Fuel the Fire (Calloway Sisters 3)

I’m not worried about Jonathan, not really. He’s like a barking dog that threatens but knows better than to bite. He won’t enact any kind of plot against me. His relationship with his son would be at stake, and that’s something Jonathan can’t afford to lose.

The coffee pot beeps and Daisy drifts backwards, silent and unblinking. I stay still as though she’ll respond soon with harsh words that I’ll need to defend. She blinks once, sluggish and unaware.

“Thanks for not judging,” I tell her. “I always knew you were one of the good ones.” When I return to the pot, I hear bare feet rush up the basement stairs. I tense and begin to pour coffee into a mug.

“Fuck,” Ryke curses. Daisy’s twenty-six-year-old boyfriend bounds into the kitchen, wearing nothing but gray boxer-briefs, which means he jumped out of bed.

It’s only six in the morning, so I’m not surprised that he was still sleeping and woke to find Daisy missing.

His narrowed eyes momentarily flit to me. “You’re just fucking standing there?” He manages to quietly growl the words.

“I’m not in the business of waking sleepwalkers,” I reply calmly. Daisy already has a history of panic attacks, and forcing her out of this type of sleep increases the likelihood of one. I assume Ryke understands this. He’s smart enough.

Ryke ignores me and gently rests his hands on her shoulders, steering her away from the bar counter that she repeatedly knocks into. She guides him more than he’s able to guide her, and she wanders further into the kitchen, near the open space where I stand.

She plops down on the hardwood. Ryke crouches just as she keels over into a deeper sleep. He catches her and gently rests her head on the floor before standing.

“You could have done that,” he tells me.

“I preferred watching you do it. Now I’m completely positive this is a common occurrence.”

With festering agitation, he runs his hand through his disheveled brown hair. “You could have just fucking asked like a normal person.” He’s still speaking in hushed tones while I choose to talk normally. It’s not that I don’t care about Daisy. It’s just that I don’t think changing the volume of my voice will do anymore harm than good.

I pour coffee in the second mug. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“This is fucking serious.”

“Je le sais, mon ami.” I know, my friend.

He exhales a heavy breath.

It’s been hard to build any kind of relationship with Ryke that doesn’t include his brother or Rose’s sister at the center. Our personalities clash. He’s aggressive. I’m calm. He’s in your face. I’m out of it. He loves with all of his heart. I love sparingly, moderately or not at all.

I can’t understand all of him the way that he can’t understand all of me. We rarely open ourselves up past conversations about Lo and Daisy, and so I have no clue how many languages he speaks, if he still talks to his mother, if he’s planning on a career outside of rock climbing.

Of all the people in my life, I know the least about him.

It’s mildly annoying.

It makes me want to poke at him until he gives me something more, but I’m not entirely in the mood to rouse an agitated beast.

“She needs to see a new therapist,” I tell him.

His shoulders lock, but he’s not defensive. “She likes her therapist.”

“Liking one isn’t the same as having an effective one,” I reply. “She’s not getting any better, and she has too many problems to be complacent.” Rose and I hear the same thing from Daisy: I’m doing okay. While Ryke says, she’s doing the same.

Those updates are irritating for people who like details.

Ryke keeps shaking his head, frustrated.

I pass him a coffee, knowing he’ll drink it black. He takes it, and I find another mug to fill for Rose.

“It’s not that fucking easy,” he says. “She needs stability. Not to go through a bunch of random therapists to find one that works.” He lets out an angry breath. “And what if she gets a shit therapist like Lily?”

“I never recommended that therapist to Lily. Her parents did.” I pause as I realize how I can have more details and help Rose’s sister at the same time. “Daisy can see my therapist. I’ve known Frederick for years, and he’s almost as smart as me.”

Ryke glances at Daisy who rolls onto her stomach, still sleeping. “What kind of therapist is he?”

“Frederick is a jack of all trades,” I evade the question. “He’ll be equipped to handle her problems.” He’d take her on as a patient without hesitation. Firstly because she can afford him. Secondly because her case is complex.

Ryke’s jaw hardens, his hand tightening on the mug.

“Do you trust me?” I ask him. I want what’s best for Daisy. Besides Jonathan Hale, Ryke always questions my motives the most.

“I feel like you’re manipulating the fuck out of me, Cobalt.”

I am. Partly. I want more information about Daisy that Frederick may be able to give me. “I want what’s best for Rose’s sister,” I say, only a portion of the truth.

Ryke nods, as though he’s trying to believe me. “You’ll have to talk to Daisy about it. It’s not my decision.”

I nod too. Ryke and I always cross paths in the morning, but usually it’s when I go to work and he goes rock climbing. We never utter a word to each other. Daisy lying on the floor between our feet has forced us to communicate at 6 a.m.

A string of tense silence lingers in the air.

He sips his coffee.

I sip mine. “I’ve had better conversations with a stuttering parakeet Frederick used to own, though he wasn’t nearly as intelligent as you.”

Ryke digests my statement quicker than most. “I’m sure you loved hearing your own fucking words repeated back to you.”

My lips rise into my next sip of coffee, remembering the bird’s high-pitched squawk and how it took him five minutes to repeat one fucking sentence that I said. “I’m a narcissist, not a masochist.” I pause in thought. “Maybe if the parakeet didn’t have a stutter.”

Ryke laughs under his breath and shakes his head.

So I ask, “Are you nervous about the surgery?” It’s not a topic he likes to discuss, especially with me, but I’m curious. In January, he’s undergoing a liver transplant to help his father survive. Jonathan Hale destroyed his own liver after decades of alcohol abuse. His son is his best match.

The surgery is a selfless act since:

a) Ryke doesn’t like Jonathan

b) Ryke will have a six-week-long recovery process and…

c) That’s only if there aren’t complications. I’ve personally never seen Ryke bed-ridden or told to lie down.

It seems out of his character.

Ryke shrugs. “I just want to get it fucking over with.”

“Ohmygod! Ohmygod!” Lily races into the kitchen from the living room, a black Halway Comics sweatshirt stopping at her thighs. Daisy somehow remains asleep, but Ryke watches her closely, ignoring his brother’s wife who bounds towards us like she’s on an urgent mission.

Lily has a tablet in hand, waving it around as if no one notices its presence.

I immediately reach for my phone…that I left in my bedroom. I usually always have it on me, but I didn’t expect to be in the kitchen this long.

Lily is mainly focused on me, mutually ignoring Ryke, and in seconds, she accidentally rams into his bare chest. When she raises her head, she absorbs his shirtless, toned body, realizing he’s only in his underwear. She glances at her own sparse attire.

Really, I’m the only one properly dressed. I’m never surprised.

A deep shade of red blemishes her cheeks. “Ohmygod.” This time, she sounds mortified. “Why aren’t you wearing any clothes?”

“Animals generally don’t wear them,” I answer first.

Ryke flips me off casually, about the same moment that Daisy shoots up in alarm, incognizant of her new surroundings. Ryke hurriedly squats in fro

nt of his girlfriend, hands on her face so she focuses on something familiar.

“Oh shit.” Lily hesitates to rush to her sister’s aid, afraid to worsen the situation. I can read her guilt at the sight of Daisy’s distress and confusion, sweat beading her little sister’s forehead.

“Dais,” Ryke whispers. “You’re in our kitchen. Nothing bad fucking happened, I promise.”