I stand up and gather all of my videos, and I stuff them in the little trash bin under my desk. They don’t all fit, so I pick up the aluminum bin and open my door, about to find a larger trashcan that’ll hold all my dirty secrets.
This seems right.
But ditching porn won’t lessen any tension spun inside me.
Not yet at least.
As I head down the stairs to the kitchen, I hear distant voices. It’s near midnight, but I’m not surprised by the conversation. Connor Cobalt and Rose schedule time together like one would a business meeting. She let me know that he may be over late in January since nights are the only time they can see each other this month.
“Why are you reading that?” Rose asks him. I inch forward and creep towards the living room. I edge close and peek behind the curved archway. Their backs face me as they share the cream couch, draped with a purple throw blanket. From here, I smell the fresh cut flowers that fill the vase on the glass coffee table. Connor brings a new bouquet every time they wilt. This time, he picked out yellow and pink daises that remind me of my youngest sister.
Rose’s arm presses against Connor as they sit close, each with their own laptops. Both are wearing insensible clothes to be hanging around the house. Connor sports a charcoal gray suit—worth thousands no doubt—while she wears a Calloway Couture piece: a black mini dress with a see-through maxi skirt on top. Classy, as always.
Connor doesn’t look up from his screen. “Because it’s useful.”
“Freud is not useful. He’s infuriating and sexist andwronghalf the time.” She tries to shut his laptop, and he clasps her hand, bringing her knuckles up to his lips.
He gives her a light kiss before saying, “Just because you don’t like his theories doesn’t make him wrong. There’s good stuff in here.”
“Like what? ‘Penis envy?’” she snaps.
I frown. What the hell ispenis envy?And more than that, are they really talking about my sexual needsagain?I caught Rose with a stack of books the other day, all about sex addiction, and they were not only highlighted and bookmarked, but there werepost-itnotes stuck inside. And these notes, let me tell you, did not have Rose’s handwriting. Since Connor Cobalt wasmytutor first, I can spot his cursive, calligraphy-like penmanship.
I can deal with my sister in my business, but her boyfriend who thinks he’s always right…well, that was a little hard to swallow.
I’m adjusting to it. Even if it’s incredibly weird. For years, Lo was the only one who knew my secrets, and now I have three more people keeping the news quiet. It’s a lot to handle.
And definitely too much to process.
“Yeah,” Connor says, “penis envy and psychosexual development.”
“You’re so off base. My sister doesn’t have penis envy—that implies that she could possibly have the Electra complex.”
I cringe, knowing whatthatis. I have no craving to hook up with my father. No thank you.
“I never said she had it,” he says easily, not defensive like most men with Rose, a girl who attacks full force, eyes icy and hard, ready to combat with claws and power. I love her for it. And whenever they bicker, I’m inwardly waving Rose Calloway flags, cheering for my closest sister to come out on top. “But your sister is a sex addict. Whose theories are you going to start with? Aristotle? The Hamburgler? Or how about Erik Erikson? Lily has a thing about names.”
Rose gives him a sharp look. “The Hamburgler, really?”
“Freud pioneered psychoanalysis. You discredit him and that’s when the McDonald’s references start flying.”
She slaps his laptop closed, and he rests an arm on the back of the couch, turning towards her a little. I have to edge back behind the wall, concealing more of my body from view.
Connor has rosy pink lips, thick wavy brown hair, and a smile worth the millions in his trust fund. “Yes?” he says, eyeing her lips that pinch tightly.
Rose wears her brown hair in a slicked back ponytail. Her yellowish-green, cat-colored eyes pierce him. “The psychosexual theory has a way of picturing women as broken, inefficient toys that need to be fixed.”
“I know,” Connor says. “A lot of it is misogynistic, but it’s interesting, don’t you think?”
“No. I find it infuriating.”
His lips quirk in a smile. “Just like me?”
She rolls her eyes, but she sort of lingers there as she refuses to lose contact completely. I can tell she wants to kiss him, maybe just as much as he wants to kiss her. But then she turns her head, breaking the moment. Just like Rose to push a guy away. Sometimes I think she fears a lack of power that comes in a relationship, as though she may lose some sort of advantage if she lets Connor in.
He doesn’t look defeated. In fact, his eyes pulse with the exact opposite. Determined. Challenged.
A hair falls from its hold in her pony, and Rose tucks it behind her ear. “I think I’m onto something here. This psychologist suggests that sexual addiction can be closely related to obsessive compulsive disorder. If I look into OCD, then maybe I’ll have a better understanding of what Lily is going through.”
