I outstretch my arms. “What the fuck, man?”
Lo cocks his head at me. “You gave her a string for her nineteenth birthday.” For fuck’s sake. Not Lo too.
I glower, but before I defend myself, Daisy says, “Hey, I like my bracelet.” She touches the hemp rope around her wrist, which she wears almost every fucking day.
“I found it!” Lily waves an envelope in the air. Fuck. I rub my lips while she stands and hands the thing to me. To my wolf.
Daisy already whispered in my ear that I shouldn’t open it in front of my brother.
“Where’s her present?” Poppy asks, sipping eggnog by the fireplace with her husband and eight-year-old daughter.
On the couch, Rose is busy fixing Janie’s hair with a new bow, and Connor shows her a new logic puzzle.
“Yeah, where’s my sister’s present,” Lily says with her hands on her hips. She acts like she’s investigating my motives behind my horrible gift giving.
Okay, I fucking admit, I’m not the best, but I try. It’s not like I don’t care. “Her fucking gift is outside, and no, you all can’t fucking see it.” I actually planned this well in advance.
Lo gives me a look. “Sex isn’t a Christmas gift, bro.”
Lily ponders this. “Does that mean…we’re not…?”
Lo seizes her waist and pulls her onto his lap. “Of course we are, but I wouldn’t just give you something that I can give you any other goddamn day.”
I toss my fucking hands in the air. “It’s not sex.”
“Then what?”
“You want me to ruin her fucking surprise?” I ask my brother because he’d never ruin a Christmas present for Lily.
This shuts him up, and he nods to the envelope in my pinched fingers. “Open it.”
Daisy shrugs at me like maybe he’ll be okay with it.
I feel like I have no choice, so I rip open the envelope and find a plane ticket…to Norway. Without pause, I start fucking smiling. I’m about to tell her thanks, but Lo cranes his neck to better see what’s in my hand.
“Where are you going?”
It’s suspicious because it’s just one fucking ticket. It’s not like Daisy gifted me a couple’s vacation. “Norway,” I say and just let it all out. “Sully is ice climbing in March, and I talked about going but hadn’t made plans yet…”
All the holiday cheer has deserted my little brother. He shoots the nastiest fucking looks at Daisy.
“Hey,” I nearly shout at him. “I probably would’ve gone, even if she didn’t buy me a fucking ticket.” I love that she did—her encouragement means the fucking world to me. What I hate most is that my decision to do what I love has begun hurting the people I care about.
I can’t quit. No matter how many times I tell my brother, he still doesn’t get it. I don’t know if he ever will.
Lo reroutes his spite and hurt onto me, but he tries to bite his tongue and trounce it. In the end, he spits out, “Go fly to your death, Jonathan Ryke Meadows—see if I care.”
I rock back like he slugged me. Caught off guard by his use of my birth name. He almost never says it. Maybe three times in all the years I’ve known him. I have to remind myself that he’s just upset.
Everyone is quiet except for the mumbling of Janie and Moffy.
What’s worse: I’ve kept something from Lo for maybe…two weeks now. I didn’t want to tell him today, not like this, but if he finds out I kept silent here—it’ll be worse. When we fought in Utah, a huge source of his pain was about me keeping him in the dark.
I don’t want to torment my brother, but I’m stuck.
Daisy stands. “Does anyone want hot chocolate or maybe cookies?” She knows what I did two weeks ago, and she’s trying to lighten the fucking mood before it worsens.
“Cookies!” Moffy perks up.
Daisy mock gasps. “You like cookies too?!”
He nods vigorously.
Lily rises and lifts Moffy on her hip, following Daisy to the nearby kitchen. The air is still tense, and Lo hangs his head, breathing heavily, glaring at crumpled wrapping paper.
Before regret assaults him, I say, “I’m not…” I stop short. Just fucking say it.
All eyes pin to me, and I sense Daisy and Lily in the kitchen archway, lingering to watch. I actually meet Daisy’s gaze and read the words behind it, are you sure you want to do this now?
I nod at her. I’m fucking sure.
