Kiss the Sky (42 page)

I’d be helping if it wasn’t for this damn term paper. I can
almost see the finish line for the first semester, but papers and finals stand
in my way. I doubled my Adderall dosage last week just to concentrate.

The door swings open, and I swivel my chair to watch Rose
walk into the bedroom. She glares at Brett who stands in the hallway. “I’m in
the no film zone. Run along, now,” she waves him off and then shuts the door.
She’d never be as rude to Ben or Savannah, but Brett and Rose get along about
as well as her and Lo.

When she turns to face me, I notice a…bulge where her
breasts are. No wonder Brett followed her up here.

Curiosity compels me to my feet, and I cross the room to
Rose. “Something’s a little off about you,” I say and my eyes drift up to her
hair as if I’m focusing on her nonexistent bangs.

I reach towards her breasts, and she slaps my hand away.

“I’m a lady,” she chides. “I don’t let boys touch me there.”

Fuck.
My cock
stirs at her words. I grab her waist and pull her body against mine in one
swift motion. She sucks in a sharp breath when her hips knock into me. She’s
still in her five-inch-fucking-heels. Almost the same height as me, a few
inches off.

“What about men? Do you let them touch you?” I ask, holding
her tight.

“Definitely not.”
 
Her
eyes drift to my mouth.

I lick my bottom lip, moving my tongue slowly, as I watch
her chest inflate with the motion. I slide my hand up her leg, her thigh, between
them—her lace fabric already wet to my touch.

“And here?” I ask.

“Never,” she says in a whisper.

When she’s sufficiently distracted with my hand, I take the
opportunity and reach down the top of her dress, grabbing whatever’s hidden in
her bra.

“Hey!”

I already have the baggy in my possession, and I hold it
above her head.

She doesn’t make a pass to retrieve it, just pushes me in
the chest for tricking her. I’m too fixated on her contraband to respond.

“Why do you have a bag of marijuana?” And
where
did she get it? Four messily
rolled joints fill the plastic. The papers don’t have neat creases, which means
that Rose didn’t roll them. It takes her two hours just to meticulously fold
her panties and place them in her drawer.

My eyes fall to her with interest.

She stays quiet, twisting her diamond necklace in her
fingers.

“Care to explain?”

“I thought we could do something different tonight…” she
says. “I usually don’t try new things, and with you…” she trails off, lost for
words. This must annoy her because she rolls her eyes.

“I accept,” I say instantly.

Her eyes brighten in surprise. “Really?”

I nod, willing to try anything with her. I want her to
experience as many firsts with me as she possibly can. I’ve smoked only once—my
first and only foray into illegal drugs. It was strategic. Boarding school.
Trying to gain a connection I needed for Student Council.

“On one condition,” I reply. “You tell me who gave these to
you.”

“Daisy.” She doesn’t even hesitate. “If I have the drugs,
then she doesn’t have them. They’re much safer in my position.” She grins.

Devious and intelligent. I like this side of her.

My face suddenly falls as I remember something important.

I’m on Adderall.

And I’m not a hundred percent positive it’s safe to smoke
pot on the stimulant. The small percentage of doubt is not something I’m
willing to live with. I’ll never forgive myself for impairing my brain or my
body over something so stupid.

“What’s wrong?” She touches my arm in concern.

The one question makes me frown even deeper. I’m getting
worse at hiding my emotions from her. Or maybe…maybe I just don’t care if she’s
sees this part of me anymore.

For the first time, I really want to be honest with her.

Not just my half-assed attempt at honesty. I want her to
know me as well as I know myself. So I prepare to admit the one thing that
could cause her to storm out, pack her bags, sleep in Daisy’s room and maybe
even sling my clothes out the window.

“I’m on Adderall,” I let it go. One sentence. One breath.

She drops her hand from my arm, and her
I’m-going-to-rip-your-dick-off
glare heats her eyes. “Bullshit,”
she says. “You would
never
take
Adderall.”

“I wouldn’t,” I agree. “But I was losing sleep, and I wasn’t
putting a hundred percent into Wharton or Cobalt Inc., so I decided to start
taking it.”

