Long Way Down (Calloway Sisters 4)

I’m not nervous that he might be training too hard or too fast. He knows his limits, and he’s been seeing a therapist to talk through what happened in Peru, so he can handle possible flashbacks. It’s the first time he’s ever sought professional help. And he’s never been more awake, more conscious, of the world around him.

So when he called my dad yesterday, to discuss climbing Desert Shield—like he promised before his fall—I started crying and smiling nonstop.

His step is a little lighter. His eyes a little brighter. If you saw him now, you’d be in tears too.

Ryke removes his baseball cap and sets it backwards on my head. “On our run back, I told Lo that I was going to see if it’d be fucking possible to climb Desert Shield.”

I scrutinize his expression, but I can’t gauge his reaction about Lo. Whether or not his brother was happy or scared. Ryke has put the video camera on the kitchen counter, still recording and pointed at us, so I don’t poke at the subject.

Ryke lifts Moffy in his arms. “Have you ever seen a fucking cliff, little guy?”

Moffy shakes his head repeatedly like Ryke just spoke about boogeymen and ghouls.

“You’re going to see a really fucking big one at the end of May. It’s this tall.” Ryke gestures to his six-foot-three height, and Moffy goes slack-jawed like that’s Mount Everest.

“Nuh-uh,” Moffy says.

“Yeah fucking huh.”

Lo and Lily both enter the kitchen at that, but I’m stuck on May as a deadline. Just surprised it’s so close. Recently, he’s had trouble climbing at the gym. Not because he can’t physically ascend but because people begin filming him and trying to take photos every time he practices.

After his accident, Celebrity Crush interviewed random doctors to determine whether Ryke could walk again. Most said, “It’ll be difficult for him to even run, and he’ll never climb again.”

Of course people are curious, and combined with my recent brush with death, the birth of our baby, and agreement to air something from our lives on television—we’ve been current news.

#RaisyIsAlive was trending for two weeks straight as well as #RaisyBaby. No one has pictures of Sullivan yet, but as soon as we make a grand entrance outside with her, they’ll be everywhere. We don’t want to sell her baby photos to a tabloid, not for any price.

So the media has officially been Team Raisy, and the world has warmed up to the idea of us on television again. It’s funny though. People hated us for so long because we refused to do a reality show, and then the minute we agreed to a documentary series, people complained about us being on air again.

We can never please everyone. So at the end of the day, we have to worry about ourselves first.

This docu-series feels like the best direction we’ve ever taken.

Lo calls out, “Team Maximoff!” He roots for his son as he bickers with Ryke. Lily climbs onto a barstool and opens a packet of chocolate-glazed cookies.

Moffy tosses his fists in the air, and Ryke sets the little boy on the ground.

“Booo, you can’t quit,” Lo says. “The battle hasn’t even begun, bro.”

Ryke flips him off and slides right next to me. He grabs the bottle of baby shampoo and begins gently washing our baby’s super short hair, so dark brown that we’re both positive it’ll be Ryke’s shade.

His hands look huge compared to her teeny head.

“You okay?” he asks me, the Hale family chatting loudly behind us. I catch only bits and pieces, but I think the three of them are debating about superpowers of persuasion.

Our eyes connect before flitting back to our daughter. “About…?” I ask.

“Hormones.”

I’ve been put on a hormone cocktail after my hysterectomy, and in March, I found out that I was allergic to a recommended cream. Thankfully this last prescription has kept my moods more level.

The best part of the surgery: no more pain. No more extremely long gushing periods and crippling cramps. No more pesky cysts to ruin sex and my everyday life.

In a way, I’ve been unshackled too.

Sure, the doctors warned me of the potential downsides: lack of sex drive, difficulty to orgasm. But they also said every woman’s body takes to a hysterectomy differently, and there have been cases with completely opposite effects.

I think with where I was before the surgery and where I am now, I can only go up from here. Luckily, I have evidence from this morning that suggests just that.

