Ricochet (17 page)

He carefully pries her fingers off his arm. “I think you’ll
survive.”

“Oh…yeah. Right.” She raises her chin and situates back on
her pink tube.

Ryke unhooks his green inner tube from the pack and paddles
with one hand to my lonely rope on the end. He clicks it in and rests his
wayfarers back over his eyes.

“Smooth,” I whisper to him.

“That’s how it’s done,” he agrees.

I roll my eyes and sink back into my tube, my butt skimming
the water underneath. Ready for nap number two. Naps are great. When I’m
asleep, I barely have the urge to jump from the water, go to my room, and
perform some self-love acts.

“Seriously, is that even possible?” I hear a girl ask
curiously. Now
I’m
curious.

I listen closely.

“I swear on my life it was four fingers,” Katy says. “I was
really sore afterwards.”
Whaaat?

I glance quickly at Ryke, but with his sunglasses on, I
can’t tell if he’s hearing what I am. Fingers. Sore. This is sexual. I know
it’s not just my perverted mind.

“How could he do that though? I mean, how would they fit?”

“They wouldn’t,” another girl adds. “I definitely don’t
believe you.”

Daisy stays quiet in the middle of the pack, kicking the
calm ocean with her feet.

“Let’s ask Lily,” Cleo offers. “She’s older and has a
boyfriend. I’m sure she’d know. Lily!”

The nearest girl splashes water on my chest, and I hesitate
before sitting up to face the string of girls. I really,
really
don’t want to talk about sex with Daisy’s friends. This
whole trip was about me not thinking about sex, and yet, it still surrounds me,
even when I don’t bring it on myself.

Harper, the closest to me, explains their debate. “Katy says
that her ‘boyfriend.’” She uses air quotes. “Put four fingers inside of her. Is
that possible?”

I squirm a little, my float knocking into the unflappable
Ryke who gazes up at the sky, sunbathing during this debacle. While I’m here,
two seconds from unclipping my tube and floating down the ocean as far away
from this boat and conversation as possible.

“Ummm…” My arms turn into a giant red welt. “Everyone has
different bodies.”

“Did you just call my vagina loose?” Katy snaps at me.
What?!

“No!” I say. “Of course not. His fingers could have been
small.” I cringe. That wasn’t better. Ohmygod. If I dive from my tube and go
underwater right now—will that be really weird?

“Well how many fingers does Lo usually use?” Cleo asks. I
must turn a darker shade of red because Cleo adds, “Don’t be embarrassed, Lily.
It’s just sex. How else are we supposed to figure all this stuff out if we
don’t talk to each other?”

Daisy straightens up in her tube, dropping her feet in the
middle and resting her chin on the teal plastic. “How did you learn about sex?
Did Poppy and Rose talk to you about it?” She sounds a little bummed, as though
she missed out on some monumental sister-bonding experience by being the
youngest.

She’s mistaken. Poppy never talked to me since she was so
much older and spent more time with boys on her own than she did teaching us
about them. And Rose—I always believed she’d judge me for sleeping around.
Not
talking to her may just be my
biggest regret.

I learned from the internet, porn, and gossip magazines like
Cosmo. Wikipedia helped too. I wonder if it would have made a difference if
Poppy or Rose talked to me. Maybe I wouldn’t be so ashamed, but then again,
maybe nothing would have changed. I’ll never know. As much as I hate to even
think
it, Cleo’s right. Girls shouldn’t
be embarrassed to talk about sex.

“Who cares who she learned it from,” Katy snaps before I can
find a suitable reply for Daisy. “I want to know more about Lo. Have you done
it doggy style? I heard it feels better.”

“Ew, isn’t that, like, in the butt?” one girl cringes.
“That’s supposed to hurt.”

“Doggy style can be in the vag too,” another girl pipes in.
“Duh.”

Secretly, I give Ryke’s inner tube a little nudge. He sways
and grabs onto mine to steady himself. I face him and hiss, “
Save me
.”

He rests his head back on this tube,
ignoring
me.

I feel myself being left out to dry. “I. Will. Drown. You,”
I whisper.

Suddenly, he sits up. “I’m going to get some food.”

“I’ll join.” I suppress my smile, and after a short paddle,
we end back on the yacht. I spread a towel across one of the lounge chairs on
the sun deck and lie back to dry off.

