’s mom is actually Lo’s birth mom. I learned that she was underage, only
sixteen
, when she was pregnant with Loren.