Fuel the Fire (51 page)

My muscles scald, my breath locked tight, but I hold Rose right here, pain distancing my lips from hers, tension tearing at my flesh. It’s overwhelming. It’s horrible and blinding, and I clutch onto her as my own guilt and shame keeps pummeling me at breakneck speed.

“I’m not leaving you,” she whispers in a broken voice, further compounding this gut-wrenching pain.

Kiss her.
“Je t’aime,” I choke, grasping her slick cheek.
I love you.
“Je t’aime. Je t’aime.”

I’m burning alive.

She cries more audibly, and I kiss her, our lips together in a fervent, tortured kiss that lingers. I inhale with her, and I slow the movement, our tears dripping, and it becomes a soul-bearing, passionate kiss that awakens my mind.

I hug Rose to my body, taking her off the chair, my lips stinging with salt and urgency. I press Rose so close against me that her feet never hit the floor. Instead, we’re eye-level. At perfect, equal height.

I’ve been split open. I’ve been spilled bare. I’ve allowed her spirit to seep inside of me—to remind me,
remind me
…why I love.

I can barely catch my breath, blistering against her.

And she asks so quietly, “What else do you need?”

What do I need?
No one has asked me this before. The answer hits me at once. “A break.” I need more time away from everything.

“I’ll make it happen,” she assures me, her hands dropping to my chest. I stare into her yellow-green eyes, and I sense that she’s feeling my heart pound against her palms.

“What would I be without you?” I blink and a single tear drips down my face. We both know the answer to this—we both recognize what she’s doing for me.
Remind me. Burn me. Love me.

I kiss her forehead, my chest alight with passion and pain.

“Ensemble,” she whispers in French.
Together.

“Ensemble,” I murmur.

Together.

[ 46 ]

ROSE COBALT

Please come to Sunday luncheon. I promise Jonathan won’t be there, but we’d love to see you all and the babies.
– Mom

I delete the fifth text she’s sent this week. We’ve been skipping the Sunday family luncheons since the media shit storm. All conversations would’ve surrounded the press conference, which is now in nine days. I can just picture myself at the patio table, brandishing a fork at my mother or even my father for pressuring my husband to lie to millions of people and do what
they
want instead of what he wants. 

“Is that Mom again?” Lily asks, hands braced on the steering wheel. She drives my Escalade while I give her directions. My car is filled to maximum occupancy. We’ve been switching seats every three hours since it’s a long drive, but currently Connor sits in the back row, the babies on either side of him in rear-facing car seats. Loren and his half-sister, Willow, are in the middle chairs, an aisle of space between them.

Willow moved into our house not long ago, and when I asked her to join our mini-vacation, I was worried she’d decline. We’re not the quietest group of people, and I thought she might need a break from
us
when, ironically, we needed a break from everyone else.

I was glad she said
yes
, especially during a twelve-hour car ride with Loren. He tones down his asshole comments when he’s around her. I wonder how different he would’ve been if he had grown up with a little sister instead of meeting her later in life.

“Rose?” Lily asks, eyes flickering from the road to my cellphone.

“She wants us at next week’s luncheon,” I say, “which is
not
happening.” We’re on a weeklong secret trip, and we’re excluding luncheons from the itinerary.

A white Ferrari drives parallel to us, Coconut’s head sticking out of the open window. I can see Ryke’s hand clasping the top of the window frame, sitting in the passenger seat.

Daisy must step hard on the gas. One second later, the Ferrari goes from forty-miles per hour to about a hundred on the quiet, nearly deserted street.

They speed ahead of us.

“Uhh…” Lily gawks. “I’m not supposed to follow them, am I?”

I’m all for comradery, but I do
not
want to join their death brigade.

“No way,” Lo tells his wife. “We’re not driving off a cliff with Thelma and Louise.”

Willow digs through her Jansport backpack and takes out a water bottle. “Do they know where they’re going?”

“Nope,” Lo says. “I hope he gets lost.”

They were supposed to follow us, so we wouldn’t find them lifeless in a metal heap fifty miles ahead. We even went as far as denying them the address.

“Knowing Ryke and Daisy, I’m sure that’s their goal,” Connor chimes in.

