Long Way Down (Calloway Sisters 4)

Face-to-face with an ex-boyfriend.

One that was with me during the reality show, Princesses of Philly, and so the heat of cellphones pin to my back. People know we were once together.

Julian looks a little different, a little older. His face is boxier, clean-shaven, and his hair is slicked back with gel or product. He’s still beautiful enough to be a model, and after seeing his commercial for a men’s fragrance, I know the fashion world thinks so too.

“Can we talk?” he asks quietly.

I don’t want to be near him, honestly. I was seventeen when I dated him. I thought, maybe, I could fall in some type of love with him. I was naïve. I trusted him, and he took advantage of me in more ways than I can count.

I know that now.

I’m strong enough to stand by my convictions, and I’m not going to placate him. I’m not going to please him. I’m not going to give him time because I have to be nice. I don’t have to be. Not to him. Not now.

“No, Julian,” I say, about to lose myself in the crowd. I’m actually scared to go into the bathroom now. Afraid he’ll follow me. I make a move to turn away from him.

He grabs me by the arm.

I jerk back. “Don’t…” A few flashes go off, and I worry about causing a scene at Connor’s event.

Julian lowers his voice. “This is about those videos. I’m being investigated, Daisy. I don’t want to be charged for statutory rape just because you gave me a blow job.” That’s what he’s worried about? What about how I was seventeen, a minor, and Scott Van Wright filmed me without my consent while I undressed and had oral sex with Julian? What about the part where Scott saved the footage to watch repeatedly with his friends? Spanning years of time.

What about when I found out? How I felt so violated I could barely speak, numb to my own body. When Ryke learned what Scott had done, he lost it. I couldn’t verbalize my hurt or show it right away, and Ryke seemed to channel both of our pain.

He couldn’t hit Scott since he was long gone in a cop car, sentenced for child pornography, and Ryke was fuming in guttural rage. He almost decked Lo and Connor, but they steered him towards the basement gym. The next time I saw Ryke, his knuckles were busted open and a punching bag bloodied.

We spent the next week basically attached to each other, which isn’t normal for us—that’s a Lily and Lo thing. The event unearthed raw moments in our past, where we were split apart—where I’ve let some people walk all over me—and it made us hold onto each other a little harder and longer.

Before my sisters, their husbands, or Ryke notice this scene, I seek to just end it quickly. In a stilted voice, I say, “You can call my lawyer.”

“This could ruin my life,” he whispers, eyes angrily narrowed on me.

I’m not trying to ruin anyone’s life. “My lawyer can help you. Please, I don’t want to talk to you.” I hate that I feel a pang of guilt, just for being harsh. It’s not even as cutthroat as Rose would be. She’d slice his balls off with her icy words, and she’d raise her head. She’d only feel triumph.

I don’t want to care, but I do care. I see the way my tone can hurt someone, and so I ache to soften it, to make them feel better, even when I feel worse.

You matter, Calloway.

I’m trying to feel that. I am.

Wasting no more time, I weave into the crowds, quick to distance myself from Julian. In New York, our social circles cross paths, so it’s not alarming to see him.

It’s just alarming to be confronted by him.

I bump chests with a middle-aged man, his champagne dripping down my bare collar and between my breasts.

“Sorry,” I apologize the same time as him. He removes his pocket square, and I see him go to dab up the spill. “No, no.” I quickly apologize again, make a short joke about me being so clumsy, and then I frantically cut through more people and conversations.

Searching.

Then I spot Lily by a college-aged group, most with unimpressed, Ivy League expressions and girls adorning Blair Waldorf headbands.

I clasp my older sister’s hand. “Excuse me,” I cut in with a bright smile. “I have to steal this one away.”

They look grateful to lose her.

I’m grateful to have her.

Lily’s nose crinkles in confusion, at them more than me. I take a deep breath and walk with her over to the floor-length windows.

“This party is lame,” she whispers to me, hiking up her floor-length black dress. Her sneakers are visible underneath.

I smile, a more genuine smile. “Why?” We stop by the window, close enough that I feel like I’m outside, flying above the packed city streets, the annual concert down below.

