Hothouse Flower

“When are the girls landing in Paris?” I ask him, taking a sip. Lo was on the phone with Lily for a while, but he didn’t tell me their conversation. I know Co

“They’re not,” Co

I frown, thinking I’ve heard him wrong. “What?”

“They are not coming to Paris,” he emphasizes each word.

“Their sister is in the hospital,” I say. “I don’t fucking understand. If this was Lily, Rose would be here in a fucking heartbeat.” I squeeze the coffee too hard, and the lid pops off, spilling on my jeans and burning me. “Fuck,” I curse, standing up and drinking the coffee quickly before tossing it in the trash.

Co

I look him over. His muscles are relaxed despite the sadness in his eyes. This is a lot of emotion for Co

“My wife is upset, and she’s too prideful and stubborn to tell me why. Rose is the type of woman who would die with a secret if it scared her to reveal it, if it contributed to any type of weakness. So my mind is fucking reeling.”

“Then go,” I tell him. “No one is keeping you here.”

“Lo just drank alcohol,” Co

“I’m not a fucking mess.”

He points at the hallway. “I watched two guys who probably weigh two-fifty drag you to the ground. You spit in one of their faces.”

I glare. “He tried to kick me.” It was a low fucking move. “It doesn’t matter. Stay if that’s what you want to do. Leave. If I need to, I’ll call Lily later to ask why she’s not here—”

“Lo already tried,” he says. “Lily and Rose said they’ll take a flight out tomorrow.”

I extend my arms. “Then why are we fucking arguing? They’re going to be here.”

Co

He’s right. If Daisy liked to burden people with her pain, she would have told her sisters about her insomnia, about her horrible fucking prep school friends. About what happened during the ten months that she was living with her parents—when I was at my apartment. She doesn’t think her problems measure up to Lily’s addiction, but they do. They’re just as important.

I stare at the ground, my eyes burning again. I just have this mental picture of Daisy waking up in a strange place, in a foreign country, with no familiar face in the room. It’s fucking horrifying, and I want to save her from that. “Has anyone called her mom yet?”

“No,” he whispers. “Samantha doesn’t know anything, and Rose wants to let Daisy decide whether they tell their mother now or later. Especially since Daisy is going to miss the rest of Fashion Week, and we all know Samantha won’t take that well.”

“Her mom loves her though,” I say. “She’d be concerned. We should at least fucking call her.”

“Ryke,” he breathes. “She’d kick you out of the hospital. I looked online, and someone already uploaded your fight with Ian from the pub. Somehow Samantha is going to blame you for Daisy’s injuries, then cause a scene and upset Daisy even more. It’s delicate. So we need to ask her first.”

I nod. I just hope Daisy is coherent enough that she can respond to anything. What if she can’t talk? What if she’s fucking blind? We know nothing.

Co

This is a new side of Co

“I can read people really well. I’m almost a hundred-percent positive you’ve kissed her, based on seeing her in Paris. Her lips were red. She was a little flushed. You were too.”

I open my mouth, but he cuts me off.

“Lo didn’t pick up on it. He wouldn’t. I don’t think many people can see what I can.”

“Why do you have to fucking compliment yourself when you prove a point?”

“I’m stating truths.”

I cross my arms. “Well, here’s one for you, Cobalt. It doesn’t matter if I grab her around the waist, if I kiss her chastely or if I kiss her roughly. No matter what I fucking do, her father isn’t going to like me. Her mom is going to hate me. Fuck you for thinking I need their approval to have a real relationship. What I feel is fucking real, and I don’t need her mom to verify that for me.”

Co

I want to fucking hit something right now, so him standing here, being a smug prick is not helping the situation. The sedative that has kept me at ease is quickly wearing off.

“How is it real?” he asks. “If you have to hide it from your friends and family, that makes your relationship pretend, Ryke.”

“Fuck you,” I say again.

“No, fuck you,” he retorts, pretty uncharacteristically. So much so that my muscles tense. “I stuck up for you. When Lo was against you and Daisy, I was the one who tried to convince him that you’re both mature adults. I supported any idea of a relationship you two might have in the future, I still do, but after this trip, I’m reconsidering how much faith I had in you.”

I can tell this is more than just my hand on her ass in a fucking picture. It’s the “talk” he wanted to have in her hotel room after she woke up screaming. Why does he have to pick this moment to tear through me?

I miscalculated how pissed Co

“I fucking did!” I shout. Some people sleeping in the waiting room begin to stir.

“Then why does no one know?”

“She didn’t want to tell a fucking soul,” I say. “Rose and Lily had their own shit to deal with. She didn’t want to worry her mother or you or anyone with these problems. She wanted to fucking deal with it in private.”

Co

I shake my head at him. “It wasn’t one singular event. It’s been an accumulation of things.”

“How long?”

I can’t hide it from him. “Over a year.”

His eyes begin to glass, but he nods repeatedly. “It was all the media, wasn’t it? The paparazzi that broke into her room, the guy that destroyed her bike and assaulted her—it all got to her more than she let on.”

“That was the start of it.”

“Rose is going to be so upset that she didn’t pay enough attention to her.” Co

I roll my eyes. “This stays between us. Daisy has to be the one to tell her sisters.”

He nods in agreement. “Has she been to a doctor?”

“Before she left for Paris, she was seeing a therapist regularly, and she’s been through her fair share of sleep studies.” I list out all the information I know he’ll ask. No one has given her much of a solution to resolve her insomnia besides medication and therapy. She just has to cross her fucking fingers that one day she’ll grow out of this.