Kiss the Sky (29 page)

I shake my head. “She gave me five-thousand dollars for my
twelfth birthday. I invested it and made good money. I don’t have a trust
fund.” I refused the one she offered me.

“We should play a drinking game,” Lo says. “Every time
Connor Cobalt makes me feel stupid we take a shot.”

“You’re fifteen months sober,”
Ryke
reminds him.

“Always
gotta
put a black cloud on
everything,
bro
,” Lo refutes, though
there’s more humor in his voice than hostility.

“What do you think?”
Ryke
asks
Julian.

Julian shrugs, hardly affected by
Ryke’s
hardcore glare. “What do I think about what?”

No one elaborates because there’s nothing to elaborate on.

“You’re not sleeping in her room,” Lo warns.

Julian swishes his beer in a brief moment of contemplation
(not long enough apparently) because he stupidly says, “I’ve already slept in the
same bed as her before. I don’t see the big deal.”

Lo lets out a short laugh like
is this guy for real?
“You don’t see the big deal?” He steps
forward. “Let me spell it out for you Julius—”

“Julian—” he barely has time to correct him.

“You’re twenty-fucking-three,” Lo says, not missing a beat.
“How old are you, Connor?”

“Twenty-four.”

Lo turns to
Ryke
and mockingly
tilts his head. “What about you,
Ryke
?”

“Twenty-three,”
Ryke
says.

Lo touches his chest. “I’m twenty-two myself.”

“That’s great,” Julian says a little dumbfounded as to
what’s going on.
Just wait, Julian. He’s
getting there.

“I consider myself fairly smart,” Lo says, “but you must be
a real fucking idiot if you think we’d be okay with someone our age sleeping
with our girlfriends’ seventeen-year-old
little
sister.”

Julian’s not even intelligent enough to catch the obvious
flaw in
Lo’s
statement—that
Ryke
doesn’t even have a girlfriend in this scenario.

He shrugs, still not seeing the issue. “She’s a model, man.
We’ve spent nights at our friends’ flats in New York City together. She’s
snorted coke before. I think she’s past the overprotective brother routine.
Maybe if you haven’t noticed, she’s pretty mature.”

Lo grits his teeth and turns his head to me. “Can you
believe this guy?”

I can believe he’s a
moron, yes.
But his argument is valid. It doesn’t mean I think he should be
spending the night in Daisy’s bed. I’m not even sure she wants that. “You’re
sleeping on the couch,” I tell him calmly.

He just shakes his head with a pouty lip, not even
considering it. “No, I’m not.”

“I’m seriously going to kick his fucking ass,”
Ryke
says to us.

“I’m standing right here, man,” Julian retorts. “What’s your
deal?”

“You’re twenty-three,”
Ryke
snaps,
“and you’re fucking a girl who’s seventeen.”

“We’re not fucking. And aren’t you the one on
Princesses of Philly
who’s
always
around Daisy?” His eyebrows rise
in accusation. “Maybe you’re the one fucking her. Or maybe you’re just jealous.
Yeah, that’s probably it.”

Before
Ryke
has the chance to
lunge, Lo steps in front of his body, blocking him from Daisy’s boyfriend.

“Julius,” Lo says, purposefully using his name wrong now
that he knows it irritates him, “maybe you’re feeling a little goddamn
disgusting being with a seventeen-year-old. Keep your shitty feelings to
yourself. Don’t project them onto my brother.”

“I’m not projecting anything. Have you see the way he looks
at her? He wishes he was me right now.”

Lo would normally have a snide retort ready, but he’s busy
restraining
Ryke
who tries to charge forward, probably
to sock Julian in the face. Lo rests his arm against his brother’s chest,
forcing him back.

Ryke
stares disgustedly at Daisy’s
boyfriend, and the guy just leisurely sips his beer. But I sense an
antagonizing quality in Julian’s fixed stance, in the way he watches
Ryke
with a hawkeyed gaze. He’s the type of guy who’d love
to fight him—just to prove he’s the bigger fucking man.
Ryke
,
on the other hand, just wants to protect that girl inside. It’s an interesting
dynamic. One that I’d almost love to witness, but stirring that shit just gives
Scott what he wants. And I’d rather smash in his face than help grow his
ingratiating smile.
 

