Fuel the Fire (Calloway Sisters 3)

Rose knows this.

But Ariel? I calculate my choices quickly, and next to each name in this precise order, I write: Marry. Kill. Fuck.

I pass her the napkin, her eyes pierced as she reads. “Why are you fucking Rapunzel?” She looks horrified at that notion.

“Because I don’t want to fuck a mermaid.”

“She grows legs.”

“You’re describing the maturation of a frog.” A tadpole starts with a tail and internal gills and then begins to form legs, but I don’t need to explain this to Rose. “And still—surprising to absolutely no one—I’m not fucking an amphibian.”

She snorts into laughter, her hand trying to cover her mouth to hide its existence as it escalates.

I begin to laugh too, and I lace my fingers with Rose’s, dropping her hand to our sides so I can see her full smile.

Jane giggles behind us. “Mama!” In unison, we both swing our heads towards our daughter. She’s raising her tiny bowl of peaches above her head. “Up!”

Her first words.

The bowl slips from her grasp, clattering on the floor, mashed peaches spilt. I gauge Rose’s reaction to the mess. Her free hand is pressed to her lips. “Did you hear her?” she asks me, eyes flooded with emotion.

My smile widens, more overwhelmed that their love for each other trumped Rose’s innate tic that spikes at the sight of chaos. I hug Rose to my side. “I heard, darling.”

I’m not even minutely religious, but today, Christmas morning with my girls enveloped in happiness, feels as spiritual as I’ve ever come to in life.

[ 18 ]

ROSE COBALT

“Moffy descends upon the box with a strong, baby grip and a devilish twinkle in his eye,” Daisy narrates beside the eight-foot tree, decorated in elegant gold bows and shimmering ornaments.

She braces a video camera while bells clink on her socks with each bounce around the spacious living room, filled with Christmas spirit: stockings along the mantel, snow falling behind the windows, gifts stacked beneath the tree; wrapped both carefully (me) and haphazardly (Loren), and the smell of vanilla coffee and cookies sweetening the air.

Loren probably believes that I love traditions and festivities because it’s another day I can decorate our home, another day to boss people around and orchestrate everything to my liking. I’m a perfectionist, but seeing a leaning gingerbread house and a poorly constructed snowman is fine with me. Parties have always meant something else. Every person I love will be together. My sisters, most importantly.

The other details are just extra.

“Devilish?” Lily’s eyes widen in horror. “He doesn’t look devilish.” On the soft cream-colored rug, Lily peers down at her baby nestled between her legs. Moffy eagerly grabs onto the red-wrapped box, unknowing of its purpose.

Loren sits next to his wife and helps his son tear the paper. Everyone is dressed in some sort of holiday pajama. Moffy and Jane in Christmas onesies. Daisy with stripped leggings and a white tank that says: Elf you gonna love me! Lily in a gray snowflake-printed onesie with pom-poms and a hood. Lo and Ryke in respective red and green flannel pants. Me: all black pajama set. But I do have stylish, red ornament earrings.

Connor is the only one not participating. Out of principle, he said. He’s in gray cotton pants, and I don’t press him to change. I love him, weird quirks and all.

“Moffy looks adorable,” Lo confirms. “The devilish baby is sitting on the devil’s lap.”

And of course, he turns to me.

While on the couch, I protectively hold Jane closer, Connor’s arm around my shoulders. “You do realize this is being recorded, Loren?” I grimace into a smile. “So now your niece will see how much of a dick you are.”

“And now she’ll hear her mom’s foul-mouth,” Lo retorts and then slow claps.

Ryke joins in, sprawled on the loveseat with the thickest, messiest hair, as though he just rolled out of bed. Daisy handed him a Santa hat earlier, but he’s too lazy to put it on, the red velvet cap still on his chest.

He finally catches my hot gaze and raises his hands in defense. “I’m in support of foul fucking language.”

Daisy hops over a present, almost dropping the video camera—everyone may be too sick from the jumpy footage to watch anyway. “I can edit it…” Daisy starts, but then stops at my glare.

“I don’t want Jane’s first Christmas edited.” I would really like the video to be level too, but I don’t mention it. I’m not that rude.