I fill a cup with lukewarm water. “Good so far,” I tell Ryke. Then I cover Sulli’s forehead with my hand and rinse the shampoo out. “I didn’t want to keep you from your run this morning, but you did this thing…” I trail off as he pulls our clean baby from the bath basin.

She cries a little to be kept in the sink.

He gently rests her on the white towel. “If I could, sweetie, I’d leave you in there as long as you fucking wanted.” He bundles her in a green hoodie towel. When he pulls the hood over her head, little frog ears on top, she stops fussing.

Ryke leaves her wrapped tightly on the counter for a moment. “What’d I do this morning?” He shuts the camera off. I wonder if he thinks it’s bad—whatever I have to say.

He combs two hands through his messy hair.

Yep, he thinks it’s bad.

I lean my hip against the counter. “You let out this long groan and stretched your arms above your head.” I remember how handsome in his disheveled state he looked and how content he seemed. “And then you sleepily turned over and tucked your arm around me.” He even pulled me against his body. Half-asleep, drowsy Ryke Meadows wanted me closer.

His brows knot, full of “fucking” confusion.

I rest my elbow on the sink. “It made me wet.” Just thinking about it now, my body pulses with a strong, aching desire. What sweet, sweet hormones.

His mouth falls. “Are you fucking serious?”

Does he think I’m teasing him? I wash away whatever flirty look I wear. “I touched myself,” I say with total seriousness, “so I’m a hundred percent positive.”

He lets out a shocked breath, his hand to his mouth in disbelief.

It’s not about his own pleasure. It never has been for Ryke. The thought that I’d be even less aroused than I already was made him upset for me.

I explain, “I read that some women have increased sex drives afterwards and with the right prescriptions they can get wet too…” I suddenly realize how quiet it is in here, sensing an audience by the bar counter. Ryke must too because we both swivel.

Lily, Lo, and even Moffy—up on the counter, eating a cookie—all listen fixatedly to my arousal story.

Lily is absolutely ecstatic, but she tries to act like she heard nothing, shoving a cookie in her

mouth.

Lo watches his wife with infatuation.

And Moffy asks, “What’s wet?” He licks chocolate off his fingers.

Ryke opens his mouth, and Lo cuts him off before he even begins. “We all know what you’re going to fucking say, and need I remind you, bro, he’s not even three. He has to hit puberty before sex-ed class, alright?”

“Maybe next fucking time, don’t listen to us talk about sex.”

Lo shoots him a rather docile glare. “Trust me, no one wanted to hear that less than me.”

I lift a bundled Sulli in my arms, and she rests her head against my chest. Before I leave, I need to remind them of an impending event. “Don’t forget,” I tell Lo and Lily, “camera operators will be here at the end of May to set up.”

It’ll be the first day of filming the docu-series. I think we’ve all decided to begin with interviews, but no one has offered to take the lead yet and be the guinea pig.

“Doomsday,” Lo quips.

My face falls.

“I’m just joking,” he tells me. “Don’t look like I ran over your baby, Jesus Christ.”

“You all want to do this, right?” I look between them, kind of worried that maybe, all this time, they agreed to the docu-series just to appease me.

Lily sits straighter. “It’s my favorite idea anyone has had about this stuff. Way better than the reality show—but don’t tell Rose I said that.” She crinkles her nose. “And don’t listen to Lo. He’s being an ass.”

Lo feigns hurt. “Lily Martha Hale. Where is the loyalty?”

Lily just smiles at me, and I smile back.

Calloway sisters for life.

RYKE MEADOWS

“There’s more? Jesus Christ,” Lo curses, watching journalists trudge through the Utah canyon with heavy camera equipment. Greg Calloway’s camera crew is the only one with consent to use today’s footage as commercial advertisements.

I vaguely notice the media, some even filming us now while I fix my gear about a hundred feet from the base of Desert Shield. Red rock juts towards a clear blue sky, and when I look down the canyon, my lungs fill with something bright.