Addicted After All (60 page)

Sex darts into my brain.

And his smile lights up his face, full-well knowing the dirty paths of my mind. “You’ve wondered when your superpowers will kick in.”

His words flush my thoughts, and I focus on his intense, passionate gaze. “Have they?” I ask softly.

“According to your timeline,” he says, “they’ve been present as far as your mind stretches back.” His lips rise. “Lily Calloway…all this time, your superpower has been loving me.” Tears cloud my eyes, and they don’t stop, especially as he adds, “And you’ll be happy to know that I’m not mortal.”

“You aren’t?” I choke.

“No.” He shakes his head, brushing away the wetness beneath my eyes. “Because my superpower is the love that I have for you. It’s out of this world, extraordinary, incomprehensible kind of love. And no one and nothing on this Earth comes close to it.”

My heart is so full that I can hardly breathe.

Our lips meet at the same moment, expressing the words we’ve spoken. Our bodies attracting like magnets that’ve met for an unquantifiable time.

In the very happiest moment of my life I learn three things:

I am strong.

I have powers.

And my soul meets Loren Hale’s in every kiss. When the curtains on my universe close, he will still be with me. That, I’m sure of.

{ Epilogue }

LOREN HALE

Ghosts, witches and zombie kids skip along the street at 5 p.m. on Halloween night. The sun hasn’t even dropped yet, and they’re already crazy for candy. I hop into my new car, another black Audi, with Connor in the passenger seat and Ryke in the back.

“Don’t speed,” Ryke says, buttoning his plaid flannel shirt, his plain Halloween costume. I still have no clue what he’s dressed as, other than himself. “There’s too many fucking kids out.”

Connor checks his Rolex watch. “At least go ten over.”

I glance at my mirror as I pull onto the street, ignoring comments from the peanut gallery.

Ryke says, “Your worst nightmare is being late to your own fucking party. Isn’t it, Cobalt?”

“Only if the people attending matter,” Connor replies. “If the party was full of carbon copies of you, I’d purposely be two hours late.”

Ryke leans back in his seat. “You’d be the only one at that fucking party because versions of me wouldn’t even go.”

“That’s rude,” Connor says. “But if we’re being realistic here, I wouldn’t even invite one of you to my party. I like my guests to be potty trained.”

They’re giving me a migraine. “You both remember when I asked, ‘hey, who wants to come with me to buy a couple bags of ice at the gas station?’
This
…” I take a hand off the wheel and gesture between the two of them. “…isn’t what I had in mind.” I could’ve been on my honeymoon this week, but Lily and I decided not to have one. We’ve spent years alone together, and the moments where we’re living with our friends, with the people we love, and our son—those are the ones that feel like something special. We don’t need to be in an exotic country or on the ocean to experience that.

We just need to be home.

“I wanted out of the fucking house,” Ryke reminds me. Party planning isn’t his thing. We’re entertaining some of the kinder neighbors and their kids in our backyard, as well as our families tonight. Lily had a whole shopping list from Rose, and she forgot the ice.

Rose said the guest list was about fifty. The decorations remind me of parties the Calloways would throw. Fog machines, pumpkins, scarecrows, spider webs, face painting,  and apple bobbing.

Connor says lightly, “Should we sing happy birthday instead?”

“That depends…” I switch lanes and turn into the gas station. “Does it also come with a lap dance?”

Connor grins. “I only give those to people I truly love.”

I park the car and turn towards him. “What lucky bastards.”

He unbuckles his seatbelt. “Only one bastard,” he corrects. “I’ll grab the ice. You two stay here.” He leaves me and my brother, shutting the car door behind him.

Ryke climbs up from the backseat to the passenger, a silver plastic bottle of Ziff: River Rush in hand. He drinks the last of the translucent green liquid in one gulp. It’s the number one selling sports drink to date, a flavor that Ryke helped choose after Greg asked.

My brother notices me staring at the bottle. “Blue Squall is being taken off the market in November,” he says. “It’s still fucking strange that I’m the face of anything.”

“You mean after you went to jail?” He was dropped from plenty of sponsorships after the statutory rape rumors, but it was all false.

He nods, setting the bottle in the cup holder.

“It’s been a year,” I remind him. “People forget.”