Ryke rubs a towel through his hair and then tosses it on the
adjacent recliner. “You sure know how to avoid people. I’ll give you that.”

“I’m trying to be better about it, but some things still
make me uncomfortable.” Especially since Lo isn’t here to help ease me into
this new, terrifying social world. Having him by my side would make for a
smoother transition. I wouldn’t feel so…unhinged by people. “And how can you
not be uncomfortable by
that
?”

“It takes a lot for me to get rattled. I wasn’t about to
swim away from them.”

“You just did.”

“Because
you
asked
me to.” He sets his feet on the deck, sitting and facing me while I relax
long-ways on the lounge chair.

“So you really would have stayed there while I described sex
with Lo?” I ask in disbelief.

“You’re forgetting that I basically watched him grope you,”
Ryke reminds me. Yeah, I remember now. When Ryke first met Lo it was under odd
circumstances. “I’m a journalism major. In my profession, I can’t be turned off
by weird or uncomfortable situations. I just have to fucking deal. And that’s
something I’ve been pretty good at most of my life.”

I thought this trip would do a lot of things. Make me
confront my insecurities and by the end, boosting my confidence for the future.
Never did I think it would help me understand the shadowy mysterious figure
that is Ryke Meadows.

“Hey,” Daisy climbs on the deck with a towel wrapped around
her waist. She sits on the lounge chair opposite mine and holds a decorative pillow
to her chest, covering herself while Ryke stays seated in between us.

My stomach lurches. “Are your friends coming up too?” I’m
afraid of seeing the mob of girls swarm the deck area and prod for more details
about my sex life.

“No, they said they wanted to stay out there a little
longer.” She stares at her toes for a moment, her nails painted a turquoise
blue. “I’m sorry about them. I didn’t know they’d nag you. It’s stupid anyway.”

“What is?” I ask.

“Sex. Who cares how many fingers a guy put in Katy?”

I really, really don’t want to talk about this in front of
Ryke, and I can tell he’s biting his tongue. He wants to say something,
clearly, but he needs to hold it inside for two seconds. Please. Is that at all
possible?

She elaborates before I can reply. “I can name about three
things that are better than sex. People make it seem like it’s some terrific
experience, and in the end, it’s just super lame.”

Ryke rubs his lips, curious.
Don’t take her bait,
I urge with wide eyes, but he’s not looking at
me. “What three things?”

Daisy crosses her arms, building up defenses for when he
attacks back. He always does. I should end this before it starts, but I see
their battle beginning, and I really don’t want to be hit in the crossfire.
“Oxygen, chocolate and freefalling. There you go.”

“Sex is definitely better than chocolate, and Lily would
make a strong case that it’s more sufficient than oxygen. And when have you
been freefalling?”

“Last year, I skydived for the first time.”

He nods. “Okay, well, hate to break it to you, but sex is
ten times better than skydiving.”

“No it’s not,” she rebuts.

Ryke leans forward on his chair a little. “Then whoever
fucked you didn’t do it right, sweetheart.”

Her cheeks heat, flushing red, but not nearly the same burnt
color mine become. Thank God, I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. “There’s no wrong
way to have sex,” she retorts.

Ryke looks to me for backup on this question, as though I’m
the sex guru. I guess…I kinda am. I roll my eyes and sigh heavily. “There can
be bad sex,” I tell her. “It’s possible that he wasn’t very good.”

“I’m pretty sure he was as good as any other guy.”

Ryke interjects, “And do you have another experience to
compare it to or are you going on one guy and one time?”

Daisy stares at him with hard eyes, unwavering. “One time,
but still, I can’t imagine it being any better than that.”

“Let me ask you this then,” Ryke continues to poke. I want
to stop him, but every time I open my mouth to intervene, he speaks and cuts me
off. “Did you orgasm at all?”

Daisy’s brows cinch as she tries to remember. “I’m…I don’t
know.”

“You didn’t then,” Ryke says.
 

He pulls his wayfarers up on his head so she can see his
deep brown eyes, honey flecks swimming in them. He actually looks like he comes
in peace. Which is nice. But still, he shouldn’t be having the conversation
with anyone. What did he tell me before she got up here—oh yeah, that very
little makes him uncomfortable. Maybe that’s a problem!

