Lo still has his arms wrapped around me as I sit on his lap. The sun fades into different shades of oranges and yellows. The opulence must spark my memory. “I forgot to ask how your run went,” I say.
“Oh…that.” His tone is dry and edged, not at all what I was expecting.
I swivel a little so I can see his face. He’s glaring at the sky. The pretty sky. This can’t be good. “What happened?”
He grimaces. “I feel like if I say it out loud it will come true. Can you try to inherit some telepathy in the next five minutes?”
“I can try to guess.”
“That doesn’t sound like a fun game either.”
I narrow my eyes at him and try to put the pieces together. He was on a run, a perfectly normal run, with Ryke, Melissa, and…oh shit.
“Daisy. What did she do?” My little sister has a habit of seeking danger. I know I land on the right answer because tiny stress-wrinkles crease his forehead. It takes him a quick minute to tell me about the bartering on the beach, but when he finishes, he doesn’t look relieved.
“There’s something else, isn’t there?”
“Yeah, and it’s the part that makes me want to jump off this balcony.” He stops before spoiling the news, which only makes me curious and nervous.
“Are you going to tell me?”
He lets out a long sigh and rubs his eyes in slight distress. “I don’t even know what to call it, Lil. There’s so many words for it, but none of them really describe the situation. Inappropriate and fucked up are my favorite ones though.”
I frown. “Are we still talking about Daisy?”
“And Ryke.”
His eyes flicker to mine, taking in my reaction as he lets this sink in.
“Wait, what?” It can’t be what I think. That was all in my mind, wasn’t it?
“Daisy had cash in her bikini top,” Lo says. “Ryke made some offhanded comment about it and it led to…other comments.” His jaw tightens at the memory and then his eyes land back on me. “Why the fuck are you smiling? I just told you that my half-brother was flirting with your little sister.”
I press my lips together, to try and hide it, but I soon surrender to the fact that I’m happy. “Do you know how long I’ve thought it was all in my head?”
This doesn’t amuse him. In fact, he straightens up like he’s ready to go assault his brother. “Howlong?”
I put my hand on his chest to calm him. “January…but I didn’t want to worry you if it wasn’t true.”
He lets out an angry breath.
“Do you know how many times Ryke has called me a pervert?” I continue. “I thought this was just another illusion from my dirty mind, like I was interpreting something out of nothing and making it all up.”
“You’re not. Now move past that achievement and bring yourself down to my level.” He turns his body a little more, so that we’re looking straight on at each other. “My twenty-two-year-old brother is flirting, apparently not deliberately—I’m not even sure how that fucking happens—with your sixteen-year-old sister.” He waits for it to sink in.
“Shit.”
“Yeah, shit. So what are we going to do? I’m worried that your sister is going to like him in a bad way. I mean, most girls are like babbling fools around Ryke. The fact that she’s not…I can’t even.” He runs a hand through his hair. “All I’m saying is that Ryke is smart enoughnotto make a move on her, but Daisy probably doesn’t know any better.”
“I’ve already talked to her.” On numerous occasions, but she keeps saying the same thing to me. “She knows that she can’t do anything with him. And…” I snap my fingers at the realization. “Ryke brought Melissa here, so he is clearly putting off the right signals.” Showing up on vacation with a girl screams “taken” and should let Daisy know not to act on her feelings, if she does have any that extend beyond a friendship.
I kind of hope we’re blowing this all out of proportion and no chemistry really exists there. Because they have to know that nothing can ever happen.
Our mother would be more than just furious if she learned that Daisy even had a crush on Ryke Meadows. For one, his age. And two, he’s the spawn of Sara Hale. After the separation between Jonathan and Sara, my parents chose a side—Team Jonathan all the way. And with our mother’s incredibly high standards, I can see her wanting something more for Daisy. Something better.
Someone as affluent as Connor Cobalt or Loren Hale. Someone that has more to offer than a trust fund inherited out of a quiet divorce and hurt feelings.
Lo tilts my chin so that I meet his eyes and come back to the present, pulled straight from my thoughts. “Then Ryke needs to stop ditching Melissa for Daisy,” Lo tells me. “I’ll have another conversation with him…when I’m not picturing tearing his head off his shoulders.” His jaw locks at another thought. “He’s older. He has to be the one to take responsibility.”