“I told them my New Year’s resolution and they all stared at me like I was dumb.” She mutters, “Lo would have understood.”

I catch a glimpse of her husband lingering by the cheese table with Ryke and Sam. Lo is dressed in all black. From his shoes, dress shirt, bow tie, suit jacket and pants. Even his cufflinks are onyx. Ryke is more casual, sporting a skinny black tie, white dress shirt, black suit jacket and pants. Sam stands opposite in a classic navy tux.

None of them seem to notice us, so I focus back on my sister, surprised that she approached strangers alone. Then again, she’s been slowly crawling out of her comfort zone since the inception of Superheroes & Scones and Halway Comics.

I bump her hip with mine. “I bet Connor’s guests make the same old boring resolution every year.” I wave her on. “Lay yours on me.”

She pulls back her shoulders, readying herself. “Okay, my New Year’s resolution is to not have a New Year’s resolution. That way there won’t be any disappointment when it isn’t fulfilled.”

That’s definitely not an ambitious person’s mode of thinking, but I like it because it reminds me of Lily. “You’re speaking my language.”

She grins more and then just seems to notice how close we are to the window. “Uh…” She takes four steps back, afraid of heights. “What if someone pushes us and we fall through the glass?”

I gasp. “Will we be that lucky?”

Lily tries to narrow her eyes at me, but she’s just squinting. “That’s not funny.”

“Just joking,” I tell her, feeling a little claustrophobic. I bend down to unbuckle my strappy red heels.

“You remember the New Year’s Eve at the model’s flat?” Lily asks me, smiling at the memory. It was one of the very first times we hung out alone together. “You were only sixteen, I think.”

“Fifteen,” I correct, time flooding me in a hot wave. It seems like forever ago, details blurry since I passed out from roofie-spiked punch. Ryke showed up. And carried me out of the flat.

“At least there’s no hunch punch.” Lily squats to tie her shoelace and falls to her butt.

I try not to laugh. “At least Lo is here.”

She blows out a hair that sticks to her lips, and her smile is blindingly cute. Loren Hale was in rehab durin

g that New Year’s, and she hasn’t gone without him since.

Just as I remove my heels and rise with Lily, Rose approaches us with Poppy. I miss Willow, but she’s busy babysitting Moffy and Jane. She offered to watch them since she really didn’t want to go to a New Year’s party. Apparently, it’s her least favorite holiday.

Still, I wish she could be here. Her presence is totally missed. I end up pulling out my phone and texting this to her, just so she knows we’re thinking about her.

Rose flips her hair over one shoulder, and before she speaks, Poppy says, “I saw Julian.”

“We saw Julian,” Rose amends.

Poppy takes a sip of pink champagne. “We wanted to let you know so you don’t cross paths with him.” My sisters are very protective of me when it comes to Julian.

The guys despise Julian, and my sisters loathe him.

I want to say, too late, but rehashing the short exchange sounds like adding kindling to an unnecessary fire. “As long as he doesn’t come near me, I’m okay,” I let them know.

Rose’s hands are perched on her hips, her beautiful wine-red dress hugging her frame. “Connor is dealing with him.”

Connor Cobalt is dealing with Julian. It sounds very ominous. I wait to be lit up by the mystery and intrigue—all those exciting things. I just feel a bit hollow, and I want to find this spark inside of me that’s sort of spurting out tonight.

I smile but it’s not as lively as I hoped it could feel.

Lily frowns. “What does that mean?”

I say in a hushed voice, “Didn’t you know, Connor Cobalt is a hit man?”

Lily’s lips part, unsure whether I’m being serious or not. “Huh?”

Rose rolls her eyes. “Connor is just talking to him, and hopefully threatening his genitals and tongue until he leaves.”

“Rose,” Poppy says with the shake of her head.

I add, “Sounds like a hit-man thing to do.”

“Or the Rose Calloway Cobalt thing to do,” Lily notes. “I thought for sure Connor Cobalt was an alien, not a hit man.”

I laugh with Poppy. I try to hold onto that burst of sparkling energy in my belly. Don’t go.