“You’re not what?” Lo asks me.
“I’m not Jonathan Ryke Meadows anymore,” I announce to the fucking room.
Rose takes an audible inhale of surprise.
“Come again?” Lo’s jaw is a fucking razorblade. “Because I thought you said that you’re not Jonathan Meadows anymore.”
“I legally changed my name, Lo.”
Lo looks homicidal and pained all at once. “Tell me you’re a Hale.” He knows that’s not it.
“I’m just Ryke Meadows now.” It took me about ten years to settle with this decision. I’ve always wanted to change my first name, to disassociate from my dad. To become more of the person I am and less like the person he wanted me to be. Like all things attached to Jonathan, he never made it fucking easy for me.
My inheritance and my trust fund are tied to a simple stipulation.
I couldn’t legally change my first name without losing both. My father knew he couldn’t control me by last my name, so he made sure he could by my first. In the end, that was all that really connected us.
Now it’s gone.
“You stupid, jackass.” Lo pushes up from the rug, tears burning his eyes. I rise with him—the room narrowing in my mind to just us two. He points at me. “You threw away your entire trust fund for pride!” He’s worried about me. All of my money now comes from rock climbing.
“I threw away my entire fucking trust fund to be free of him. If you think I can build anything real with our dad when he has that kind of power over me, you’re out of your fucking mind!” It ate at me after Jonathan went to the press and backstabbed Connor. After I gave him half my fucking liver and learned he can still manipulate people to acquire what he wants.
Now it’s not eating at me.
It’s that fucking simple in my head.
Lo pinches his eyes and then shouts at me, “Don’t you fucking get it?!”
My ribs are on fire. “Lo…”
He steps closer to me, feet crushing wrapping paper and boxes. He lowers his voice. “You almost died last time you climbed.”
“I didn’t.” I was close to falling, but I didn’t. It’s already in the fucking past.
“Do you hear yourself?” Lo laughs, fighting tears that redden his eyes. “Do you, Ryke? Because you’re just fooling yourself, man. You’re fooling yourself into thinking you’re never gonna die.”
“I?
??m fucking aware of the risks—”
“No you aren’t,” Lo sneers. Two more steps my way. Only a few feet apart. Heat radiates between us, and I don’t know how to fucking give him what he wants. I know I can’t.
“No I’m not?” I repeat, a growl in my fucking throat. “I understand every fucking thing you’re telling me.” I extend my arms. “I’m human. I can die every time I climb. There is always that chance. I know. I know. I fucking know.”
“Then stop climbing!” Lo yells.
“I can’t!” I scream back.
His face shatters. “Not even for her?” He points at Daisy in the kitchen archway.
I don’t want her roped into this, so I walk past my brother, a few feet, and then rotate so my back is to Daisy and the Christmas tree. “Don’t turn this around on her.”
Lo spins to face me, and he lets out another short, pained laugh. “You don’t think this is about her? It’s not about the baby you’re trying to have either? Goddammit, Ryke, if you die, you leave Daisy alone. You leave that kid without a father. You, of all people, should know what it’s like to grow up without a dad.” He pauses as these facts that I’ve known drive into me. “Unless that’s your hope; you know, let your kid experience exactly what you did—”
“Fuck you,” I growl.
He shoves me. “No, fuck you!” I stumble back not even a foot. “For thinking none of us care about you. For thinking we won’t be affected if you’re gone. Fuck you, man.” He pushes me again, so hard that I fucking fall against the Christmas tree.
I bring my brother down with me, fisting his shirt.
The tree careens against the walls, glass ornaments breaking and lights snapping. Half the needles go dark with unlit strands. Maria, Poppy’s daughter, shrieks, and bodies fucking move out of the living room.
Tree limbs jut into my ribs, and ornaments crack beneath me. Fucking fuck. I curse in my head, maybe aloud.
Lo and I violently roll off the fucking tree and onto the rug. Smashing presents. I try to right the tree before even standing, but Lo says something about leaving it alone or picking it up later. We’re not finished with this exchange, both of us too emotionally exhausted to rise to our feet.