Kiss the Sky (10 page)

 
“I see you changed
your wardrobe. We’re out of the nunnery and now in grade school. Not perfect
but we’re getting closer.”

I try to slam the door back on him. His hands are filled
with groceries so he has to use his hip to keep it open.

“Talk about my clothes again,” I seethe, “and we’ll just see
how close my foot is to your ass.”

“Fair enough,” he says easily, no snarky retort. I think
he’s just trying to buy time to avoid spilling milk on the floor.
 

I let out a strained breath and open the door wider, leading
him into the kitchen.

Lily looks up from the salad bowl, eyes big with
questioning. She hasn’t been alone with Scott without Loren present. But it was
only a matter of time before it happened. Everyone has places to be during the
day.

Me: Calloway Couture in New York. The commute is killing me,
so I rented an office in Philly. But I drop by the main office once a week to
check in.

Connor: Penn or Cobalt Inc. in Philly.

Loren: His comic book business in Philly.

Daisy: Prep school in Philly.

Ryke
: Well, I’m not quite sure
where the hell he is. Maybe indoor rock climbing at the gym. He graduated last
year like me but has made no move to do anything with his journalism degree. He
even stopped working for
The Philadelphia
Chronicle
.

And then there’s Lily.

Now that she takes online classes from Princeton, she’s the
only one home alone. I’m nervous about Lily spending so much time with Scott. Maybe
I can convince her to come to the Calloway Couture offices with me.

Scott sets the plastic bags on the kitchen counter, and Lily
scoots out of his way, avoiding his eyes, his body, anything that belongs to
him.

“I don’t bite,” Scott tells her.

“I know, I just…” Her gaze stays firmly planted on the
ground.

Frown lines crease his forehead.

I’m sure he imagined my sex addict sister to be this
confident, unabashed girl who falls on her knees at the presence of a cock.
Most people do. All it takes is a five-minute conversation to understand that
my sister is none of those things. She is shy, nervous, and plagued with social
anxiety. Her confidence is only in sex.

Sometimes, I believe we’re opposites.

“She’s shy,” I say for her. “Don’t take it personally.”

“A shy sex addict?” He stares at Lily like she can’t
possibly exist. “Are you fucking with me?”

She flushes almost instantly, and I glower. “Leave her
alone.”

Lily raises her hands. “No, it’s okay. I want to explain
myself…” Her eyes flit to the cameras.

“Don’t look at the lens,” Scott scolds like she’s a child.
“It’s not a hard concept, honey.”

“Can you say anything without sounding like a pig?” I ask.

He grins like I offered to blow him.
Ughhh
.
I am a challenge, I get that. I am the bitch he wants to ensnare.
But my insults really, really shouldn’t turn anyone on this much. If I started
complimenting him, would he suddenly be disinterested?

Lily gives Scott her attention. “I want the viewers to have
a real, honest portrayal of sex addiction. At least one story. My story. So
maybe if there’s another girl who’s like me, she won’t feel so alone.”

“All right,” Scott says with a nod. “I’ll bite. Why the hell
do you look scared around me? Shouldn’t you want to get on your knees about
now?” He opens the refrigerator and shelves the sour cream and milk.

“I’m in recovery,” Lily refutes. “I have a boyfriend. I
don’t want to have sex with anyone but him. So, no, I don’t have any desire to
drop on my knees. And I’ve always been shy. Just not…during…
it
.”

She’s told me that she feels like a completely different
person during sex: empowered, strong. It’s the only thing she believes she’s
good at, and she’s taken the knowledge to heart. After sex, she’s flooded with
shame, thinking she’ll never amount to anything more—that she’s truly just a
slut, that her one talent in life is fucking. And she’s compulsive with the act
to the point of being unhealthy. A female who’s great at sex—who has it five
times more than the average male—is not something she can gloat about. Not in a
society that easily labels her as a whore.

Lily’s lifestyle is filled with humiliation. There’s no
triumph in that.

And I wish I could protect her, but you can’t shield a girl
from the world without taking her out of it.

“You can’t even say the word
sex?
” Scott says with a laugh. “Jesus Christ.”