“We all win some,” Julian says to
Ryke
,
“and we all lose some. You’ll find another girl who’s a better fit for you.
Though she won’t be as hot as Daisy, and there’s no way she’ll lick cock as
well either.”

Lo’s
jaw unhinges.

Ryke
almost loses it. He shouts a
string of curses at the top of his lungs. I catch
motherfucker, cocksucker,
and a new one—
dickfucker
. I would laugh, but I
want to throw Julian off the porch just as badly—I just don’t express myself
with such vehement aggression.

Veins pop in
Ryke’s
neck, his face
reddening as he shouts and points at Julian, who starts to scream back.

“You don’t know shit about that girl!”
Ryke
yells.

“And you do, right?!”

“Fuck you!” is
Ryke’s
only
response.

This has turned into a moron battle. Fists would be more
appropriate right now. But the only thing keeping
Ryke
from laying into Julian is Loren who stands between them, a human barrier.

I don’t even try to calm him down. A deep part of me just
wants
Ryke
to hit him.

“Sorry, man,” Julian taunts as their voices lower. “You
should have started dating her a year ago when she was single. You can have her
when I’m done.”

A foul taste rises in my mouth.

Lo glares at Julian like the world shifted without his
consent. “What the fuck did you just say?”

Ryke
wears pure darkness in his
eyes, nothing else. His muscles flex the longer he has to withstand this guy.

“He can have her when I’m done,” Julian repeats. “I can give
you the exact date. I’ll need about three hours on February 20
^th
of
next year. Then you can have her. Mark your calendar.”

February 20
^th
.
Her eighteenth birthday.

And right as Lo is about to move out of the way and unleash
his pissed off brother, the backdoor opens. Lily steps outside, wearing Rose’s
black fur coat that swallows her skinny frame. Everyone stays tense, but no one
makes a move to hit Julian in front of her.

“Hey, guys.” She shuffles to our group as we go silent. She
notices the strain between the guys, and she quickly slides in the middle of Lo
and Julian to try to diminish the prospect of a fight.

The girls are clever.

“Rose and Daisy want to play a game.” She tucks her hair
behind her ear. “A drinking game though.”

Ryke
peels his gaze off Julian and
stares down at her. “The three of us don’t fucking drink, so how does that
work?” He gestures to Lily and Lo.

Lily shrugs. “I think we should participate somehow. It’ll
be fun.”

I chime in, “You three can play the strip version.”

Lo lets out a short laugh. “Always trying to get me naked.”

My lips rise.

“Oh, and Rose wants to talk to you,” Lily nods to Julian.

“Great,” Julian says with added sarcasm. He even rolls his
eyes, probably wishing he stayed home. He leaves our group and
Ryke
loses his chance to lay a fist into him.

Lo watches Julian disappear inside. “That was the first time
I didn’t warn a guy to protect his balls before talking to Rose.”

“That’s because we all hope she crushes them,”
Ryke
says roughly.

I remember how delicately she held my cock for the first time,
and I try my best to hide my smile into my next sip of wine.

I know her better than anyone.

[ 26 ]

ROSE CALLOWAY

We’ve switched games three times to help Lily, but
she’s still losing. Luckily before we started she layered on clothes in her
bedroom, waddling out like a little snowman. She even stuck my bobby pins in
her hair and has been throwing them off as a “clothing” item.

She’s down to a sweater and pajama pants without any
accessory to fling off, and Scott refuses to switch to another game this time.

I’m a little tipsy, but nothing like Daisy who stumbles
around the kitchen trying to find a bag of marshmallows for the fireplace.

“She’s going to hurt herself,” I say, but when I stand to
help, everything spins. Okay, I’ve definitely
surpassed
tipsy. I plop right back down on the couch and try to
recover. Maybe no one noticed.

“You okay, Rose?” Loren asks with a knowing look.

Connor combs his fingers through my hair, which feels so
damn good that I forget to snap back at Lily’s boyfriend.

“Hey, stay away from the fucking knives!”
Ryke
yells angrily as Daisy clatters around. He’s about to
shoot up from the couch opposite of us, but Julian, her real boyfriend, beats
him to it, sauntering into the kitchen.

