Krista Ritchie - Hothouse Flower

I wish it didn’t affect me, but I can feel the back of my neck grow hot. I try to keep my composure, not wanting to be another silly girl that crumbles in his wake. He just barely licks his bottom lip as his gaze rakes me over.

And then his eyes return to mine again, and they’re hard once more. “That’s the look you were giving me, sweetheart.”

Oh. He called me sweetheart. I linger on that for a second, not hearing anything else really.

“Daisy?” He glares.

I smile. “You called me sweetheart.”

He rolls his eyes and repeats, “That’s the look you were giving me.”

“Oops,” I say with a noncommittal shrug. I was just staring. I wasn’t planning on jumping his bones. I wasn’t even fantasizing about his cock inside of me. Chaste. My thoughts were so chaste. Maybe not now, but they were.

“Fucking understatement.”

I stand up on the bed again so I have the height advantage. “I can freak out if you want me to.” I touch my chest theatrically. “Oh Ryke, I fucked up big time. Kill me now. ” I hold out my hand towards him and bounce on the mattress again. “Apothecary, the poison.”

His lips twitch into an almost-smile. And almost-smiles from Ryke are practically grins. I’ll take ‘em. “Cute,” he says. “Just remember—”

“We’re friends,” I finish. “Platonic, non-fucking friends. I remember. And I agree, in case you forgot.”

“I didn’t forget.” He tilts his head towards my bathroom door. “I’m going to take a fucking shower and then head out. I’ll see you tonight at your sisters’ place. They’re still throwing that going away party for you?”

“Yep.” In four days, I’ll be modeling at Paris Fashion Week. One week will be for work. Three weeks in France will be for me. I nearly beam at the thought. I’ve never been allowed to tour France, and as a model, I go to all of these beautiful countries and cities, but I rarely ever see them. It’s the first time my mom isn’t chaperoning me. I know Rose convinced her to give me some space. For that, I hugged my older sister until she had to pry me off.

I plop down on the bed and hang my legs off the edge, closer to Ryke than before.

He glances at my computer on my pillow. “Have you talked to Rose about Cleo?”

I frown. “How do you know Cleo was the one on Facebook?”

“I could see the fucking screen.”

I shake my head. “I’m afraid if I tell Rose, she’ll confront Cleo and make this a bigger deal than it has to be.”

“It is a big fucking deal. This goes beyond a Facebook comment, and you know it.”

My throat closes up for a second.

Ryke glares, the silence sinking to my stomach. He waits for me to unleash more off my chest, and when he sees that I can’t produce words, he ends the conversation for me. “Just stay off social media.”

Before he takes a step towards the bathroom, my doorknob jiggles, trying to turn. “Daisy,” a prickly, feminine voice calls through the wood.

It’s unmistakable.

It’s routine.

And it’s my mother.

The only question left: Where should I hide Ryke Meadows today?

DAISY CALLOWAY

My mom knocks loudly. “Why do you always have to lock your door?” Because I know you have a key to my apartment and like to stop by unannounced.

Ryke stiffens and glares at the ceiling before he points to the bathroom. I’ll be in here, he mouths.

What? I mouth back and gape in mock confusion.

He flips me off and then messes my hair with his hand. It’s an innocent, playful gesture. But with my mother on one side of the door saying, “You should be awake by now. Maybe this apartment wasn’t such a good idea.” He catches himself and our bodies sort of…tense in unison.

My arm accidentally makes contact with his abs like his did earlier with my boobs. But he’s not wearing a shirt like me. So his warm skin heats my cheeks, and I feel his muscles constrict. I look up and he stares down. One of us has to step back first, but we both stay rooted.

He ends up putting on the shirt that’s in his hand, but he stands so close to me while he dresses. I watch his muscles stretch as he fits his head through the collar and arms through the holes. When the cotton falls to his waist, hiding his abs, he meets my gaze once more, as though testing to see whether that helped eliminate any unburied tension.

Nope.

In fact, I only think it heightened the pull that says to connect with his body and elevated the strain that says don’t draw away .

He fixes my hair that he just messed, combing the strands with his fingers so it doesn’t look like I had sex or something.

“Daisy, are you in there?!” my mom shouts, worry lacing her voice.

Go , I mouth to Ryke.

He tucks a piece of hair behind my ear and then takes a moment to unlock the bathroom door. He slips inside and gently closes it behind him.

“Sorry!” I call to my mom. I rush to unlock my bedroom door. “I told you, I just like my privacy.”

I hear her snort. “From who? You live alone.” She pauses. “Are you sure you don’t want to come back to the family house in Villanova? You’ll have more company.” She’s lonely without me. That’s what I’ve deduced from her impromptu visits at any hour during the morning, day and night. I’m her youngest child of four daughters, the last to fly the coop.

So far, Ryke and I have been pretty lucky with her barging in like this. I’ve always been too afraid to leave the door unlocked, so she’s never entered the bedroom before Ryke could escape. And I don’t have the heart to tell her to stop coming around. It’d be like saying, hey, Mom, I’m eighteen—so I don’t care about you or your opinions anymore. Thanks. That’s shit, right? I already moved out pretty quickly as it is. And I love her enough that I want her to be a part of my life. I just don’t want her to be so…consuming.

When I finally open the door, she beelines inside, wearing a navy blue dress and a strand of pearls around her neck. She’s a thin woman with a bun perfectly rounded on the back of her head. She has the same brunette hair as my sisters—and me, if my modeling agency allowed me to dye my hair back to my natural color, that is.

Her eyes ping around my messy room. Tank tops, jean shorts and shirts splay over my chair, my desk, some even on the end of my bed. I have a habit of tossing things and forgetting about them. Even when Ryke is around, I don’t clean up much. His apartment looks worse than mine, which would just give my mom another reason to hate him.

He’s too messy for you, Daisy, she’d tell me. Add that to: He has no job. He’s living off his trust fund. All he does is climb mountains and ride his motorcycle. He looks mad all the time. He’s related to that witch Sara Hale. He doesn’t even talk to his father. (My mom is Team Jonathan Hale in the Hale feud, mostly because he’s my father’s bff.) Ryke’s related to Sara bitchy Hale. (That’s her main selling point.) Oh and he’s too old for you.

The “too old” bit will come later because even though Ryke is seven years older than me, it’s not an end-all for her. She’s actually tried to pair me with a thirty-year-old before. He was loaded from holding the copyrights to some popular song. A month after I turned eighteen, I almost went on a date with him, per my mother’s arrangement. My father was the one who put his foot down.

He cares about age difference.

“I called Hilda to come here last week to clean,” she says with an upturned nose. “Did she not make it?”