Some Kind of Perfect (Calloway Sisters 5)

“Unfortunately for you, I don’t know how you feel.” I see puke in strands of her hair that I’m positive her husband will help clean. “I lived in a boarding school as a child. I was subjected to most common pathogens, so I have a stronger immunity than most people.”

Daisy smiles weakly and almost topples onto the toilet. I catch her and lift her back up. She hangs onto my shoulders for support.

“Of course you do,” she says sluggishly. “You’re Connor Cobalt—”

The door quietly but swiftly opens, Ryke storming through with unbridled concern. I let go of Daisy the same time she turns into her husband’s arms.

Ryke holds her face and puts a hand to her forehead. “What fucking happened? Are you okay?” While she explains in an agonizingly slow manner, I have to squeeze past them to reach the sink.

I turn on the faucet and start lathering my hands and wrists with pine-scented soap.

Ryke flushes the toilet and puts down the lid. Daisy takes a seat, shivering and feverish, blinking like she’s trying to make sense of everything. I’m certain she’s not entirely coherent.

“I should’ve never let him…in my room. Or that house…” Daisy shudders.

Interesting.

I dry my hands with a towel and lean against the sink counter. Ryke stands above her with furrowed brows.

“Who the fuck is him?” Ryke growls.

“…What?” Daisy presses the heel of her palm to her temple. “What’d I say?”

I repeat it since Ryke’s version will be riddled with unnecessary fucks. “You said you should’ve never let ‘him’ into your room or that house.”

She licks her dry lips. “…the townhouse. When Princesses of Philly was going on…you were there.” She looks up at me.

Ryke’s darkened eyes set aggressively on my calm, unwavering expression.

“Relax,” I tell him.

“What were you doing in her fucking room?”

“No, no,” Daisy says and winces at herself. I’d guess for bringing this subject up at all. If she didn’t have a fever, she probably never would have. “He interrupted…him…us.”

I understand. “She’s talking about Julian.”

Ryke lets out a heavy breath and rakes a hand through his thick, disheveled hair. And then his eyes meet mine in apology.

I nod once. “You should’ve listened to me. Ninety-nine percent of your problems would go away.”

He flips me off. “Ninety-nine percent of my fucking problems are you, Cobalt.”

“It’s strange…whenever you say fuck, I miss half of what you say. Which is every time you speak. Actually, it’s not strange at all. I call it a choice.”

He flips me off with both hands.

My grin widens, and I fold the hand towel and set it aside.

“Thank you.” That’s not Ryke. It takes me a second to realize she’s speaking directly to me. “…you knew, didn’t you? Back then, you knew I didn’t want to do anything…with him. And so you interrupted us…on purpose.”

I remember it clearly like I remember most everything. I knocked on her door, hearing her with Julian, and when I saw her reaction, which she tried to conceal, I knew she’d rather be anywhere but there. I waited until Julian left, and Daisy and I never spoke about that moment ever again.

That was five years ago.

“I did,” I admit.

“Thank you,” she repeats, eyes welling, maybe from exhaustion. She trembles, and Ryke rubs her arms but he looks to me.

“I never knew that.”

“What would it have changed?” I don’t see it affecting our relationship, which has been up and down and side-to-side and one of the more difficult things to read.

His nose flares, and he shrugs.

Daisy is so lost in thought that she just asks aloud, “Have you ever been in a bad relationship that you thought wouldn’t stay with you…but it did?”

I shake my head at the same time as Ryke.

Daisy’s gaze drags to the tiles. “Sometimes I feel like…the people I chose clawed into me…and it’s impossible to erase the marks they made.”

Ryke hugs Daisy almost immediately, and she reciprocates, burying her head in his chest. I leave them alone, just as another text buzzes.

I’m checking on Jane. – Rose

Don’t. I’ll be back in less than a minute. I reply, glancing at my daughter, still asleep, as I exit into the hallway.

Only one room away, I open the next door to find Rose propped up against the wooden headboard with a multitude of hand-stitched pillows. Cellphone in hand.

