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I sit up. “Hey, I’m doing alright. I’m right here. I haven’t died.” I reach out and squeeze his shoulder.
He blinks and his tears fall. “I never understood. Not when Daisy explained it, not when you did. I didn’t get it, but now I do.”
My frown darkens. “What do you mean?”
“Climbing is a part of you. That’s what you told me. And I look at you now without it…you’re different. You’re fucking lifeless compared to the person you were. The person I know, we all know.” His chin quakes. “I miss my brother, and if you won’t fight for the thing that makes you happy, then I’m going to fight for you.”
I hang my head and pinch my raw eyes. I can’t explain to him what I’m going through. “It’s so fucking hard.”
He puts a hand on my back, and after a long pause, he says, “Hard things are the right things. Remember that?”
I cry because I don’t fucking know if I’ll ever be the same.
He scoots closer. “One step at a time. I know it’s hell. I know you want to give up. I know it fucking hurts. Just one step, one more time, Ryke. We’re doing this together. You and me.”
I thought he didn’t understand this pain, but I know he does. It’s not the kind where he needs to shatter his leg to feel it. I rub my face and then nod a couple times. Okay. Okay.
“Now,” Lo says, “do your bastard brother a favor and lie the fuck down.”
I give him a look before dropping back down. “That’s not fucking funny.”
He bends my knee towards my chest, and I inhale strongly. Fuckfuckfuck. “One more inch,” he says. “You would’ve been here a week ago if you tried harder.”
Probably.
I prop myself on my forearm, watching my knee do the simplest action with the most fucking strain. It’s good, even if it’s tender and sore and screeching. The further I go today, the further I go tomorrow.
“I’m in fucking hell,” I grit as I keep my knee in place, the muscles adjusting.
“You’re already dead, so it shouldn’t make much of a difference being here,” Lo quips with a smartass fucking smile.
I flip him off but my lips almost curve upward. I almost forget about the discomfort for a second. In the quiet, there are questions in my brother’s eyes. Things like, Will you wake up early tomorrow? Will you follow me, big brother? Will you ever climb again?
Yes. As soon as the light hits.
Yes. I’ll chase after you, little brother.
Will I ever climb again? I don’t fucking know.
I’m my own anchor.
I decide when to rise again.
I don’t know if I’m ready. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready enough to reach for the something that I love. I already have the someones with me.
Isn’t that all I need in the fucking end?
DAISY MEADOWS
“Can we open it now?” I ask Ryke as he cradles a cardboard box beneath his arm, with the words You’ve Ruined My Birthday If You Don’t Wear These Costumes in Loren Hale’s messy handwriting.
Ryke enters our bedroom, leaning his weight on his cane, but he bends his right knee a little more each day. I’ve seen small changes in his mood since the beginning of October. He wakes up early every morning, without Lo pounding on the door.
He cooks breakfast again. And eats healthier. I even saw him doing resistance workouts on his own in the backyard. He wants to run. I can see it in his eyes most days, unlike before.
I don’t know what Lo said to him, but whatever he did, it worked some.
“No,” Ryke answers me after his slow trek to our dresser. He sets the box down. “Lo wants everyone to wait until five fucking thirty so we can’t find an alternative costume and back out.”
Today is Halloween.
And also Loren Hale’s twenty-seventh birthday.
As a present this year, we’ve all let him dictate our costumes, and he’s made it a mystery. In a box.
It’s only 10:30 a.m. I pet a sleepy Coconut on her fuzzy green bed beneath the window. She turns away from me, too tired for love.
I stand and crawl back on the bed, wearing one of Ryke’s plaid flannel button-downs. We have time to kill since we’ve opted out of the whole trick-or-treating with the little kids. But we’re all attending some fancy celebrity party in New York later tonight.
It’s Lo’s plan.
He thinks we’re all turning “old and unfun”—and this set Rose’s bones on fire enough to accept the party challenge. Really though, if anyone needs the break, it’s Connor and Rose. My parents and a trusted nanny are babysitting all the kids during our outing, so hopefully everyone feels at ease.
Ryke pulls the shirt off his head with one hand, his brown eyes on me more than once. Grazing the length of my long bare legs. I smile at him, sensing this quiet sexual tension stewing.
I can’t say I’m one hundred percent in the mood or aroused, but I love seeing his, even if mine stays low. I crawl further across the bed, closer to where he stands. “What if my costume is a Daisy Meadows tigress?” I make a claw motion at him.
He stays stoic and mysterious, towering above me. In a husky voice, he says, “My brother would be fucking quicker to make me Jesus Christ than you a cute animal.”
I smile wider. Jesus is actually a plausible option. “You think I’m cute?” I paw his arm.
He rests his good knee on the bed, leaning closer to me and says lowly, “Terribly fucking cute.”
I untie his track pants, watching him study my gaze more than anything. Wondering if I’m really in the mood. We flirt a lot, and it doesn’t always lead to sex or even foreplay.
I tug his pants down his ass, revealing his forest green boxer-briefs and the clear outline of his hard, long cock.
I’m practically on all fours, in line with his crotch. Perfect angle and everything for head. Maybe he’ll let me pleasure him, even if it’s just okay for me. I want to get him off, so I touch the waistband of his underwear. Then he catches my wrists together.
“I can’t tell,” he says honestly, “so I’m going to fucking ask.”
“Okay.” I know where this is going.
“Do you want to have sex, Daisy?”
“Not a hundred percent, no.”
He kisses my cheek tenderly and then lets go of my wrists. I sit on my ass, watching him back away from the bed. I guess I just want to reciprocate in some way more. I’m just not sure how I can help without oral sex.
As he edges towards the bathroom door, he must see my faint disappointment. He stops midway, eyeing me for a second.
I rest against the headboard, my knees swinging back and forth.
He grabs lube out of the nightstand and then suddenly reroutes his course. He throws damp towels off our wicker chair. Then he drags the piece of furniture towards the foot of our bed.
Curiosity lights my eyes.
His head collides with one of our low-hanging paper lanterns. “Fuck,” he mutters, setting a hand on the lamp so it’ll stop swaying.
My lips pull higher.
Before Ryke sets his cane aside, he turns his back to me and sheds his boxer-briefs.
I have a straight-shot view of his toned ass and sculpted back, some of his long lasting bruises just losing their yellow-purplish tint.
He rotates and then slouches in the wicker chair all casual and assured and naked—my body rises with a deep inhale. My eyes drift all over Ryke, his lean muscles, his shoulders, his abs, his erection…and I feel his gaze gliding all over me.
He grips the base of his cock. Holy shit.
He’s going to masturbate in front of me. A first.
I crane my neck, staring fixatedly.
He hasn’t begun yet, not really. “Yeah?” he asks me if I’m okay with this, his brows scrunched and features dark. I think I know why, even if we talked about the possibility of this a long time ago.
Certain positions cause me to flashback to awful moments with guys. Me on top. Blow jobs. Maybe he’s worr
ied this will send me back to a time where someone just jacked off to my body. While I lied there disinterested. Feeling, ultimately, gross and uncomfortable.
But this is completely new for me. “Yeah,” I say with a nod. “This is a first for me, ever, you know that?”
A flickering smile touches his lips. Then he grazes me again with his steely eyes, and his hand pumps up and down his hard shaft.
His movements make me more restless, and I find myself kicking blankets, swinging my legs more, shifting my hips, and running my palms along our sheets.
