Hothouse Flower (Calloway Sisters 2)

I don’t answer her. I just walk into Daisy’s bedroom. The bathroom door is already unlocked, and I point to it. “After you.” I don’t want her fucking dawdling in Daisy’s room.

But she does anyway.

Her eyes float to Daisy’s bed, the green comforter tucked in with half-assed effort. On a chair next to her, she lifts a white bra by the strap and twirls it around her finger.

I grab it out of her hand with a glare. “Don’t touch her shit.” I toss the bra on her bed.

“Why not? I’m about to use her soap, aren’t I?” She waits for me to refute.

I stare at her hard.

Her eyes travel around the room again and land on the bathroom. “How about I just take one here?”

“Why does that interest you?” I ask with narrowed eyes. “It’s not any different from my shower.”

Emilia shrugs. “Do you know how many girls would love to be her? Billion-dollar heiress. A supermodel at seventeen—”

“She’s eighteen,” I retort. I rest my elbow on the fucking chair. “Look, she’s my friend. She’s nice enough that she won’t fucking care if you use her soap or touch her things. But I fucking care if we spend more than a few minutes here.”

“I’ll be quick,” Emilia says, and then she moves her feet and enters the bathroom. I trail her, and I shut the door. She’s already out of her dress before I look over. She waits for me to appraise her. I don’t. I’m not fucking sorry either.

She steps into the shower, closing the curtain. “Couldn’t she afford a glass shower?” she asks, standing in the tub.

People forget that I have almost as much money as the Calloway girls, all pooled in my trust fund. I just never break into it for more than I need. The most expensive thing I own is my fucking car.

“It wasn’t high on her priority list,” I tell her, speaking loudly as she turns the water on.

I put the phone back to my ear. “Hey, you there?” I already know she’s caught that whole conversation through the speaker.

“Yep,” Daisy says. “Tell her not to use your shampoo. It doesn’t smell as good as mine.”

I end up smiling at that. She’d probably grin so fucking hard if she saw my lips lift this much too. “Mine does its job. That’s all that matters.”

“Normally, I don’t care about prices, but it’s a ninety-seven cent shampoo. The only job it does is pretending to smell like lemongrass.”

“Ryke,” Emilia calls. “She has men’s shampoo in here.”

I move the phone from my ear and say, “I know, and I don’t fucking ask.”

“You don’t care?” Emilia wonders.

“No.” Because it’s mine.

After a moment’s pause, she asks, “Does she have an extra razor I can use?”

I’m about to say, I thought this was going to be a quick fucking shower. But Daisy’s voice sounds through the receiver. Only I can hear her. “Cabinet behind the box of tampons.”

For some reason, I gravitate towards high-maintenance, jealous, out-of-their-fucking-mind girls. I’m used to the impulsive, the rash, and the confusing as all hell. My mom used to chastise everyone I brought home, saying that I look for the “crazy” in people. Maybe she’s right.

Maybe I like a little crazy.

I dig though the cabinet, knocking over the tampons to find a package of razors. Just as I grab one, I spot a plastic circle with bubbled capsules. I know what it is. I just don’t fucking understand what it’s doing in Philly and not Paris. I take Daisy’s birth control and inspect the dates. It’s almost all full, except for a couple pills missing. It looks like she stopped taking them weeks ago, which would be fine if she didn’t admit to almost fucking a guy in France.

“Did you find it?” Daisy asks.

“Yeah,” I say with a steel voice. I can’t talk to her about the birth control with Emilia right here.

“What is that?”

I go rigid.

Emilia peeks from behind the shower curtain, water dripping off her arm. She squints as she scrutinizes the pills. “Oh shit,” she says with a laugh.

I pocket them and glower at her as hard as I fucking can. “Here’s your razor.” I throw it at her. She catches it, but instead of finishing her shower, she shuts off the water and steps out, wrapping the towel around her body.

“Let me see that,” she says with a smile.

I hold the phone to my ear and say, “I’ll call you back.”

“What’s going on?” Daisy asks.

“Is that her?” Emilia’s eyes brighten at the phone.

I don’t like that look on her fucking face.

“Hey, Daisy,” Emilia calls loudly so she can hear, “thanks for the shampoo. It smells like teen spirit.”

“She’s fun,” Daisy says to me, a humored smile to her words. She usually doesn’t take digs at her age to heart.

“No she’s not,” I say blankly, staring hard at Emilia. She’s quick. In a swift second, she steals the birth control out of my pocket.

“Oh my God,” she laughs and waves the packet. “Male shampoo and she stopped taking the pill.” She glances at the phone. “Hey Daisy, you need to tell your fuck-buddies to wrap it, honey, or you’re going to be sixteen and pregnant.”

“I’m eighteen,” Daisy says flatly, but only I can still hear her.

I glare hard at Emilia. “You need to fucking go.”

Her smile fades. “I’m just joking around, Ryke.” She tosses the pills back to me. I catch it with one hand. “Daisy knows that.”

“I’m not fucking joking.”

I hear Daisy’s voice go hysterical in my fucking ear. “Stop, Ryke, you can’t kick her out. She may sell that info to the press.”

She probably will anyway. I roll my eyes and shake my head. “I’ll drive you home. Just don’t make a big deal about this.” I raise the pills between two fingers to show her what I’m referring to.

“Ye

ah, sorry.” Her eyes drift to the counter. “Is that her brush?”

Fucking A. “I’ll wait for you in the bedroom.” I don’t care what she does anymore, as long as she’s on her way out in five minutes or less. I sit on the mattress while Emilia combs her hair. “You there, Dais?” I ask her for what feels like the millionth time.

“Yeah, about the pills…I don’t like taking them around Fashion Week. My mom says I gain too much weight when I’m on them. So…don’t be mad.”

If I didn’t tell her to date other fucking guys, I wouldn’t be so concerned right now. My nose flares, and it takes me a moment to answer. “It’s your body. Just be fucking careful.”

“I will,” she says. Silence stretches over the line. “Hey, Ryke?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t fuck her in my bed.”

I grimace. “I would never do that.”

“Just making sure.”

I let out a deep breath. “I miss you.” Fuck me. Why do I say shit like that to her?

Because it’s the truth.

She says, “It’s only been four days.”

“Feels longer than that.”

“Yeah, it does,” she says softly. “So what was your climbing time?”

I almost smile. She remembered that I said I beat my last record. “Two minutes, seventy-three seconds, eighty feet of ascension.”

“I’m proud of you,” she says. “Did you scream, ‘I am a Golden God’ when you reached the top?”

“Only you do that, sweetheart.”

There’s a long pause again, and I can’t keep my smile from filling my whole face.

When she collects herself, she laughs and says, “I did it once, and it wasn’t even a real mountain.”

It was a gym rock wall. And it took her a week to complete the hardest course. By the end, she pumped her fists in the air in triumph and shouted that quote from Almost Famous. The entire gym clapped.

It was really fucking cute.

“Do you feel better?” I ask her. She doesn’t seem as paranoid or fucking antsy.

“When I talk to you, yeah, I do.”