Addicted for Now

I’m strangely calmer—mostly because I can picture Lily turning a shade of red, crawling into herself over all discussions about sex. Even with her sister.

“Are we good?” he asks hesitantly.

Saying yeah feels like a complete defeat, so I just nod.

When we return to the table, everyone is gone. The plates are scraped clean and the chairs are empty. We exit the restaurant and spot Rose and Lily by a taxi van that hugs the curb. They hold Styrofoam to-go boxes and wait for us. Co

Daisy climbs out of the cab, her eyes set on us. She jogs to reach our sides. “So Co

“Why’d everyone leave?” Ryke asks.

Daisy gives him a stern look. “We weren’t going to let Melissa go home by herself. We’re in Mexico.”

I can’t help what I say. I’m so pissed at everything and everyone. “That’s fu

Ryke shoots me a glare to drop it.

“That was different,” she says to me. “I wasn’t storming off angry. And I already apologized…I didn’t mean to upset anyone.”

“It’s fine,” Ryke tells her. “Where’s Melissa?”

“In the back of the cab, waiting for you,” Daisy says, “I calmed her down a little. She’s no longer looking at flights to go home, and I think if you make out with her, she’ll forgive you.”

Ryke rolls his eyes. “Are you serious?”

“She wants to know you care.”

“I do care!” he shouts, frustrated.

“You don’t act like it,” Daisy says. “Girls want to be the sole focus of your attention. They want to be all you think about, all you look at and see. You’re more fixated on chicken tacos than Melissa.” She pauses. “But if you’re sick of her, you know, you don’t have to do anything. She’ll just leave…”

Ryke stares at Daisy for a long moment, his features hardening.

I think he does want Melissa gone, but that will give Daisy the wrong impression—that he’s saying goodbye to Melissa for the youngest Calloway girl. And I don’t think that’s it at all. I think Melissa is a

He meets my hot gaze. He only has one choice, and the fact that he’s considering leading Daisy on makes me want to go back into the bathroom and strangle him.

“Fucking fantastic,” he says under his breath and walks past both of us towards the cab.

Daisy shakes her head repeatedly, but she stares at Ryke’s back, her eyes pi

When we reach the cab, I kiss Lily on the cheek and take the box from her.

“I saved your fish tacos,” she says.

I’m glad since I had nothing to eat. I was too concentrated on u

She bites her bottom lip, which shallows my breath and beats my heart. All my anger suddenly depletes as I imagine what I can do to her. How I could take her so hard and so fast that she’ll cry in such searing pleasure.

I am used to having sex with her every single day. And I know she fears that I’ll resent her for withholding sex, but the new frequency only makes the next time we fuck even headier.

I draw her to my chest and lean my head low, my lips brushing her ear. I want to whisper how she makes me feel and how I plan to take her so many different ways. But I can’t promise her things that won’t happen. I can’t even bring her to the beach to screw because that would be considered public sex.

So I just land on the truth, “I love you,” I whisper.

She stands on the tips of her toes and kisses me sweetly on the lips. I run my hand through her hair and then bite her shoulder playfully before setting an equally chaste kiss on her neck. She shivers in my arms, and I don’t tempt her anymore. I fear that one kiss may drive her to want more. It hasn’t since her public humiliation, but I know it can be all too easy to go back there.

We climb into the cab, Lily and I on the middle seat, and Daisy squeezing beside her sister. Rose and Co

Ryke has Melissa pi

She grips his back, lost to his hands and his tongue. Lily is going to be jealous. Fuck, I’m jealous. While Melissa has her eyes shut, Ryke’s are open, and he meets my gaze while he bites her bottom lip. And he glares at me, basically saying, I hate that I have to do this. But it’s the right thing to do. And frankly, I don’t care that he’s pissed about it. Leading Melissa on—that’s fine (all she wants is sex anyway). Leading Daisy on—that’s not okay.

I turn my back to him just as Daisy leans over to slide the door closed. If she notices Ryke and Melissa’s make-out session, she doesn’t say a word about it.

The cab bumps along the uneven street, the strip lit up in the darkness, club signs blinking and twinkling. Constantly calling me.

I open the to-go box and pull out a fish taco, taking a bite while Lily rests her head on my shoulder.

Co

She sits up immediately. And I curse him for causing her to drift from me. Even though Lily is technically the cheater here, studying old exams. “I’m doing well,” she says vaguely.

“That’s not really what I asked.”

Her cheeks redden. “Yeah, I got the test back.”

“That bad, huh?” He turns to Rose. “I told you that Sebastian isn’t that smart. He bought his way into Princeton. You should have let Joseph Kim teach her.”

“Sebastian is smart,” Rose refutes. “You don’t know him like I do.”

Co

“I actually did well,” Lily says.

Co

I cut in, hating to beat around this bush, but Lily is too nervous to come out and say it. “She made a 95 on her Statistics exam.” Before Co

Rose beams and tilts her head at Co

“Wait…” Co

“No,” Lily says.

Rose grabs Co

He covers her mouth with his other palm, not done grilling Lily. “Did you take Adderall?”

Rose smacks her purse at Co

And I swear, he tries not to smile. I think he’d like nothing more than to tackle her on the seat and make out with her as much as Ryke is doing to Melissa. “Rose, darling,” he whispers. “Let’s not jump to conclusions because of personal bias. I don’t know Sebastian like you do.”

“Exactly,” she says as though she won.

He ignores that and nods back to Lily. I think he may be a tad bit smarter than Rose. If I told her that, she’d probably rip out my lungs.

“Lily, did you take Adderall?” Co