“I don’t want to talk about sex or cock,” I blurt out.
A man clears his throat.
Shit.
I look over guiltily. The waiter stands at the end of the table with his notepad in hand. His gaze lands anywhere but on me. I might as well wear a walking road sign that says: Pervert and Sex Addict.
“What can I get you to drink?” he asks.
“Waters all around,” Lo orders. The waiter leaves, and the diner door jingles as more young people enter: teenagers or college students. They gather in a nearby booth and whip out their cellphones, snapping photos.
Hibernating in our home sounds much more pleasant than this. Maybe the bears know something we don’t.
Ryke unzips his leather jacket. “It’s your twenty-first birthday; does that mean you’re drinking tonight?” He sets the jacket aside, wearing a plain gray tee.
“No,” I shake my head. “I’m going to forgo those traditions.” My reasons extend beyond Lo being a recovering alcoholic. I want to remember tonight, especially if it involves sex.
“She lived vicariously through my twenty-first,” Lo adds. I did. It wasn’t pleasant.
Someone bangs on the window by my ear, and I jump so fast that I knock my water glass over. Ryke curses under his breath and mops up the spill with a napkin before I have the chance.
A cameraman raps the glass with his fist again, and my eyes gullibly follow the noise.
The flashes go off like busted light bulbs. And then the table of teenagers erupts in laughter, their gazes flitting to our booth and back away. My nerves spike, especially as more and more bells clink together, signaling a rush of people entering Lucky’s.
We’re going to suffocate in here or be attacked or worse. There’s always a worse.
And I let Garth, my bodyguard, go home early. Mob mentality will overtake three people. Two’s a company, three’s a crowd, right? That makes four a mob. We’re down a man.
“Lily, calm down,” Lo whispers, his palm on my cheek, his thumb stroking my smooth skin. “Hey, what’s going on in your head?”
Nonsense. Fear. All of the above.
I don’t have a chance to answer him. The waiter returns with his notepad in hand, ready to take our orders. I haven’t even looked at the words on the menu (even if I almost know it by heart).
The sad thing: I’m craving a hot dog. Literally. But I know photographs of me, mouth wide open with a wiener between my lips, will end up on the front page of every tabloid. Could I cut it up and eat it? Maybe, but it’s not the same.
My eyes drift along the salad options, slowly jettisoning my stomach’s cravings.
“And you?” the waiter asks me. I didn’t even hear what Lo chose.
“I’ll…just have the soup of the day.” Safe. But I can’t hide the disappointment from my face as I pass the plastic menu to the waiter.
Lo stares at me like I grew three horns. “You hate broccoli and cheddar soup.” Oh. That’s right.
“Maybe theirs is better.” I shrug, avoiding his amber eyes.
Then Lo starts to climb out of the booth. The teenage girls squeal because he’s about five feet from their table. He never breaks his focus from me. “I need to talk to you.” He nods to the bathroom.
Ryke’s brows rise. “That’s not f**king suspicious at all.”
Lo sets his hands on the table and leans closer to his brother. “I can talk in front of you but not the fifty other people in this place.”
Just as he finishes his declaration, another group of people breezes into the diner and collects behind a growing line.
Now there are no free tables.
My thighs squeak against the cheap plastic seat as I scoot towards the end of the booth. Loren straightens up and waits for me. When I’ve successfully left my hiding spot behind, Lo rests a hand on the small of my back and guides me to the bathroom.
2
0 years : 00 months
August
LILY CALLOWAY
We enter the unisex bathroom, the single kind without stalls. As soon as the door shuts, he flips the lock.
When he faces me, his eyes cloak with unmistakable concern. “What’s wrong?”
Great. I’m so transparent that he’s pulled me away for a powwow in the bathroom—over hot dogs. It’s slightly pathetic, which is why I blurt out, “Nothing.”
He grinds his teeth. “Lily.”
“Lo.”
“Don’t Lo me. You’re upset and not telling me why.” He crosses his arms over his chest and blocks the door, maybe realizing I’d be darting out of it right about now. “We’re not leaving until you explain.”
“You’re making a dramatic scene over nothing,” I whisper-hiss. “Seriously, you’re gonna feel awfully stupid.”
“Why are you whispering?” he asks. “And let me decide if it’s stupid or not, Lil.”
I let out a defeated sigh. “Hot dogs,” I confess. “I wanted a hot dog for lunch.” I wait for laughter and the seriously, Lily? but it never comes. He stares at me for a long moment, processing, and his brows begin to bunch together in this frustrated manner.
“I’m sorry,” he says softly.
I shake my head. “Sorry should be saved for rejections to colleges, breakups and funerals. Not for a girl who can’t eat phallic foods in public.”
“You know this is more than that.”
I suppose my life has been changing a lot these past few months. I was never normal, but the fact that this scandal has taken away the option of being normal—that hurts. I contemplate everything for a second.
Then I mutter, “I just don’t want to feel sorry for myself anymore.” I don’t deserve to wallow in self-pity. Like my mom has said numerous times, this is my bed, and I’m going to have to sleep in it, dirty sheets and all.
He walks forward, closer, and my heart thumps with each inch squashed between us. When his arms wrap around my neck, it takes all of my energy to stay flat on my feet and not jump him right here.
I stay grounded and channel my inner-statue, probably the least sexy posture I can muster.
“I’m proud of you,” he tells me. “As long as ‘not feeling sorry for yourself’ doesn’t connote holing up at home.”
“Maybe a little. Like half. Half-connotes,” I admit.
He tries really hard not to smile, so I suppose I win. Or half-win. Or would that be a draw?
His heady amber eyes fall to my lips, and my heart bashes against my ribcage, as if telling me now now now. But I don’t say a word.
His hand slowly rises up my neck, clutching the back of my head while his gaze devours me whole. Any chance to breathe has been thwarted by the desire fueled in his eyes, the one that I’m sure I share. My lips part, and he watches me closely, his chest rising and falling in sync with mine.
He teases me first, kissing my cheek so lightly.
I whimper, “Lo.”
And then his lips meet mine with carnal desperation, stealing the oxygen from my lungs. He lifts me up around his waist, his hand lost in my hair, his other keeping me firm against him. My palms disappear beneath his black crew-neck, dying at the ridges of his abs, at his closeness. I don’t unbutton him.
Not yet anyway.
But the spot between my legs pulses, and I tighten my thighs around his waist so hard that he groans in arousal. He stares at me while we both catch our breath for a second.
My lower back digs into the porcelain sink, and Lo never removes his narrowed, intense gaze from mine, the one that unravels me completely, that soaks my panties and leaves me bare.