“Even if we don’t.” His dark eyes rise to mine. “Do you ever think about four years ago, the night we met?”

“The Halloween party?” I vaguely recall. The memory is blurry, some of it black from booze. I can piece apart scenes, but the ones that contain Ryke are practically all shadowed.

“Yeah, the one that Connor invited you to.”

“Sometimes.” My hand falls off the steering wheel. “I can’t remember a lot of it.” I know I fought with guys on the Penn track team because I stole their family’s alcohol. Someone punched me, and Ryke, dressed as Green Arrow, intervened at one point.

Ryke rests his head back. “I think about it almost every fucking day.”

My brows furrow. “What about?”

He looks at me again. “I think about what would’ve happened if I just left you there.”

“I’ll tell you, bro, so you can stop torturing yourself.” I don’t break his gaze. “I would’ve woken up the next morning, kick-started the day with some Baileys, then switched to whiskey and bourbon. Every hour, every damn day, and I would’ve taken down the only girl I’ve ever loved with me.”

His nose flares as he restrains his emotion.

“You saved me, and the way I see it, Rose saved Lily.” In rehab, the counselors told me that I was a real asshole—that I said unconscionable things to people, and that
no one
should be around me when they’re in a bad place. But I needed someone. Without support, it’d be too hard to stand up and too easy to fall down.

Ryke’s one decision changed my world.

“When I think back to that day, or what I can remember,” I tell Ryke, “I don’t usually think about what a fucking asshole I was. I’m just grateful for the kind of guy you were then and the one you are now.” I flash him a half-smile. “I love you, man.”

“Fuck you,” he says lightly, his lips lifting.

Connor knocks on the passenger window, two bags of ice in hand. I pop the trunk, and after he sets the bags in there, he returns to the passenger window.

“He wants his seat back,” I tell Ryke.

Ryke flips off Connor though and says, “Fuck off.”

Two seconds later, he opens the backdoor and slides in. “I thought you enjoyed the backseat,” Connor tells him. “You have two windows to stick your head out of instead of one.”

“You’re getting him confused with Daisy,” I chime in, remembering a road trip with just the three of us and her. Every time Connor and I manned the wheel, our anxiety hit the roof, and we almost forced Ryke to drive the whole way.

“And she’s fucking cooler than both of you,” Ryke retorts while I drive back home.

Connor’s brow arches. “I take your opinion on the matter with low regard.”

“I’m not a dog, Cobalt.”

“But you are fucking Daisy Calloway,” he replies easily. “Logically, you’d believe that she’s about a blow job or two cooler than us.”

I switch lanes again. “You better add more hand jobs to that,” I tell him. “Lily said that Daisy hates giving head.”

Ryke pinches his eyes with his fingers. “I fucking hate you both.”

I glance at my brother beside me. “It’ll pass, bro. And if it makes you feel any better, Rose apparently hates blow jobs too.”

“Because she can’t take all of me in her mouth and it aggravates her,” Connor clarifies.

Ryke glares. “For fuck’s sake, you couldn’t let me bask in that for at least two seconds, could you?”

“I speak the whole truth. Someone has to.” Connor plasters on one of his fake grins that actually says,
half of what I say is bullshit.
He digs into a plastic bag at his feet and opens a package of vampire teeth. He mentioned how he didn’t have time to go all-out on a costume because he’s been working since five this morning. He wears his usual suit and tie.

I’m in a gray woolen sweater. Beneath that is a white button-down and a green tie. A green and black scarf lies on my neck. I drive up to the guards at the neighborhood gate and verify who I am. Half a minute later, I pull into our driveway and park in the garage.

We split up to find the girls, and I carry both bags of ice inside. “Where’s my ‘puff?!” I shout as I kick the door open to the kitchen.

Lily looks up from a giant vat of punch, stirring the chunks of fruit with a spatula. I find myself slowing my pace, just to engrain this image of Lily: her cheeks rosy-red as she exerts extra effort, her gangly arms hidden beneath a black sweater and robe, her yellow tie peeking out by the collar.

“Me?” she asks, her nose crinkling in confusion. Christ, I want to kiss her. Wrap my arms around her.

I near Lil, setting the ice on the counter. Then I mockingly check over my shoulder. “Is there another Hufflepuff in the house, love?”