Daisy mock gasps. “Who suggested such a thing? They should be fined with a dozen chocolate chip cookies.”

Without budging from his lounged position, Ryke gestures for her to near him. “I can give you something better, Calloway.” I try not to read far into his blatant sexual innuendo. Their flirting has the same boundaries as their personalities. They both rip through danger zones and No Trespassing signs.

Daisy whips her head to him. “Cake?”

“Better than fucking cake.”

She feigns confusion. “There is no such thing.”

He flips her off and then gestures to her again. She skips over to him, careful to avoid crushing the many assortments of presents.

Seeing them together reminds me that Ryke’s surgery is in about a week, the day after Connor’s birthday. With the horrendous weather—cold, rain and snow—Ryke has had almost no opportunity to climb since he went to the gym. Which wasn’t really his preference of climbing anyway.

When Daisy reaches Ryke, he clasps her hips and lifts her shirt a fraction, kissing the small of her back. She glows, her smile illuminating her features. I’ve never seen Daisy as radiant as she is in Ryke’s presence. I just truly hope it can last, even without him.

“Hey, Santa,” Daisy grins, slowly spinning around.

He raises her shirt again and kisses below her belly button, which is cute but also a bit inappropriate due to the setting. I’m too used to groping from Loren and Lily (which is a thousand kinds of shield your eyes) that Ryke kissing my little sister’s body is tame in comparison.

I live in a weird world, and I wouldn’t trade this atmosphere for any other.

“Alright,” Lo cuts in from the floor. “No Christmas flirting.” Moffy has unwrapped a plastic Spider-Man action figure, meant for infants his age. “And can we all not refer to Ryke as Santa Claus? I don’t want to confuse my kid.”

“I agree with Lo,” Lily says with an adamant nod. “You’re not Santa.” She also cups her hands over Lo’s ear, whispering to him. I’m almost positive it has to do with him banning all Christmas flirting.

“Fuck all of you,” Ryke says lightheartedly before putting his head up my sister’s shirt and kissing her…ugh, you know what—I don’t want to know what his lips are touching.

Connor leans closer, passing me our joint crossword, folded from this morning’s newspaper. Since his right arm is behind my shoulders, he filled it out with his left-hand, annoyingly ambidextrous. Like he needs another talent in his arsenal. My eyes glaze over the square boxes, the descriptions scratched out and the title written in his neat handwriting: Fornication.

Instead of doing a normal crossword, we just fill the boxes with words pertaining to our chosen category. Fornication. I swear Connor is trying to make me aroused or incensed.

He filled in ten boxes with the word: Acrophilia

Also known as the fetish of fucking someone in high altitudes. Like in the mountains or on rooftops. Also known as Ryke Meadows.

I shoot Connor a quick glare, but he’s tickling Jane’s foot, putting her on his lap while I concentrate. I want to use the word fellatio, but the only eight boxes available uses the “p” from acrophilia which screws up everything. There is no damn “p” in fellatio.

I could go with testicles, nine-letters somewhere else, but I don’t think that fits the category well enough.

“About this fictional character…” Connor begins.

Lo interjects, “They’re going to believe in Santa Claus and the

Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny and everything else that you think is a crock of shit.”

We’ve never had this conversation, not outright, but there have been numerous moments where it almost surfaced.

I hold my pen on the newspaper too long, an inkblot bleeding into the thin sheet and almost staining my pajamas.

Ryke is out of Daisy’s shirt, and she sits on his lap, his arms wrapped snugly around her waist. She powers off the camera.

I snap my fingers at her. “Keep it on. Unedited remember?” I’ve had too many people edit my life. My children won’t see the edited version either.

Daisy switches the camera on. “I don’t understand why Jane can’t know the truth while Moffy knows the kid version.” In my youngest sister’s head, there is a happily ever after for everyone. And my black heart understands, too well, that happiness for all is a cruel myth.

Lo crumples the red wrapping in a ball. “Because Jane will ruin it for him.”

“And for every other fucking child in Kindergarten,” Ryke adds. He nods to Connor and me. “Your daughter will literally be that kid who fucks up Christmas.”