Some Kind of Perfect (Calloway Sisters #4.5) (29 page)

LOREN HALE

“This is all your goddamn fault,” I tell my brother as I zip my snow jacket higher. We hike through the dense woods in search of a fir or spruce tree to replace the last one. Temperatures dropped overnight, and my breath smokes the six a.m. air.

Ryke hikes ahead of me. “You think I fucking knew the tree had bugs in it?” That’s right. My brother had one job. One goddamn job and he blew it. He picked a Christmas tree that had a
nest
of spiders in it. We set up the tree, decorated the thing, and two days later, spiders started crawling on presents.

We’re lucky none traveled to the kid’s bedrooms.

On top of that horror show, I still hear Rose’s laugh in my right ear. Last year, the girls found, chopped, and wheeled an eight-foot spruce tree home, all on their own. This year was our turn, and I get it. This was a shit display, but I’ve been over tree hunting before it even started.

Connor scrolls through his phone and successfully avoids colliding into trunks while simultaneously landscaping the area for a fir. The guy can multitask better than some people can take a shit.

Sam and Garrison bring up the rear.

I yawn into my arm, falling behind even them. “Goddammit, why’d we wake up this early?” The sky is a dim blue color, the sun rising but still hidden.

Sam stuffs his fists in his dark red snow jacket. “Shouldn’t you be used to the morning by now?”

Right. Samuel Stokes is the one who told me I’d be a “morning person” after I had
one
kid. Well, now I have two, and my feelings are the same. I wake up early to run with my brother; I yawn for five straight minutes while stretching. I wake up early to feed my kids; I yawn for ten straight minutes while wandering up and down the hallway.

“No, Sammy,” I say. “I prefer a warm bed, next to my wife, and not out here with you, freezing my balls off.” I wear a half-smile that feels as brittle as the air.

Ryke finally shortens his stride so this trek isn’t as miserable. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still fucking miserable.
I want to be with Lily
,
I keep thinking. If I say it out loud, my older brother will tell me to stop complaining.

“Does your leg hurt in the rain?” Sam asks Ryke. “Because of the titanium.”

My brother has an eight-inch plate in his femur, eleven screws, and a rod and pins in his tibia. He acts like he was never hurt, but I helped him rehabilitate his leg, so I know his body isn’t what it used to be. I lost my brother for a while, but stubborn Ryke Meadows is back now. I hold onto that every goddamn day.

The Ryke who gives up is not someone I ever want to meet again.

The elevation increases as Ryke hikes up the snowy trail. He shakes his head towards Sam. “No. In the cold, my leg is fucking stiff and might cramp, but it doesn’t ache any more or less than usual.”

Connor’s grip tightens on his phone, his annoyance so apparent on his face that I don’t even question its existence.

“Did the artist fuck-up their oil painting of you? I told them not to forget your crown.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “Let me at ‘em.”

“That’s what our dog is for, darling.” Connor smiles.

Ryke hears and throws his middle finger backwards at us.

We both laugh.

I never really pry or ask for more details about Connor’s phone, but he waves his cell towards me, trusting me enough to explain.

“Social media is a wasp’s nest. I have no problem stepping on it once and a while. I
willingly
take those steps, but when people throw the nest in my face out of idiocy and fallacy, it’s the equivalent of twisting a screwdriver in my eardrum.” He scrolls on his phone. “I’m in the process of yanking out the screwdriver.”

I rub my gloved hands together for warmth. “What kind of social media?”

He reads, “At
Connor Cobalt
.” It’s a tweet. “
We know you planted the evidence against Scott Van Wright.
” Evidence…he means the tapes of Daisy giving a blow job to her old boyfriend. She was underage, so it was considered child pornography, and it’s what essentially got Scott Van Wright’s ass thrown in jail three years ago. He was the one who filmed it during
Princesses of Philly
and then kept the footage to watch later—without any of us knowing, including Daisy.

Ryke screeches to a halt. “What the
fuck
?” He swings back towards Connor, and we all come to a stop in an open clearing, evergreens jutting to the sky all around us.

“I’m not finished,” Connor says like he cut him off mid-fuck. “
You deserve to go to jail, not SVW.
Hashtag
criminal
. Hashtag
jealous
.” He slips his phone in his pocket. “All morning, I’ve been sent hundreds of notifications like that one. Each time my assistant blocks them, the person creates a new account.”

Connor would never waste time blocking people himself. Unsurprisingly, he has employees for that.

“That’s fucking bullshit,” Ryke curses. “Scott deserves
life
in prison for what he did to Daisy, for what he did to Rose.”
Child pornography. Sex tapes.

My jaw locks, and my blood heats. I don’t know how Lily and I escaped that sick fuck.
Luck
—we were lucky. Daisy got swept under. Ryke—he’s still torn up about it.

“People see what they want to see,” Connor says, “and some people liked
Scott
with Rose during the reality show. Their taste was questionable from the start.”

It’s almost unfathomable the things Connor must’ve heard…maybe even seen, just to find justice in relation to Scott. We’re all thankful of Connor. For being in our lives. For what he did. But none of us truly realize what he mentally went through back then. No one does except him.

Garrison leans against a tree and smokes a cigarette. “I’ve seen the VanWrighties whole conspiracy theory shit on Tumblr. It’s in
depth
.”

“VanWrighties?” Sam frowns.

“Sammy,” I say. “Where have you been?” This was a
Princesses of Philly
era. Forever ago.

“Staying away from you,” he rebuts.

I clap. “Looks like we have something in common. Miracles do happen.”

Sam actually smiles.

Garrison blows out smoke. “VanWrighties are the fanatics obsessed with Scott Van Wright. They chose the name.”

