Fuel the Fire (35 page)

His nose flares. “What does it matter to you if I read the back of a shampoo bottle or
Ulysses
?”

“I value intelligence,” I say easily. “I find it agitating that you hide yours.”

“Well there you go.” He gestures between my chest and his. “I don’t rank people above or below me based on whether or not they can outscore me on a fucking math test.”

That’s how he sees me then? I shake my head. “You’ve pegged me wrong. I’m not saying I look down on Lo or Lily because they’re not as intelligent as me. They have other qualities that I admire and value and that I personally lack, but they don’t hide these qualities from anyone.”

“I’m not fucking hiding.”

“Your book is literally sitting behind a pillow, hidden from view.”

His jaw tenses. “And I’m saying that book isn’t me. I could do this all fucking day, Cobalt.”

“It’s nighttime,” I correct.

“You’re so fucking annoying.” He grimaces and sighs heavily. I don’t move a muscle, and it’s irritating him enough that he reaches over and grabs the book. He shoves it in my chest.

I read the title in Spanish.
El cuento de la criada
by Margaret Atwood, a foreign edition of
The Handmaid’s Tale.
“Have you read this before?” I ask. I’ve only read the English edition, but it’s largely popular and actually one of Rose’s favorites, a science fiction novel with feminist themes.

“Yes.” He snatches it back. “I’m not having book club with you at four in the fucking morning—or ever.” He returns the book to his backpack.

I wander over to the window, the maroon curtains open to a glittering view of Manhattan. “Your intelligence doesn’t belong to your mother, you know,” I say. “It’s yours. You earned it. She didn’t.” I look over my shoulder, and he’s standing stiffly by the bed, quiet. In the many years we’ve known each other, I can count on one hand our personal heart-to-hearts. I don’t know why I bring it up now.

Maybe to prolong the discussion about my secret with Rose.

Maybe because I think he’ll actually open up tonight.

The longer I look at him, the more I’m certain that I’ve hit the real reason why he shuts down so often. I can see it as he stares off, shaking his head.

“I did
everything
my parents asked growing up. Every fucking thing. I can’t dissociate learning four languages from the rest of the shit my mom pushed me into.”

I’ve gathered most of these facts through observation, but hearing the grit in his voice starts to churn my stomach. I lean my arm against the window, slightly uncomfortable, and I realize he’s triggering empathy inside of me that only extends to people I care about.

He looks straight at me. “You want the truth. I went to college and I wanted to just be
me
. I had no fucking clue who that was, but I thought I’d figure it out.” He lets out an angry breath. “I couldn’t determine if I loved Spanish, Italian, French or Russian because she wanted me to love them or because I really did. I switched my majors
five
fucking times my freshman year, so you fucking laugh that I landed on a thing like journalism that I’ve never used, but I tried almost everything and nothing felt right.”

I digest each of his words and the emotion behind them.

Before I can speak, he continues, “Look, she made it fucking harder for me to find my identity, but if I asked her to rock climb, even when she didn’t really like it, she’d still let me. My mom and dad spun lies and I had to abide by them to protect their reputations. I used to be smarter and athletic for their pride, not mine, but now I read for
me.
I run for
me.
I fucking speak for
me
. But I was conditioned so much that I know some things are just my parents in my head.” He extends his arms. “So there are some languages that I’d like to forget.”

“Which ones?” I question.

“Russian…French.” That’s why it’s like pulling teeth trying to get him to speak French to me.

I walk over to the room’s desk and lean against it, my hands on the wooden surface. “I don’t think you’ve ever spoken this much to me,” I say. “…I appreciate it, for whatever that’s worth to you.” My life was nothing like his.

I never once struggled with my identity the way he did. But someone in our group did grow up as the yes kid, just like him. “You always saw yourself in Daisy, didn’t you?”

He tenses and nods. “Yeah.”

“Now we’re back to one-word responses.”

He sits on the edge of the bed. “Maybe you should tell me what the fuck you were doing tonight.”