“For how long?” Her collarbones sharpen as she holds in a
breath. I remember what Frederick once told me when I was only eighteen and I
thought I was finished discovering who I was and what I wanted to be. He said, “Lies
tear at relationships until they’re nothing but unwound threads.”

I hate that my own has begun to unravel.

I hate that, in this moment, I am ordinary.

“The end of January.”

“Almost four months,” she says, dumbfounded. But she doesn’t
attack me, doesn’t throw up her hands and call it quits. Her eyes are on the
ground as she thinks it over.

“You would’ve given up something if you didn’t, right?” she
asks, her eyes flitting to mine, so many questions swimming in them.

“Not you,” I tell her. “I would have never given up you.”

“Wharton?”

I nod, and she shakes her head in dismay. “I don’t want you
to choose me over your dream,” she says. “But I can’t stand here and be okay
with you choosing me over your health.”

It’s not fair for me to put her in a position, to trap her
into giving me an ultimatum. I know what I have to do. Even if the semester is
almost over, I still have a year and a half left. I’m not even close to
graduating and earning this final degree.

I notice the space between us. Five feet away. Five feet too
much. I imagine that space so much further if I make the wrong decision right
now.

Frederick is right.

My mother is right.

I can’t have everything. So I’m going to have to fucking
choose.

“I’m withdrawing from Wharton,” I deliver the lines with finality.
It hardly topples me backwards. It doesn’t even make me sway. In fact, a weight
rises off my shoulders—a heaviness that I didn’t even know was there before.
Dragging me down.

It’s not as earth-shattering as I once believed it would be.
Sometimes the dreams you construct for yourself at ten, twelve-years-old aren’t
the same ones you thought they would be at twenty-four. And it just takes a
while to finally make peace with that.

I think I just have.
 

“Connor—”

“I’m going to quit taking Adderall.” I step towards her and
place my hands on her shoulders.

“Your MBA—”

“I don’t need it.”

“You never needed it,” she reminds me. “That’s not why you
were trying to get one.” I see the guilt in her eyes. I’ve chosen her over my
dream, and I told her never to do that for me.

I cup her face with my hand, skimming her bottom lip with my
thumb, her lipstick a dark red that makes her look as fierce as she is. I want
to be with her every day of my life. I want to be here, not in class. And I
have the means to do so.

“My dreams have changed,” I say. The future I once imagined
is gone. Where I proudly accept my diploma, where I prove to myself that I’m
the best because I can be. The longer I’ve been with this girl, the faster it’s
flitted away.

 
I kiss her deeply,
and she reciprocates in reply, silently telling me that she’s accepting my
decision.

“That was easy,” I say as we part, holding her around the
waist while I stare down at her smooth skin, her cheeks reddened with blush and
heat from the kiss. “I thought you would fight me harder.”

She shakes her head. “You should see the look in your eyes.”

I frown.

And she smiles. “You’re wearing your emotions, Richard.” She
runs her hands over my chest, smoothing down my navy-blue shirt. “I can tell
you don’t care about Wharton as much as you used to, and I want you, my
sisters, their boyfriends and
Lo’s
brother to do
whatever makes them happy. Isn’t that the goal?”

It is for me now, but I’m not so sure it’s always been that
way. “Your sisters’
boyfriends?
”

Rose’s nose scrunches in disgust. “Daisy is still with
Julian.”

“And I’m
not
happy
about that,” I tell her. “What were we saying about happiness?” I feign
forgetfulness. “We…do what makes us happy.” I keep her in my arms, one hand
lowering to her ass, glad that five feet no longer separates us. “I’d
happily
like to remove him from your
sister’s life.” I see the gangbanging text he sent
Ryke
,
which worries me the most. I don’t want him with her for longer than he has to
be.

Rose says, “I’d happily cut off his dick and toss it into a
tank of flesh-eating piranhas.” She flashes a cold smile that would shrivel his
balls too.

“Creative,” I grin.

Rose saw the text like the entire nation did. On television.
Production aired my conversation with Julian in the hallway. I thought people
disliked me, but I learned it’s more of a love-hate after the intense backlash
Julian has received.