She reaches over and tugs on the bear lamp, illuminating the room. “Updates.” She raises a manicured nail at me. “And you are so lucky I am this pregnant or else I’d already be out the fucking door.”

By this pregnant, she means that her stomach is much rounder, her curves visible in her black silk robe. Nearing the bed, I can tell how much her back aches. The baby kicked her awake last night, so she hasn’t been sleeping well.

“Richard,” she snaps.

“I’m assessing you.” I sit on the bed by her feet.

“Excuse me? Don’t assess me. We have a sick daughter, and a one-year-old with gastrointestinal disruptions, also known as intense midnight diarrhea.” Beckett. I smile at the way she sits straight and eases forward like she wants to cram the words inside my eardrums. “And not to mention our other one-year-old that already knows forty-words and chooses to say wrong more than hello.” Charlie.

“Anything else?” I go to massage her foot.

She jerks it out of my hand, her toe pointed at my throat in threat. “I’m seconds from decapitating you.”

I arch a brow. “With your toenail?”

She growls. “Richard.”

“Rose.”

“Are we a team?” she asks, and my grin fades.

“Of course.”

“Then treat me like I’m on the motherfucking field and not sidelined because of this.” She points at her abdomen. It was never my intention to make her feel benched. “I’m perfectly capable of hearing news and handling it with you in ways that I still can.”

“You are,” I agree. “I wasn’t implying that you weren’t.” I touch her foot again, and she lets me bring it to my lap. I massage her sole, and she relaxes against her pillows. “Just so we’re clear,” I add, “I’m never going to act like you’re not pregnant when you are.”

“I wouldn’t want you to,” she says beneath her breath, right when I knead a knot in her foot. She inhales like there, right there. I apply more pressure, and her chest collapses.

When our eyes meet, she glares. “I hate you.”

I smile. “Jane is fine. Both Beckett and Charlie were still sleeping when I checked on them. And your sister has a fever.?

?

Worry crosses her face and she sits straighter. “Which sister? And what do you mean by fine? You couldn’t have picked a more descriptive word? There are literally millions and you choose fine?” She crosses her arms.

“Daisy. And fine generally means okay. Acceptable. Passing. Do you need more synonyms?”

Rose narrows her eyes. “I find your diction unacceptable and infuriating.”

“I find your response redundant and attractive.”

She tries to hide a smile by rolling her eyes. “Really, Connor, does she need anything?”

I can’t tell Rose that Jane called out for her. She’d stubbornly try to see our daughter, and it’s not worth the argument. “She’s asleep. She’ll feel better in the morning.”

Rose takes a moment to let this idea settle in. I kiss her ankle and then move closer, sliding my hand up the length of her leg.

Rose watches me with piercing yellow-green eyes. “Are you still assessing me?”

I harden by the ice in her words. “I already know all there is to know.” I reach her thigh and kneel between her legs, untying the loose knot of her robe. She stubbornly knocks her knees together and anticipates me yanking them apart.

I do.

I adore the flash of I hate you, Richard in her flaming gaze.

Rose rubs her lips together like she’s smoothing lipstick. I pull her down so she’s not sitting straight up, and her heat presses against my erection.

She gasps and then glares. “That noise was not for you.”

Blood pools in my cock. “If not me, then who?”

Rose tilts her chin. “The air.”

It’s hard for me to believe that between air and me, air is superior. Frederick would remind me that I’m not herculean, but I’m certainly better than most people and most things. Without much of a pause, I say, “Air doesn’t take precedence over me.”

“Oxygen is necessary to sustain life,” she combats.

“Oxygen can’t think. Oxygen can’t solve conflicts. Oxygen is necessary for survival, but it’s incomparable to me.”

Rose mutters something about my narcissism, but I distract her as I finish untying her robe. The silk slips off her curves like water. Naked beneath, I hone in on the swell of her stomach, her shallow breath, and the fullness of her breasts.