Long Way Down (Calloway Sisters 4)

Lily scoots against my side and she says, “Cake fixes everything, remember?”

I smile through my tears. I remember.

“Thank you,” I whisper. How silly, to think my sisters would forget about me. They haven’t.

Not in a long, long time.

DAISY CALLOWAY

In the mid-January cold, I strut up to the elephant exhibit at the zoo. On a high-priority mission:

Ryke and Daisy’s Grand & Daring Stakeout #6

My disguise: crimped blonde wig and heart-shaped sunglasses.

Limited info about this last New Year’s flour-bomber—just “zoo-worker, brown hair, gray eyes, long sideburns”—means our likelihood of finding him is around 4%. Ryke still pushed the zoo trip harder than any of the last stakeouts.

I almost wonder if he made it all up to give me some hope and a whimsical zoo adventure. I don’t want to ruin the fantasy, so I don’t ask.

As soon as I lean a hip against the railing, elephants slowly trudging in their manmade habitat behind me, I swivel towards a handsome man. He canvasses the area, blue baseball cap dipped kind of low over his brown eyes.

I tap his shoulder. “Hi, sir, do you know if there are chickens at this zoo?” I ask like I’ve never met him in my life.

Ryke lowers his broody gaze down upon me. “You want to see a fucking chicken?”

“Yeah.” I try hard not to smile. “I’m a big fan of cocks.”

He so stoically keeps his composure like the last four times I tried to pick him up. At the penguin exhibit, the polar bears, the lions, and gorillas.

I’m hoping the elephants will bring me better luck.

“What kind of fucking cocks?” he asks, his rough exterior not crumbling.

“The large kind.” I motion with my hands, about a foot and a half long. “Like this big.”

His brows rise. “That big?” We unconsciously draw closer, until our legs touch.

“Oh yeah. They’re the best cocks. Always up to play in the morning.” I pause. “You wouldn’t happen to have seen this cock around, would you?”

Ryke sweeps my body, warming me in the cold, and then he pulls my heart-shaped sunglasses halfway off my nose, eyes on my eyes. “Maybe check your fucking imagination. Because there are no cocks that size.”

I feign disbelief. “No, this cock is real. Its favorite thing to do is be inside a field of daisies.”

He pushes my sunglasses back up my nose. “Keep your cocks to yourself.”

I’m the one who ends up smiling from ear-to-ear. I love flirting with him because he shuts me down, and I spend half the time poking at him while he attempts to keep a straight face.

“That seems awfully sad. Everyone who wants to see a big cock should be able to see at least one.”

A nearby mom steers her kid away from me. I pretend to call after her but keep my voice soft, “We’re just talking about the chicken exhibit.”

When I turn to Ryke, he’s finally smiling.

I gasp. “You like cocks too?”

He hooks his arm around my shoulders, bringing me into his chest. He kisses the top of my head, and his warmth cloaks me so very protectively.

I look up at him. “So it’s been decided.”

“What?”

“You like cock pickup lines.”

“Fuck off,” but he’s grinning as he says it.

I brought my A-game by the penguins. Are you sure you’re not a sheep? Because your body is unbaaaalievable. That was a major dud with Ryke, but a teenage girl giggled next to me. She understood the greatness of that line.

We walk together to the next exhibit, my gaze drifting along all the workers in khakis. “What about him?” I don’t point, but Ryke follows my gaze to a thirty-something popcorn vendor. He has slight sideburns and brown hair.

With just a quick glance at the vendor, Ryke already shakes his head. “Doesn’t look like him.”

I notice a group of preteens ogling us instead of the giraffes. We’re more inconspicuous separated, which is partly why I’ve been approaching him like a stranger. The other reason: it’s just really, really fun.

“Do you want to split up and meet at the next place?” I ask him, lions roaring distantly. At the zoo, every human noise is accompanied by an animal one.

“You just picked up a fucking guy and you already want to ditch him,” he teases me.

I slip my fingers in his belt loops, spinning around to face him. I walk backwards while he walks forwards. “Only to pick him up again and again and again.” I smile wider, rising on the tips of my toes. “The thrill of it all.”