“Maximoff could be Hufflepuff one day,” she points out. “We don’t know yet.”

I don’t have to search far for him. He’s right beside Lily, in his bouncer on the floor. He sleeps in his black wizard robe. We thought about dressing him as Harry Potter with the scar, but he hated the plastic glasses.

“Or he could be Slytherin,” she notes, not leaving out my Hogwarts House. He could be almost anything, and I’d still be proud to call him my son.

There are small moments where I still fear for him. Struggles he may face, mistakes I know he’ll make, but I just remind myself something that I never even considered a year ago.

I remind myself that he has us. And back then, I would’ve pitied him for landing a shit like me. But I’m not a shit. I’m not worthless or pathetic. If my son ever trips, I have no doubt that I can carry him as far as he needs to go. I love my child unconditionally, the way that I love my wife, and I will praise him. I will cherish him. And I will adore him.

I’ll give him everything that we were starved of.

“If he’s Gryffindor,” Lily muses, “does that mean he’s cooler than us?”

“No way,” I tell her. “Ryke is in that house and we’re a million times cooler than him. He started off tweeting one-word tweets for a full
week.
” I couldn’t believe the amount of people that retweeted his tweet that said:
Wednesday.
That’s it. Wednesday.

“That was lame,” she ponders, wrapping her arms around the bowl. Why the hell is she hugging the punch? “But he climbs rocks with his bare hands.”

“Yeah? And I can make you come a dozen times in one night. Who is more impressive?”

Her cheeks redden and her lips part, all breathy. “You.” And then she concentrates on the punch, and I realize she’s trying to lift the giant bowl in her thin arms.

“Lily Hale.” I give her a look.

“It’s a temperamental bowl.”

“Use one of your spells to move it, little puffy,” I tease.

She crinkles her nose again. “I can’t.”

“Lost your wand?”

Her eyes flit to my lips. And a smile pulls my face. She’s turned on by wizard jokes. God, I fucking love her. I step near to help her, but she raises her hand.

“Stay back.”

“That’s not a spell.”

“You’re too attractive right now.” She crosses her ankles and then glances at the oven clock.

I already hear people arriving in the backyard, so it’s not like we can have a quickie in the closet. And it’s not like she’s ever yearning for a two second fuck anyway.

“Mess up your hair,” she orders.

I rake my fingers through my longer strands of hair on the top.

Her eyes comically pop out of her head. “Dontdothat,” she slurs, her breathing heavy in need.

“How about,” I say, prying the punch bowl from her, “we go outside with Moffy.”

She nods repeatedly like I just read the Declaration of Independence.

“You first,” I tell her. She picks up our three-and-a-half-month-old son, perching him on her side, and leads the way.

The sliding glass door is open, people walking in and out. The backyard is full of kids in Halloween outfits, parents, and festive decorations. Apples even float in the pool, the water orange from the colored light. The neighborhood party is an olive branch. A start to a safe and normal life here.

I place the punch bowl on the long table of assorted Halloween treats, and I take a cookie for Lily and a couple Fizz Lifes. She sits on a hay bale with Moffy, a perfect people-watching seat.

Before I reach Lil, her older sister cuts me off, glowering at me. “You couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate costume,” I tell Rose, popping the tab of my drink.

“Do you even know what I am?” she retorts, her hands haughtily placed on her hips. I scan her costume: a black tutu, black paint over her eyes, and her hair in a bun.

“A devil. Oh wait, that’s not your costume. That’s just you.” Clearly, she’s dressed as the Black Swan, pulling off a Natalie Portman look.

“If I was a devil, my trident would be halfway up your ass by now.” She pokes my chest with her finger. “I gave you my sketches
last week
and they’re still unopened.”

“Calloway Couture Babies will survive if I take a couple extra days to look through them,” I remind her. “And really, you don’t need my approval.”

“Yes I do,” she retorts. “We’re business partners.”

I laugh. “That’s the scariest thing I’ve heard all day.”

Her lips twitch in a smile. “Just look at them.”

I nod. “I will.”

She flips her hair with her hand and her yellow-green eyes land on her husband, who’s chatting with the neighbors. He wears a fake smile, even with the vampire teeth. And he cradles his daughter in his arms, who’s dressed in a white tutu and headband.