This is why I think he divulged more than normal. He thought I’d do the same in kind. “I’ve given Rose a lap dance in front of you all. This isn’t different.”

“You
stripped
in front of a fucking pub, not just the five of us, and that lap dance was part of a bet during the reality show.” He adds, “It also never fucking aired on television.
This
was live.”

It never aired because it would’ve shown the physical chemistry I have with Rose, and Scott was trying to edit the show to make it look like Rose was attracted to him, not me.

“And?” I ask.

“And what the
fuck
was it for? I’ve been trying to make sense of everything that you two have been doing, but I can’t…” He shakes his head. “I know something is going on, and I’m asking you as my friend to tell me.”

“It’s better if you don’t know.”

He stands off the bed, which forces me to stand. “I will fucking deck you.”

“This is why I can’t tell you,” I say calmly, even as he edges closer, pissed. “You’d respond like you are now, and I need rational, level-headed people on my side.”

“I’m assuming Rose knows the truth. You think she’s that fucking rational?”

My jaw twitches, and I rub my lips to hide my irritation. Rose isn’t rational all the time, but she’s far less aggravating than Ryke. They have a lot of similarities, and the things that make them different make me exponentially more compatible with her and exponentially less compatible with him.

I have one inch on Ryke, but we’re still nearly level.

“You have no idea how badly I want to fucking punch you right now,” Ryke growls. “You need to
stop
manipulating me, Connor. I can see every time you do it.”

I let him share, thinking that I’d share in return.

I didn’t.

What hits me out of everything he says—it’s not the
I want to fucking punch
you
or the
you need to stop
…it’s his use of my name. He rarely calls me Connor and not Cobalt, and when he does, I can practically taste the severity of our friendship, trembling in the balance between broken and whole.

A real friendship is a two-way street. I’ve driven down it with Loren. I’ve given him vulnerable parts of myself, more of me, and he’s let me see his weakness. Ryke might’ve been brick-walled in the beginning, but
I’m
the variable that makes this friendship sit at a standstill, not him.

“Take a step back and I’ll tell you,” I suddenly say. I don’t want to manipulate my friends. I don’t want to deceive him. I want something real.

Ryke hesitates. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I won’t,” I assure him. “I promise.”

With this, he takes a couple steps away from me, putting about five feet between us. “Let me talk all the way through before you interject.” My voice is impassive, holding no endnotes of irritation or defeat. I spend the next few minutes detailing what I’ve done with Rose, first to help Moffy and bury an article, then our test to see if we can redirect the spotlight off our children.

When I finish, I watch him run his hands repeatedly through his thick, brown hair. His eyes set on the carpet, processing the complete truth. The first thing he says, “I could’ve fucking helped you.”

If someone asked me to name the first two attributes of Ryke Meadows,
aggressive
wouldn’t even be on the list. In the heart of his soul lies kindness, wrapped tightly in selflessness that shows in almost every action.

I recognize, unflinchingly, that I don’t share his compassion with the world and with so many people, but a part of me longs to understand on a deeper, more human level.

“It was easier on me if you didn’t help,” I tell him the truth.

He exhales roughly. “That’s
my
fucking brother and his kid. That rumor was partially about
me
. I could’ve done something so Rose didn’t have to.”

“Rose wanted to,” I remind him. I’m a little concerned that he’s going to share this information with Lo. “You can’t tell him, Ryke. You realize this?” It’d send his brother to a dark place. Guilt weighs on Lo more than it
ever
hits me, so we have to keep secret anything that’d push him to drink.

Ryke sets his hands on his head and takes a couple deep breaths.

“Please confirm with me,” I say, unable to read him past frustration and anger.

He drops his hands. “I won’t ever fucking tell him. It’ll always just stay between you, me and Rose.” I hear Lo in the back of my head, joking about an
older kid’s club
.

It exists during times like this.

“I want to fucking help,” Ryke tells me, taking one step closer.

“You don’t need to…” I see his fist tighten and then the angle of his body.
He’s going to hit me
. I don’t turn out of it.