I only now realize that we’ve stopped in the middle of the path, his gaze shining down on me. Watching me while I watch him. His hand slides against my cheek.

“You like this fucking guy?” he asks me in a low, husky voice.

“More than chocolate,” I whisper.

Just as he leans down to kiss me, a crowd erupts with cheers. We part like we’ve been electrocuted, but no one is turned towards us. Large groups of families, couples, and friends are shifted towards the nearest exhibit.

We stand about ten feet from the pandas, and a zookeeper procures a microphone. “It’s a girl!” she exclaims and everyone cheers, rushing closer to the barrier to see. An old lady slams into my shoulder on her way there, and Ryke pulls me closer to his side.

The panda just had a baby.

My lips downturn, the disappointment that I’ve shunned to the furthest parts of my soul starts bubbling to the surface.

Ryke whispers in my ear, “Let’s see the fucking birds.”

I smile weakly at him. “It’s okay.”

It’s not okay.

I’m not pregnant. Again. The New Year’s Eve false test can be added to the other ones. I shouldn’t have even believed it could’ve been true.

He cups my face. “Hey, look at me.”

I must be staring at the cement. I lift my downtrodden gaze.

“It’s going to be okay,” he says very slowly so these words sink inside me. “Whatever road we fucking take, it’s going to be okay.”

“How do you know?” I wonder. How can he feel this and why can’t I?

“Because I fucking have you, Calloway. I don’t need anyone else.”

I rub my leaking eyes, tearful way more than usual these days. When we started this journey, I never realized how many times the rug would be pulled from beneath us. How many times the universe would cackle in our faces. For someone who often keeps their emotions at bay, this process has ripped them to the surface.

I couldn’t do this with anyone but Ryke.

In the background, the zookeeper is describing all the ways the mama panda will care for her baby. And I suddenly say to Ryke, “I can’t help but feel like I’m failing you.”

“No.” His nose flares. “Don’t ever fucking believe that because it’s not fucking true.” His unshaven jaw sets strictly.

“If time reversed itself,” I wonder, “and you knew from the very beginning I might be infertile—would you even kiss me in the stairwell at Paris?”

I break int

o heavy tears because I imagine that scenario—where he never chooses me. It drives a cold wedge through my ribs.

He holds me tightly, hand pressed caringly to the back of my head while I cry in his chest. “I’m always kissing you in Paris, Dais. Every fucking time, I’m kissing you. There is nothing that’d change my course.”

I feel him plant a warm kiss on my wet cheek. I try to wipe some of my tears. I need more reassurance these days, and I apologized once for it—and he told me to never apologize again. That he’d give me as many fucking truths about us as I needed. All I had to do was ask.

So I don’t say I’m sorry.

I just repeat all his words in my head, feeling his confidence in the winding road we speed down. I take off my sunglasses, and he cleans the foggy lenses with his green shirt.

“We’re okay?” he asks me, like it’d kill him if I said anything but yes.

I nod. “We’re okay.”

“Daisy Calloway!” someone shouts.

I instinctively turn my head, and the group of preteens squeals like I handed them their final piece of evidence in an ongoing mystery.

“Uh-oh,” I mutter. Cover blown.

Ryke grips my waist and then hoists me on his shoulders. I begin to smile, high up and out of distance from any leering hands.

I wave to the girls from up here—since they seem like nice fans—and they take photos. Ryke heads towards the exit, gripping my shins while I play with his hair. He literally walks ten feet before large masses of people circle us.

Snapping photos. Asking questions over one another. Pointing.

“We’re trying to fucking leave,” Ryke tells them, but no one seems to hear or care.

Then someone tugs on my coat so Ryke will turn around, but it pulls me backwards. My heart is in my throat. “Don’t pull,” I tell the person.

Someone else tries instead.

Ryke feels the momentum yanking him, and instantly, he lifts me off his shoulders. My boots hit the path, and he wraps his arms around me, protecting me from the onslaught of bodies and eyes.

“Back the fuck up!” he shouts. “We’re trying to leave.”

A nice girl tries to create a narrow exit for us, shouting for people to let us pass.