I crane my neck over my shoulder, noticing Connor rattling a toy over Jane’s car seat. I just barely spot her tiny hands reaching out. Connor smiles, more relaxed than he has been of late, and it causes my lips to rise as well,
hoping
that our destination will serve as a much-needed sanctuary.

“Christ,” Lo says with a cringe. “I swear every time you smile like that a demon sprouts wings. It’s unnatural.”

Connor looks up and catches my partial smile before it morphs into a withering glare. My husband grins more, but I direct my hostility at Loren.

“Do you know what else is unnatural? Your
face
.”

Lo looks more amused, and he turns to Connor. “Did you hear that, love? Your wife thinks I’m pretty.”

I’d let out a growl, but the promise beneath this banter from Loren to Connor overpowers any irritation, a promise that says:
I’ll always have your back. You’re my best goddamn friend, no one is going to keep that from changing.

Connor rubs his lips, but I see his grin as well as everyone. “She wouldn’t be wrong.”

Lo rotates back to me and flashes a half-smile.

I stretch my arm and raise my palm at him like
shut up
, but I struggle to reach, seeming non-threatening.

“You want a high-five, Rose?” Lo mocks.

I growl this time, about to flip him off, but my phone’s GPS beeps. I hurriedly swivel back to focus on my primary task. “You have two miles and then you turn right,” I instruct Lily.

The windy roads curve around mountains and create odd forks combined with all-way stops that have had Loren scratching his head. Lily is a better driver than him, so I have faith.

Birch and maple trees jut into the crystal blue sky, no other car driving along the road. When we’re all quiet, we can almost hear the wind rustle the leaves. The stillness contrasts our normal city atmosphere and the chaotic media presence.

“It’s so quiet,” Lily says what travels through my mind.

“As long as we weren’t followed,” I mutter.

“We weren’t,” Connor assures me. His confidence reminds me that we’ve
both
worked together to ensure a paparazzi-less vacation. When we left our neighborhood, our bodyguards drove in one direction and we left in the other. Connor and I mapped out our pit stops, calculating the most obscure, non-crowded areas. We were only tailed for an hour outside of Philadelphia.

“Willow?” I ask.

She checks her cellphone. “No pictures of you on Instagram or Twitter since yesterday.”

I asked her to keep track, wanting to include her into our group, even if Lo called me a
fun sucker
.

“There they are,” Lily exclaims, slowing our Escalade at a lookout point on the mountainside, the Ferrari parked. Ryke and Daisy stand on the metal railing to view the sprawling green landscape, a massive drop on the other side. Their unleashed dog sniffs the grass beside them.

“Jesus,” Loren curses.

I roll down my window the same time as Lo.

He beats me to the punch. “Hey!” he shouts. “Crazy Raisins!” Ryke and Daisy both look over at the same time.

Lily mutters under her breath,
Crazy for Raisy
, to correct his misuse of their couple name. Her preciousness makes light of their rebellion. I’m all for self-expression, but I don’t want to find my little sister in the hospital with her boyfriend. Ever.

Since they’re still standing on the metal railing, I add, “Follow us, please! Daisy, you don’t need to be driving in the dark!” She bought the Ferrari two weeks ago, her first car purchase.

“How many times has she driven a car?” Connor questions from the backseat, his tone even-tempered.

She never really drove before she received her motorcycle license, and I can’t recall a time where she ever sat behind a wheel. I lean further out the window. “Daisy, how many times have you driven any kind of car?!”

She hops off the railing with Ryke, and he hugs her around the waist, nuzzling her neck with his head. Something foreign wedges in my ribcage. Jealousy? No, not quite. Their love isn’t as blinding as Lily and Lo’s but it’s a bright ray of sugary sweet sunshine that almost everyone can see.

Daisy says, “Cuatro!” She wags four fingers.

Oh God.

“Bro, why are you riding in the deathmobile?!” Lo shouts.

Ryke flips him off. “We’re fucking fine!”

Daisy is smiling so wide that it’s hard to say
no
to her or to question further. Maybe she’s joking. I trust that Ryke knows the truth. Loren and I roll up the windows about the same time, having more faith that they’ll stay close.