Ryke gestures for Connor’s phone.

Before he hands the cell over, he says, “If you piss on it, it’s still mine.”

He growls in annoyance. “Fuck you.” And he rips the phone out of Connor’s hand.

Ryke scowls at the cell. “What the fuck…? Are these people for real?”

“There are real living humans on the other end, yes.”

Ryke reads, “Hashtag
Free SVW
.
I hope Conner, Loren and Ryke poo-poo in their pants tonight
.”

I burst out laughing with all the guys, even Ryke. He tosses the cell back to Connor. It’s easier to let these events roll off. They’re too frequent to waste energy on.

“They also spelled your fucking name wrong,” he mentions to Connor, trying to annoy him.

I swing my head to Connor. “They put an
e
instead of an
o
at the end of your name again? I’ll fuck-em up.”

“My name is everywhere. It says more about their spelling skills than anything about me.”

“Conceited and perfect.” I touch my heart. “When can I have one of you?”

Connor grins. “You already have me.”

Sam rubs his reddened ears and then lifts up his jacket hood. “What exactly happened?” he asks us. “I know the news said Scott had tapes of Daisy with her ex-boyfriend, all when she was underage—but they never said how you knew they existed.”

I interject first, “Because the news doesn’t know he found the info first,
Sammy
. That doesn’t leave here.” I draw a circle in the air around all of us. The girls also know, but the media only learned that Daisy called the police and reported the crime. Not that Connor had any help in convicting Scott Van Wright of child pornography.

He never asked for recognition. Never wanted
thanks
or anything. Connor did what he did, and he left it at that.

“It doesn’t matter how I knew about the tapes,” Connor tells Sam.

“It does to VanWrighties.” Garrison sucks on his cigarette.

Ryke glowers. “Can we stop fucking calling them that?”

“I didn’t make up the name, dude. I don’t even believe their theories. They’ve been deluded into thinking they know all of you, and they feel entitled to pry since you let them in.”

“Fuck
Princesses of Philly
,” Ryke swears.

“Their theories are speculative,” Connor says. “It’s no more accurate than the tabloids that claim Ben Affleck is half-alien and the real Brad Pitt is frozen in an iceberg.”

Garrison nearly chokes on his cigarette. “You read
The Outer Star Magazine
?” That tabloid is garbage.

“His wife pointed it out in the grocery checkout.” Connor, of course, has his eyes on me.

“My wife is adorable. I know you’re jealous, but she’s just cuter.”

“Impossible.” Connor grins.

Garrison stomps on his cigarette butt. “You know, if you let me look at the Twitter accounts, I can find their IP address and send them a virus. It might just be a few people.”

Connor arches a brow. “No. You’re employed by Cobalt Inc. which means that you can’t commit a crime while working beneath me.”

Garrison kicks up snow and dirt. “What happens if I do?”

“I’d fire you.” Connor tightens his gloves and scans the woods for a tree. I’m here for moral support at this point. I yawn into my arm again.

Connor heads towards a nearby fir. “We should pick a tree around here. If we hike any further, it’ll just take us longer to carry back.”

Garrison blows smoke up at the sky again. We invited him to Christmas way before Willow even said she could come this year. He still lives at my house, and he asked me to tell everyone about his brothers. So now they know why he hasn’t spoken to them or his parents since he moved into my place.

He started smoking again, too, but he only smokes outside, so we’re trying not to gang up on him about it.

“Who has the tape measure?” Connor asks beside the green fir. Queen Rose wants an eight-footer.

Ryke digs in his jacket pocket for one.

“You don’t need that,” Garrison says. “Just let him stand in front of the trees.” He nods to Connor.

Connor looks almost bored. “I’m six-four. That’d be inaccurate.”

Garrison shrugs. “Close enough.”

“No it’s not,” Connor says, “and I’m investing in you, which means you should be beyond elementary math.”

Garrison rolls his eyes.

Ryke points his axe towards the fir tree. “It looks around seven feet.”

Rose will be happy that the girls found a taller tree last year, and Connor must be okay with that ending because he nods to Ryke. My brother starts swinging, chipping at the base of the fir.

I yawn again.
Jesus Christ.
I blame having a new baby. Lily
just
had Luna in November. I want to be with them, but I have to suck it up. All the sisters like spending time together without us, and I can’t always be around Lil.

Connor sidles next to me. “How’s the six-week
no sex
going?”

My expectations: me being hornier than Lily.

My reality: me being hornier than Lily.

With a little kid and a baby, she’s too tired to even think about sex. She won’t have sex to combat stress either, so it’s made her resilience sky-high. When I’m not with her or the kids—when I’m at work—I think about sex. I miss fucking my wife, but if a sex addict can grow the courage to shut-it-down for six weeks, I can too.

“Great,” I tell Connor with a dry smile. Then I add more seriously, “It’s not as terrible as last time.”

“Because we all had to suffer,” Sam chimes in.

“What does that mean?” Garrison’s face contorts. “You don’t…I mean…” He tugs down his black beanie. “I thought Lily was monogamous.”

“What?” Sam’s eyes pop out. Garrison is implying that they all had to abstain from sleeping with Lily too.

Connor laughs into a billion-dollar grin. “Clarity is key, my friends.”

Sam’s distress is the best part of this. I nod to Garrison. “Lily is monogamous, but when Maximoff was born, the sisters made a pact that they wouldn’t have sex when she couldn’t.”

“Fucking…insane.” Ryke grunts as he swings the axe hard, the tree crashing down.

“Just be glad it didn’t happen this time, bro.”

Garrison stomps on his second cigarette. “You all are weird as hell.”