Hothouse Flower (Calloway Sisters 2)

“That would definitely be another weird thing for the night, but no, we didn’t watch it together.”

“Is he still there?” Don’t fucking think about it. I open the freezer to distract me. It’s just as bare as the fridge. A package of freezer-burnt chicken and a tray of ice. In the last four months, I’ve spent almost no time in my apartment. Maybe to grab some clean clothes and my climbing gear. Other than that, I’ve been at Daisy’s place.

I’ve been sleeping in the same bed as her. I’ve been taking care of her. She’s mine. She feels like she belongs to me. I don’t want to share her with any other fucking guy. And I don’t want to be with any other fucking girl.

Anything else feels like a sickening betrayal. How the fuck did we get to this place?

“No,” she says. “He’s gone. I thought maybe I wasn’t doing it right, so I was going to look at porn.”

“What’s it?” I ask, finding a packet of oatmeal in a drawer. I tear it with my teeth and pour it into a bowl. I uncap the water bottle as she answers.

“Sex. I can’t orgasm. I think it’s a physiological problem,” she states matter-of-factly. I remember a time when she claimed that she orgasmed before. We were in Cancun for Spring Break, and she said she skipped foreplay, just went straight to sex and experienced something more. I should have been happy for her, but I felt more fucking joy when she admitted that she got it wrong. That she thought she climaxed, but after talking to her sisters, it didn’t seem euphoric enough to be that heightened peak.

“You can orgasm,” I tell her. “I’ve fucking heard you, sweetheart.”

There’s no answer. I called her sweetheart—I do it unconsciously, and I know every time I say it, her lips rise.

“Daisy?”

“Huh?” She laughs a little. “Can you say that again?”

“No.” I realize I’ve overflowed my fucking oatmeal with half the water bottle. “Shit,” I curse. I have to dump all of it in the trash.

“Sorry,” she says.

“No, it’s not you,” I tell her. After scraping all of the oatmeal out, I toss the bowl too hard in the sink and it cracks. What the fuck is wrong with me today? I shake my head. “I fucking hate talking to you on the phone.”

“Me too.”

I lean against the cupboard and stare at my bedroom door, keeping an eye on whether or not it opens again. I have to be fucking cautious with people I bring over. I had a one-night stand steal a pair of my fucking boxer-briefs a year and a half ago. She sold them for three grand on eBay. “Were you careful with this guy?” I ask her.

“We didn’t have sex,” she says.

I shut my eyes and take a deep breath. Thank fucking God. “Was he a part of your weird fucking night?”

“Oh yeah,” she says. “I just don’t understand why I meet people and they seem so perfect for me, and then I get them in bed, and they’re just…wrong.” She pauses. “I think it’s me.”

“I already hate this fucking guy.” That’s a real understatement.

“You would hate him more if you saw him last night. He thought I was a virgin, and he was happy to deflower me upon a first-time meeting.”

I glare. I want to rewind time and take everything back. I want to tell her to not date a single fucking soul. I wish my brother’s claims hadn’t gotten to me. “Stay away from him.”

“I plan on it.”

The shower cuts off. “Hey, Daisy?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s almost four in the morning where you are. Take a fucking Ambien and go to sleep, okay? Call me when you have time.”

She hesitates. “I have time to talk more now.”

“You need to sleep before you go to work.”

“It’s pointless. I have to be in for hair and makeup at five thirty. Ambien may knock me out for hours, so I might as well just stay up.”

My door swings open, and Emilia stands with a towel wrapped around her chest, her hair dry. “You’re out of soap,” she says. “I couldn’t find any in your cabinets.” She hasn’t even taken a shower yet.

Fuck. I grab my keys off the kitchen bar. “I’ll get you some. Wait here.”

“You don’t have to go buy more,” she says.

“I’m not. There’s some in my friend’s apartment. She lives below me.”

“I’ll come with,” Emilia says. “Hold on a sec.” She disappears back into my room, and I catch her slipping on her blue dress from last night.

I still have the phone pressed to my ear. “Daisy—”

“I’ll go.”

“No,” I suddenly say. I don’t want to stop talking to her, not if she’s just going to spend the next hour paranoid. I can distract her from her fears. Even thousands of miles away, that’s still fucking possible.

“Are you sure?” she asks.

Emilia comes out and gives me a smile.

“Yeah,” I tell her. I point to the door, and Emilia heads out first. I lock it, and then we enter the elevator. Emilia looks from me to the phone that hasn’t left my ear. It won’t either. My friend, I mouth to Emilia.