She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear and turns to me,
trying to ignore him but I see the hurt shadowing her face. “I’m going to start
some homework,” she says in a small voice.

“Hey…” I wipe my hands on a towel and touch her shoulder
before she leaves. “Don’t listen to him,” I whisper. “He’s disgusting.”

“I know. Connor told me the same thing this morning.”

I frown. “He did?”

“Yeah, he said that Scott would make fun of me and I just
had to remember that everyone hates Scott and loves me.” She laughs but her
eyes brim with tears. She wipes them before they fall. “I don’t mean to cry so
much this week, honest. I think I’m on my period. I can use that excuse,
right?”

I give her a hug, even if mine are the rigid kind. My heart
breaks for her every time someone condemns her addiction. As if it’s a stupid
joke. It’s not. And she’s not gross or weird or pathetic for how she feels. If
the world slandered my name every day on social media sites, I’d be worse off
than some tears now and then.

“Will you call Lo?” I ask. Even though he irritates me, he
always seems to say the right things to brighten her mood.

“Yeah, I think I might.” She gives me another hug before
leaving to her room. And leaving me alone with Scott.

My anger boils inside of me, and I have the impulse to slam
open drawers and find a serrated knife to wave at his dick. I spin back towards
the double-door refrigerator and notice that Scott has almost emptied all of
the grocery bags.

“You’re a vile human being,” I tell him coldly, “and I could
rip you apart right now, but I actually pity you.”

“Why is that?” He narrows his eyes and shuts the pantry
door.

“Because you just insulted the only girl you should have
never picked on. Once you’re on Loren
Hale’s
shit
list, you generally don’t ever get off.”

“The guy with the sharp cheekbones, right?” Scott muses, as
if he doesn’t know the twenty-two-year-old guy all over the news, who he’s
met
and lives with. “He doesn’t look
that threatening.”

“He’s going to make your life hell,” I say with a smile,
“for six
long
months.”

“Well, while you’re celebrating my demise…” He reaches into
the last bag and then hands me a chocolate bar. “I bought you this. I heard
it’s your favorite.”

My smile only widens as I turn the dark chocolate over in my
hands.
Connor
. My eyes rise to Scott.
“I despise dark chocolate. But nice try.”

He clenches his jaw as I shove the chocolate bar back in his
chest.

I head to the staircase, and I can feel his hot gaze
plastered to my ass during my short trek there.

I don’t dare look over my shoulder to verify.

No way is he stealing my win.
 

[ 8 ]

CONNOR COBALT

The crew is on a lunch break, so the only cameras
that film us are attached to the walls and ceilings. It’s a slight relief not
having to ignore someone in the room.

Ryke
, Lo and I are on the lowest
level of the townhouse. A few days ago, Daisy found two rats squeaking in her
closet, feces inside her boots. If that had been Rose, the house would have
been flipped upside down. But Daisy was quiet about the whole ordeal and just
mentioned it to
Ryke
. She wanted us to handle the
issue without alarming her sisters.

So I lean against the wall while Lo squats in front of the
crawl space with a trash bag.
Ryke
has disappeared
inside the three-foot tall basement, the surface a brown soil, and the strong
stench of mold and mildew permeates from the small square door.

 
We wait for
Ryke
to check the rat traps that we set.

“You look like shit,” Loren so eloquently tells me.

He’s right. Dark circles shadow my eyes, and if it wasn’t
for the wall supporting my body weight, I’d be on the ground. I’m fueled by two
hours of sleep. Being Saturday, I planned to catch up this morning, but I
received an impromptu text from my mother. I had to take Cobalt Inc.’s senior
advertising team to breakfast and talk about product placement.

I suppose I could take a nap now, but I sip my coffee
instead. I’d rather not miss
this
.

Watching
Ryke
inch around a
cobwebbed space in search of a dead rat. I smile.
Fuck sleep.
It’s the little things in life that matter most.

“I’m a grad student trying to take over a multi-billion
dollar company,” I say to Lo. “If I didn’t look like shit I’d be on drugs.”