No one has started an online petition to have me thrown in
jail.

He definitely beat me on that account.
 

Julian should be fired from the Marco Jeans campaign that he
booked with Daisy. But the designer won’t let him go. He likes the media
attention, even if it’s negative. So Daisy has to work with him.

I try to not think about Rose’s little sister whose life is
more complicated than any seventeen-year-
old’s
should
be. And I glance down at the joints in the plastic baggy, still in my hand. I
step back from Rose and pull my phone out of my pocket.

“Who are you calling?” she asks curiously.

“Frederick. I need to know if I can mix Adderall and
marijuana.” I put the phone to my ear.

Her face fills with surprise. “You still want to do that?”

“Yes, darling.” I rub her bottom lip and kiss her once more,
right before the line clicks.

[ 41 ]

ROSE CALLOWAY

Connor won’t feel the mental sluggishness of pot,
but he’ll still feel the body high. At least those were Frederick’s words. He
wasn’t pleased about the drug-mixing, but Connor put me on speaker phone, and I
softened Frederick’s worries, explaining how Connor just threw away his
Adderall. I didn’t mention dropping out of Wharton, or the fact that he took a
giant immeasurable leap for me.

I’m sure they’ll discuss that on Monday.

I cough into my third drag since I never learned how to
smoke properly. I was too focused on my company, grades, and extracurricular
activities (which did not include pot) to dive into any sort of illegal
paraphernalia. But I’m twenty-three. It’s not too late to experiment and try
new things. If I told my seventeen-year-old self that I’d be choked and spanked
by my number one academia rival (and I would like it) and I’d pass a joint with
him six years later—I would have
never
believed
me.

But I think my seventeen-year-old self would be so damn
tempted towards that image. I think she would want it to be true.

I watch Connor blow a line of gray smoke from his lips, not
hacking up a lung like me.

I attempt to glower at him, but it loses its potency when
I’m choking on air.

“Here…” Connor tosses a throw-blanket over our heads, caging
us in a man-made tent. He pinches the joint between his fingers, places it
between his lips, and sucks deeply. His eyes stay on mine, and I wonder if he
wants me to study him, so I can do it right next time. But he would have
uttered a smartass remark about “tutoring” me.

Even so, I scrutinize the way he inhales deeply, the smoke
sucking down his throat. I’ve never found smoking sexy—not until now, when my
overly intelligent, cocky boyfriend exhales like a champion, a god, some
immortal being with a grin that could light the world and create an eighth
great wonder.

And I would
NEVER
say
this to him. Just so we have this clear. I narrow my eyes so he can’t read the
high praises and exaggerations on my face. But he’s near laughter, so I must be
doing something wrong then. I reach for the joint, and he shakes his head. He
takes another long drag, but this time, he keeps his mouth closed, holding in
the smoke.

Then he grabs the back of my head with one authoritative
hand. Before I blink, my lips touch his and part on command. Smoke rushes into
my mouth and tickles the back of my throat. An incoming cough threatens to ruin
my high once more. But Connor stifles it with a kiss, his tongue slipping into
my mouth, easing the sensations. I breathe in his intoxicated air, and he takes
on mine, the most intimate kissing experience I’ve ever been swept into. Breath
for breath. Inhale, exhale.

His fingers run through my soft hair, and with his other
hand, he urges me onto his lap. I straddle his waist, and yet, it feels like
he’s more in control of the moment than me.

It spikes my pulse with pleasure, and I swoop my arms around
his neck. When our lips finally break apart, we both blow a small puff of smoke
up in the air. Our grins are unmistakable.

“Let’s do it again,” I say, excited to finally inhale without
my throat burning in refute. I sincerely thought my body wouldn’t allow poison
to flow through it.
Good job, body.

“Every junkie’s favorite words,” he says with a playful
smile.

“Weed isn’t that bad,” I rebut.

He takes a small hit and then blows the smoke away from my
face. Our tent has filled with the thick smoke and pungent smell,
hotboxing
our little area. We’re going to
reek
.