After I lectured Julian about statutory rape and sodomy,
he’s been pretty much exactly the same: dismissive and lackadaisical. It’s
really fucking annoying. I tried to capitalize on cutting off his balls during
our talk, and he just
shrugged
at me.
I swear he was seconds from patting my head like I was a little girl.

Connor saved him from the wrath of my purse. I could have
hit him over the head with it. But Connor drew me away and distracted me with a
promise of something new tonight in bed. Although he never specified what
new
entailed. So I’m left to guess.

Connor’s hand falls to my neck, and he rubs the bareness of
my skin with his finger and thumb. I lean into him, snubbing the couch cushion
which was warm from my back. But he feels much better, my buzz tingling my
body.

Scott refills everyone’s empty shots that line a log coffee
table. A bear-fur rug covers the hardwood, and flannel blankets drape over the
chilly brown leather furniture.
Ryke
keeps stoking
the fire so no one grows cold. It’s nice. All of us here. Even Savannah and Ben
have relaxed in the kitchen with drinks while Brett singlehandedly films our
game.

I hiccup and touch my lips. I think the last game we played
was designed to get us wasted. Only problem is that Daisy and I weigh less than
the guys playing. Ergo, we are getting fucked up faster. The game we’ve chosen
now,
Never Have I Ever
, targets the
most experienced person in the room, which means Lily is at a serious
disadvantage. I should be winning, but Lily and Loren use phrases like “Never
have I ever made an A on a math test.”

I turn to my less-than-tipsy boyfriend. Despite how much
wine he consumes, he never gets drunk. “How many shots have you taken?”

“Less than you.” Translation:
He’s winning.

“Who’s next?” Scott asks. He’s been the game pusher all
night. I think he has his eyes set on Lily, trying to get her naked or nearly
naked in front of everyone. She sits on Loren’s lap, looking petrified to
continue a game without another bobby pin to remove.

“I’m next,”
Ryke
says, watching
with a hard gaze as Julian guides Daisy into the living room.

Julian has his hands on her hips, whispering in her ear and
forcing her back towards his chest. Even drunk, she looks mildly uncomfortable
to be in his arms while in our presence. And it shows as she squirms out of his
hold. She smiles at him and places a chaste kiss on his cheek to make up for
it.

He doesn’t let her off the hook. He literally grabs her face
in two hands and plunges his tongue in her mouth.

“Hey, Julius, sit the fuck down,” Loren snaps.
Thank you, Loren.

I don’t ask why Loren just mispronounced Julian’s name. Everyone
knows
Lo’s
favorite comic book character is Julian
Keller from
X-Men,
and Lo has
declared (to the entire townhouse) that Daisy’s boyfriend doesn’t deserve to
share the same name as him.

Daisy puts her hands on Julian’s chest and breaks apart from
him. Then she settles in her seat beside
Ryke
, Julian
slouching on the other side of her. She sits up on the edge of the cushion so
he can’t wrap his arm around her shoulder.

Connor’s lips brush my ear. “She’s okay. Lo and
Ryke
have an eye on him.”

I nod, realizing that I can’t fixate on my little sister all
night, even though I see how much she just wants to push Julian into the snow
and leave him there. But she’s not rude enough to do that.

I most definitely would.

“
Ryke
,” Scott urges. “Go.”

Ryke
scratches his jaw. “Never
have I ever…faked an orgasm.”

“That’s just mean,” Daisy says, reaching for a full shot.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have done it then,” he retorts.

“And hurt the guy’s feelings?”

Scott motions from the shots to me and I shake my head. I’ve
had no reason to fake an orgasm with Connor. And he’s the only guy I’ve ever
been with.

Connor holds me closer, and he leans forward and grabs the
shot. I glare at him as he brings it to his lips. “Not with you,” he tells me.
I’m not even sure how a guy can fake an orgasm, but he’s creative enough that I
wouldn’t doubt him doing it for personal gain.

“That’s what they all say,” Scott adds like a five-year-old.

Ugh.
His
interjection immediately makes me side with Connor, believing my boyfriend
more.