I hear
Ryke
bang his head against
a pipe. “
Fuck me
,” he curses.

“Fornicating with the rats already?” I ask, cupping the warm
mug.

“Fuck you, Cobalt,” he says with a grunt as he moves slowly.
“The shortest one of us should have crawled through here.”

Lo immediately takes offense. “If I knew you were going to
bitch, I would have done it myself, and I’m only one inch shorter than you,
bro
.”

Ryke
hits his head again and lets
out a frustrated growl. “I’m still six fucking three.”

Lo rests his forearms on his thighs as he squats and watches
his brother through the door. “Besides being a giant, what’s taking you so
long? You set the trap. You should know where it is.”

“It must have carried the trap with it.”

“Just use your nose,” I suggest. “Dogs have the best sense
of smell.”

Lo laughs while I casually take another sip from my coffee.

“Fuck off,”
Ryke
curses, which
sounds really less threatening through the wall.

My phone vibrates in my pocket. I take it out and read the
text quickly.

Have you given *the*
talk to Loren yet?
– Rose

I’m not surprised Rose has reverted back to fixating on Lily
and Loren’s problems. She likes caring for her sisters, but I think focusing on
Lily and Lo distracts her from dealing with her own issues.

I text back:
I’ll do
it right now
.

One less problem that she obsesses over, one less stress in
her life. I pocket my phone, and as I turn to Lo, I frame Rose’s question as my
own. “Is Lily having more sex than usual?”

Rose doesn’t know this, but Lo is surprisingly forthcoming
about sex with Lily. He’s motivated by the fear of enabling her again, and it
helps that he trusts my sage advice.

“She’s not having it, but she wants it.” He stands up, the
trash bag still in hand. “This whole fucking reality show puts her on edge. And
she medicates her anxiety with sex, which means I’m not getting laid for the
next week, and she only gets my fingers.” He looks at the camera attached to
the corner of the ceiling and wall, and he waves his fingers at the lens. Then
he winks.

And
that
is why
this show is going to be popular. The unfiltered narrative is exactly what
makes good television.

“So you’re not having sex?” I say, not adding any disbelief
to my tone, even though it rings in my head. They’re almost always fucking at
night and in the morning. It’s easy enough to hear through the walls.

Loren rubs the back of his neck, probably trying to decide
if he’s going to lie or not. When he drops his hand, he says, “No, I mean…” He
takes a breath, and I wait it out patiently. “We fucked the other day. She was
a little compulsive afterwards, so I want her to abstain for three or four days
and see how she does with that.”

“And you used condoms?” I ask.
 

He goes quiet for a second and then bangs on the wall with
his fist. “
Ryke
, hurry the fuck up.”

“Lo,” I say.

He turns on me with heated eyes. “This conversation is
over.”

“I’m trying to imagine what Lily will look like pregnant,” I
say casually. “Would her entire body swell or just her belly?”

“At least I’m getting laid,” Lo refutes, pure malice edged
in his voice. “How long have you been
fucking
your hand?”

He clenches his jaw after he says the words, holding back a
grimace. Lo has a way of cutting people up with words, and he’s improved from
the first time I met him. He was a drunk asshole. Plain and simple. Now he’s a
sober asshole who regrets when his filter doesn’t work properly.

Lucky for him, I’m difficult to piss off.

“My hand and I go way back,” I say nonchalantly and even
produce a smile.

He seems to relax when he knows he hasn’t pushed me away.

“I’m not your brother.” I motion towards the crawl space
where
Ryke
has effectively disappeared. “I’m not
going to curse you out for doing something stupid. But I am dating your
girlfriend’s older sister, so my own balls are on the line here.”

He nods like he understands. “The repercussions of getting
into bed with a she-devil.”

“And I fucking like her,” I refute, “so make my life easier
and use a condom.”

I don’t tell him that he’s not ready to be a father, that
the idea (for anyone) of Lily becoming pregnant is frightening. I don’t tell
him that alcoholism is hereditary or that he’s too busy to raise a kid right
now. He knows all of this. He’s heard it a thousand times from Rose and his own
brother.