* * *

“It could be bigger,” Loren says in jest. The seven of us stare up at the four-story lake house, fifty miles off the beaten path, winding gravel and dirt roads leading us to this sanctuary. With two wrap-around porches, the house sits in a thicket of gorgeously overgrown maple trees, shingles painted cherry red. Our relator (who only knows me by a fake name) said that when the seasons change, the leaves will match the hue of the house.

It’s nestled close to a grassy bank, the house reflecting off the rippling lake, landscaped by the Smoky Mountains. From the naked eye, I can’t spot a single cabin in the distance.

We all chipped in and didn’t just buy this property. We invested in acres and acres of land surrounding it, ensuring that no one would build near us.

“It’s purposefully big,” I remind Lo, my hands on my hips in triumph. This will be a safe place for all of us, where we can escape when our lives become unmanageable and hectic. Jane and whoever else may need this as much as we do.

“Back to spawning eight babies, Fertile Myrtle?” Lo banters.

I shoot him a look. “Just Jane,
Loren.
And there are more families here besides Connor and me.” I cross my arms. “Like you.” After Maximoff, his views on children changed, and I realize that he’s a little like me in that respect.

He was afraid he’d turn out to be his father.

I was afraid I’d be my mother.

We’re both too aware of their flaws and too self-aware not to spot our own, and I suppose this is our downfall and our saving grace. It’s made us fearful, but it’s also enabled us to diverge from the paths our parents took and learn from their mistakes.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says with a short laugh. His amber eyes glitter in the evening light, grazing the house as though imagining the expansion of his family of three. “Maybe someday.”

Daisy and Ryke walk hand-in-hand to the side of the house, Coconut sprinting down the hill. Ryke stops at the top of the slope, in view of the long wooden dock, I presume. He wears an awed, overcome expression, one I’ve only seen when he’s with Daisy and after he rock climbs. He returned to the sport in April with his doctor’s approval.

We were all proud that he waited to climb until he received the
okay.

Connor sidles next to me, supporting Jane, asleep in the crook of his shoulder. “It’s perfect, darling.”  I lace my fingers with his free hand. He kisses my knuckles.

“It has a good energy,” I say matter-of-factly.

“You packed candles, didn’t you?” His brow arches.

I did think about cleansing the lake house of bad spirits, but that’s not why I brought the candles. I may as well warn him. “I wanted to throw a co-ed slumber party and there are certain traditions that can’t be ignored.”

“Like?”

“A séance, and light-as-a-feather stiff-as-a-board, facemasks, desserts, and maybe even the Ouija board if Lily’s not too frightened by then.” Before he spouts his disbelief in ghosts, I add my reasoning, “Apparently when we were younger, we always forgot about Daisy during slumber parties. She was there, but we’d leave her out somehow.”

It pains me even thinking that I
forgot
my sister, but I was so much closer to Lily, and the age gap just weakened my relationship with Daisy. I should’ve been more aware…

“She told you this?” Connor looks shocked.

“No.” Daisy would never cause me pain from her hurt feelings. “Ryke mentioned it to me a few weeks ago.” He knew that I’d want to make up for lost time with my sister.

Connor sighs. “Can we eliminate a spiritual event in favor of an intellectual one? It’d benefit greater society and
us
.”

“I’ll take your request into consideration and gladly ignore your slight at my slumber party,” I say and his grin expands.

“So I have this theory…” Daisy spins towards us, hand still clasped in her boyfriend’s. “If we buy a little mini-pig and see which bear forms a friendship with him, we’ve discovered Winnie the Pooh.” She extends her arms and bows theatrically.

I ask Connor, “Are you picturing the bear eating the pig?” The gory scene
almost
makes me want to root for the underdog to win, but a pygmy pig has zero chance of survival.

“Yes, but my image is probably less bloody than yours.”

“Then it’s incorrect.”

“A bear would eat anything as small as she’d described in one bite,” he retorts. “No blood, Rose.”

I roll my eyes, accepting this defeat. He’s right. I just unnecessarily constructed a grotesque butchery in my mind.

Loren looks at Daisy with an expression summed up simply as
what the fuck
. “Did you smoke a joint on the way up here?”