She nods and then tries to concentrate on the elevator as it descends. I hit the fucking button a couple times, even though it’s already lit, hoping it’ll go faster to save me from this awkward tension.

RYKE MEADOWS

“I talked to my therapist yesterday,” Daisy tells me over the phone, the elevator still dropping. “She wanted me to describe what happened at Lucky’s again. She said it would help stop the nightmares.”

“Did it?” I ask briefly, feeling Emilia’s body stiffen the longer I ignore her. But Daisy, a lonely, frightened girl in Paris, is going to trump Emilia. Every fucking time. Especially when it involves the past and the multiple events that have fucked her over psychologically.

“I don’t know,” she says. “It hasn’t helped before. I can say the words just fine.” She recites with an even tone, “Some angry guy outside of Lucky’s called me a cunt and destroyed my bike. I’ve moved past it.”

I cringe at the sound of cunt. Ironic that I fucking hate a swear word—I know. But it’s grating, like someone’s scratching my fucking eardrums. In the back of my head, I hear my father calling my mom it, over and over. It makes me sick to my stomach.

“You’re leaving out a big fucking part,” I tell her, “and it’s not something you can get over in a day.”

“It hasn’t been a day,” she snaps back. “It’s been over a year.” For that one incident, yeah it has been that long. But it’s not the only thing that she’s gone through after the media attention. Some people were bound to hate the Calloway girls because they’re socialites, wealthy, entitled. The media likes to show them as privileged snobs, so that’s what people think. But it didn’t give this fucking guy the right to beat the shit out of her Ducati. And as she tried to stop him from wrecking her bike, he turned around and assaulted her in broad fucking daylight. I wish I had been there.

I would have fucking killed him.

I ended up taking her to the hospital because she wouldn’t tell anyone else about it. She didn’t want to worry her family.

They found out anyway, but they never learned about her broken rib. Or the fact that the trauma of the event has stayed with her past that single moment. They think it was no more than a few bruises.

I don’t fucking blame her sisters or my brother for not noticing the change in Daisy from that point on. She likes to make it seem like she’s okay, even when she’s not. She hates whining, crying and throwing tantrums because she thinks she’ll come across as immature. When she’s hanging out with all of us, people in their twenties, she’d do anything to avoid that label. God fucking forbid she act her age.

And fuck that, when a guy assaults you, you’re allowed to have every moment to scream. You’re allowed to talk it out and ruin everyone’s week by burdening them with your emotions.

“Don’t try convincing me of anything else,” I tell her. “I’m going to be fucking stubbo

rn on this subject.”

The elevator doors slide open. I slip into the hallway, Emilia following close behind.

“Okay,” Daisy says, “what about you? Have you been training?”

“I beat my time the day you left,” I tell her, stopping by Daisy’s apartment door. 437 in gold iron on the dark wood. I fit the key inside and glance at Emilia who stares at the number.

“By how much?” Daisy asks. “Was it the same mountain you took me to?”

“Yeah, can you give me a minute? Don’t hang up.”

“Okay.”

I pocket my phone so I have use of both hands. I push open the door, and Emilia slips inside with me. She scans the apartment quickly. It’s the same layout as mine, but Daisy has a yellow couch, green pillows and multicolored lanterns hanging from the ceiling.

“This friend is a girl,” she says, eyeing the clothes that are scattered on the hardwood floors.

“Didn’t I say that?” I’m almost fucking positive I did.

“I must not have heard.”

I lead her across the living room, bypassing the small kitchen where dishes are stacked in the sink. I should wash those for Daisy. I’m pretty sure half of them are mine. I step over a skateboard. “Watch your feet.”

“She’s a slob.”

To be honest, I don’t usually fucking notice. “She’s cleaner than me.”

Emilia bumps into a wicker chair, and it knocks over a purple surfboard that was leaning against the wall. I catch the board before it hits her in the head.

Her eyes widen. After she exhales in relief, she says, “She surfs and she lives in Philadelphia?”

“She’s learning, and she flies out to California when she has free time, which is rare.” I don’t add that I go with her so I can climb at Yosemite while she’s on the coast with Mikey.

Understanding washes over Emilia’s face. “This is Daisy Calloway’s apartment.” She nods to herself. “She’s rich.” Her lips tighten, and she’s now glaring at every piece of furniture, every article of clothing. “You have keys to her place?”