“He’s coming up the elevator,” Daisy says, checking her texts.
I crack the bathroom door and peek at the fourteen board members, who all take the extra time to chat with each other.
“No one has bailed on us yet,” Daisy whispers to me. She peeks through the top portion of the crack while I crouch below her. She’s right. They’re still eating and drinking and smiling, which is good.
The elevator dings, and all of the board members quiet, rotating to face the sliding metal doors. Ryke emerges, wearing a leather bike jacket, zipped to the collar, and a black backpack with buckles across the chest. A green water bottle dangles off the lower strap with a carabineer.
No one approaches him. They’re the ones stunned in silence now, not expecting him to be here today.
He’s essentially crashing this lunch party, and he acts like he couldn’t give a flying shit. He looks around the place and spots the bathroom where we hide. Then he begins his trek this way, without introducing himself or even shaking a single hand.
Though he decides to snatch a couple mini-sandwiches on the way here, eating them in one bite.
“Is he self-sabotaging?” I whisper to Daisy. The board members murmur, gossiping about him, and Ryke ignores all of it.
“I don’t think so.” Daisy backs away from the door as he nears, and I do the same.
Ryke slips inside and shuts the door behind him.
I cover my face with my hands, refusing to meet his brooding gaze for multiple reasons. The first being: I just peed myself. And he can see the stains.
“So they said you’re having lunch and they bring in bite-sized f**king sandwiches?” he curses. I hear him unzip his backpack on the sink counter, grateful he’s not advertising my soiled pants yet.
“You’ll have to eat before you come here tomorrow,” Daisy tells him. I peer through my fingers and watch her hop up on the sink.
“It’s a multi-billion dollar company; they could’ve ordered subs.”
Daisy wears a devious smile. “Ladies don’t put foot-longs in their mouths.”
Oh my God. I am alone with Ryke and Daisy. Flirty Raisy. I need help. SOS. Someone save me. I drop my hands and reach for my phone in my pocket.
His eyebrows rise at her, his backpack right there. Accio, my clothes! They do not magically land in my hands. Harry Potter fail. I’m truly not a wizard.
“Calloway,” Ryke says, “you’ve never been a lady, and it has nothing to do with taking twelve-inches in your mouth.”
Oh shit.
“Say that again,” she smiles so big.
“No!” I interject with frantic eyes. They both look at me, and I use one hand to shield my gaze. “I don’t want to know how many inches his…thing is.” He cannot be twelve-inches. That’s just too big.
“I’m not twelve f**king inches,” he tells me. Thank God. “Lily, you can look at me?”
“I can’t,” I say. I am trying to keep my “perverted thoughts” under the surface. I cannot be aroused. Nope. I will not let my body feel embarrassment, guilt, shame and pleasure all at once. It’s the most toxic, gross mixture.
I sense Ryke nearing, and I scuttle backwards, my shoulders hitting a stall door.
“Lily. It’s just me.” There’s pain in his voice.
I swallow a lump and slowly drop my hand. He is holding my pants out to me, really nicely. Daisy watches from the sink and she gives me a thumbs-up. Something tells me that she’d planned for us to make up right now—and maybe that’s why she called him out of everyone.
How can I say this out loud without seeming strange and weird?
“Maybe if you talk about it, we can clear the f**king air,” Ryke says with hard brows. He’s not even sure what he did. I’ve just been dodging him. “Here, take this.” He pushes the pants to me, and I hold onto my clean clothes like a life vest.
And then I say, “I’m a pervert.”
His face falls. “You’re not a f**king pervert.”
“You always say—”
“I’m an ass**le,” he suddenly tells me, licking his lips. “I say exactly what’s on my mind, and sometimes it doesn’t come across how I intend it to. Do you think perverted things? Yes. But so do I. It doesn’t make either of us perverts.” He takes a tense breath. “I don’t want you to believe that you’re one because of things I’ve said. It’d…honestly, it would break my heart.”
Maybe his comments have affected me over the years. “I shouldn’t have taken them so personally…”
He shakes his head a couple times. “No. I shouldn’t have f**king said them in the first place.” He lets out a deeper sigh, frustrated with himself.
I don’t want him to feel bad. It’s not even the source of why I’ve been dodging him. “You don’t understand,” I whisper. How can I say this? My face scrunches in a wince. And I stare at his feet, the shameful heat swirling around me. “I really am gross. I mean…I’ve been aroused so much lately that almost anything turns me on, even things that never did before.”
The silence deadens the bathroom.
“Like what things?” Ryke asks, and I can almost hear the gears clicking in his brain.
I can’t look at them.
“Us?” Ryke asks. “Or just me?” Both.
“I’m sorry,” I say. My instincts scream retreat, retreat, retreat! So I dart into the stall and shut it closed, my heart thumping against my ribcage.
“Lily—”
“You don’t need to say anything.” I take this time to change into my clean clothes, unfolding the black pants and finding a pair of purple cotton panties.
I don’t think too much about the fact that Ryke picked them out from my drawer.
“So this hasn’t been about the three-way rumors then?” Ryke calls out.
“No.” I’ve already accepted those rumors for what they are. The old me that would obsess and be affected by them has been buried away. I’ve been avoiding him because of something worse.
He keeps talking to me. “Look, I know you feel badly about this, but you shouldn’t.”
I frown, not expecting this reaction. After changing, I zip up my pants and step out of the stall, bundling my dirty clothes together. I need to see his face.
The minute I do, I only see compassion.
Daisy even looks empathetic. “We could’ve toned it down. I didn’t know…”
I shake my head fiercely. “No, that was the last thing I wanted you to do. You’re a new couple. You deserve to bask in it, and I didn’t want to take that from you. Especially since Lo and I aren’t discreet.” It would’ve been hypocritical to tell them to stop when Lo and I are almost always touching. I stare between them. “Why aren’t you disgusted by me?” I feel it. It’s like every pore needs to be scrubbed clean.
“Because it’s not disgusting,” Ryke says forcefully. “It’s f**king normal. People can get off by anything, even inanimate objects.”
“But I know you…” I just don’t understand how they can look at me and not see a freak? And why is that all I see when I stare in the mirror?
“I have a confession to make,” Daisy pipes in, raising her hand as she sits on the sink. “When I was younger, I totally had a crush on Lo.”
I end up smiling, and Ryke is staring at her like what the f**k?