He decks me in the jaw, my gums pressing into my teeth, tasting iron from blood on my tongue. I don’t touch my face, I just rotate to him once more while he settles down.

He’s been waiting
years
to punch me. He’s stopped himself short countless times before. His features relax, the hardness of his jaw less apparent. His face holds no malice, no aggravation anymore.

He’s content.

Ryke nods to me. “Tomorrow you can tell the press I hit you and that we fucking hate each other or you can make up another story.” He walks back to the bed, giving me a headline to stir the press away from my daughter.

I let out a laugh, stunned and amused. “This is your way of helping me?” I follow him, my jaw throbbing but I don’t complain. In my life, I’ve given Ryke more shit than any other person.

Because I knew he could take it.

Still it added a thin layer of animosity over our friendship—jokes half in jest and half in irritation—and I just now feel that layer begin to slowly peel away.

“Yeah,” he confirms. “I never had a better fucking reason to hit you until today.” He climbs back on his side and slips under the covers.

He literally couldn’t deck me unless it helped
me
. “How kind of you.” I settle on my end of the bed.

“Just say the word, Cobalt, and I’ll fucking punch you again.” He turns off his lights.

I arch a brow. “And what word is that—
woof
?”

“Fuck off.” His voice is lighter than before.

My lips rise and before I turn off my lamp, I feel pressed to say one more thing. He deserves this answer in its entirety. “During Christmas, I told you that I didn’t celebrate Christmas because my mother didn’t, but I never mentioned that I’d come to spend them at Faust.”

He shifts onto his back, brows furrowing in confusion and surprise. “How many guys spent holidays there?”

“Not many, and to you it seems lonely—”

“How is that
not
fucking lonely?”

“I spent my time running towards goals and ambitions. I never wasted a moment to consider the loneliness around me, and to this day, all I see are the things I achieved, not the things I lost. So I can’t relate to you, no matter if I took more time to try.”

Ryke stares off, thinking about this for a second, and then he laughs in realization. “We must be oil and water.”

I smile. “I assume I’m water in this scenario.”

Ryke gives me the middle finger before he turns on his side again and mumbles, “Night, Cobalt.”

With this, I shut off my lamp, blanketing us in darkness.

* * *

Ten minutes into sleep, my phone buzzes beside me. I squint at the illuminated screen and prop my body on an elbow.

Daisy had low segdeive does feed know this?!?$4
– Rose

It’s one of the worst drunk texts I’ve ever had to decipher from my wife. I sit up against the headboard as another messages comes in.

It takes her a long time to organs too did you knew
– Rose

“What is it?” Ryke asks, sitting up with me. His voice isn’t groggy since we shut off the lights only minutes ago.

“Rose is drunk texting me about Daisy.” I can barely make sense of the first one, but the second one sounds like she’s discussing orgasms. I pass the phone to Ryke.

He pinches the bridge of his nose the moment he reads them.

“Translate,” I say, the word foreign from my lips.

“Daisy has a low sex drive.” He tosses the phone back to me, about to go back to sleep.

With better context, I translate the text to:
Daisy has a low sex drive, does Frederick know this?
The girls must still be talking right now, and Rose is concerned that Frederick doesn’t have all this information that’s relevant to her health.

“Has she told her therapist?” I ask him.

He scrunches the pillow beneath his head. “Yeah.”

I wonder if he’s had an idea what’s wrong with Daisy. “What do you know?”

“I’m not discussing my fucking girlfriend with you.” He rolls on his side, back towards me.

“She suffers from depression,” I guess. Her low sex drive and struggle to orgasm either points to this or to the effects of the medication she’s been taking. Maybe it’s a combination of both.

He turns back to me, and I can see his brows furrowing, even in the dark. “Frederick told you?”

“No,” I say. “I just guessed.”

He rakes a hand through his hair and then shifts to his back, staring at the ceiling. “I think I’ve always known, and so has she—we just didn’t ever call it that out loud.” He lets out a heavy breath. “I just want her to feel happiness every fucking minute of her life, and each time I wake up, it’s further out of reach.”