Interrupting them and ending this severely awkward talk has
flashed out of my mind. Mostly because my sister doesn’t seem to think it’s
that awkward, and the last thing I want is to embarrass her or treat her like a
child. I’m sure our mother does it enough.

“But I was…” she trails off in thought.

“Wet?”

“Yeah…” she says softly. “…wait, no, I wasn’t.”

Ryke’s eyes narrow, pissed all of a sudden. “This was your
first time?”

She nods and then shrugs. “No big deal.”

“Yeah, that’s a fucking big deal,” he tells her. “What kind
of asshole enters a girl on her first time without getting her aroused first?
It probably hurt like hell.”

“Not really.”

“I don’t believe you.” He points at her. “In fact, you
should stay away from any guy who doesn’t make you come at least twice before
he fucks you. Keep that in mind.”

She shakes her head. “I’m not going to have sex again. I
have more important things to do. Like wash my hair.” She flashes him a dry
smile.

“That’s a shame then,” he tells her. “You’d probably enjoy
it with the right guy—maybe even realize that it’s better than fucking chocolate.”
He smiles a little. “That’s cute, you know, you should tell that to the next
boy you meet.”

“Sure,” she says, her tone still skeptical, probably knowing
that Ryke isn’t flirting with her now. “Maybe I’ll even tell him to try out
four fingers.” She shares his smile for a brief moment.

“That, I would not advise,” Ryke declares, leaning back on
his recliner. “But I’m also not a girl. Lily?”

My turn to interject? Oh goodie. “Yeah, no,” I tell her. “I
wouldn’t either.”

“Noted.” She stands and tells us thanks before she goes
inside to use the bathroom.

I immediately spin around and confront Ryke.
“In-appropriate,” I break up the words for emphasis.

He slides his wayfarers over his eyes, leans back, and rests
his hands underneath his head. “I was educating her.”

“You were embarrassing me.”

“Sounds like a personal problem.” His lips twitch into a
smile. “Anyway, I’m better than Connor Cobalt. Imagine him here diagramming the
reproductive system for her. Would you rather have
that
happen?”

“No, no, I’d rather all penises stay a thousand feet away
from my little sister, that’s what I’d like.”

“Not going to happen, Lily. She’s almost sixteen. She’s
already had sex. And she’s a fucking supermodel.”

“High fashion.”

He laughs under his breath. “Whatever. She’s gorgeous, looks
older than you, and plenty of guys will see that if they already haven’t. She
shouldn’t be uncomfortable talking about sex just because you are.”

Ouch. I let it go because…he’s right. I cringe as I think
it. “Don’t tell me you like her.”

“Did I mention that she’s sixteen?” he snaps.

“Just making sure.” I relax a little.

Maybe I’m going about everything the wrong way. Sex is okay
to talk about. Sex is not something to fear or to condemn. I just need to find
the healthy way to do it. With Lo, of course.
 

And then, everything will be okay.

* * *

I usually pop a sleeping pill to battle my warring
thoughts, but I do as Dr. Banning suggested and stay far away from prescription
drugs. Instead, the darkness and quiet begin to open the doors to my suppressed
emotions. I curl up in my bed—the ocean waves not enough to rock me to
sleep.
 
I end up staring at the empty
place beside me, wishing for the warmness of another body.

Being away from Lo for three months is extremely difficult,
but over time, it’s become manageable. The part where he returns freaks me out
the most. All this anticipation courses through me, and I imagine the moment
where he’ll stand in my doorway and gently tell me that we’ll have to break up
for good. That he’s moved on, reached a healthy stasis, and figured out that
I’m the giant cancer in his life.

I press my forehead to my pillow.
Don’t. Cry.
I force, but hot tears seep in the creases of my eyes.
I take two trained breaths the way Rose showed me.

Lo made me promise to wait for him. Maybe I should have made
him promise to return to me. At least to give me a fighting chance.

Ten minutes later, sex invades my mind like a relentless enemy.
These feelings will float away with a better high, and my nagging thoughts will
tumble and fall. I welcome the urge, too emotionally drained to care about
anything other than drifting away from this state. I crawl off my bed and zip
open my suitcase, rummaging around the bottom before I find my black travel bag
of toys. They’re all the same brand from a luxury line, and it kind of reminds
me of Lo’s preference for expensive liquors. Great…